Bound By Rejection

Chapter 6: Flashbacks of Love

The stone floor didn’t forgive.

Neither did Lyra.

She lay curled on her side in the cell, her breathing shallow, her whole body a topography of pain. The air was a metallic, coppery mix of stale blood and lingering wolfsbane. Her right forearm, where Kael’s Brand of Shame was carved, throbbed with a dull, burning ache that radiated agony up to her shoulder. But on her left shoulder, directly opposite, a fierce, protective warmth pulsed beneath the skin, the Goddess’s Mark of Power.

The physical pain was nothing compared to the psychic torment. With the wolfsbane fading, the mate bond was no longer a dull ache; it was a roaring, agonizing current. Kael’s presence in the stronghold felt like a heavy stone pressing on her chest, refusing to let her breath free.

She was cold. Hungry. Broken open in ways she didn’t yet understand.

And still, her mind betrayed her. Not with fear. Not with grief. But with memories.

Once upon a damn time, she loved Kael.

Not just in the sweet, gentle, storybook way. No, her love for Kael had teeth. It had claws. It had wrapped around her bones and taken root in places no one else ever reached. It was a shared, reckless hunger for power, a twin flame that felt inevitable and unstoppable.

And for a while? He’d loved her back just as recklessly.

(Flashback: The Challenge)

She remembered the first time they’d sparred in the training yard, a week before their official courting period. Her teeth were bared, her snarky challenge hanging in the crisp mountain air. Kael’s smirk had been infuriating, both of them circling like wild things. They were a perfect match of raw, barely contained power.

He’d finally knocked her flat on her back with a sweep of his leg that surprised her with its speed. Lyra landed hard, winded, the smell of damp earth and his powerful musk filling her nostrils.

She’d spat a mouthful of dirt and said, “You hit like a girl who’s afraid of a real fight.”

He’d thrown his head back and laughed, a rich, deep, joyful sound that echoed across the yard. He offered her a hand, his eyes burning gold.

She’d taken it, but instead of allowing him to pull her up, she’d yanked him down with her in a tangle of limbs and laughter. They’d rolled in the dirt for ten solid minutes before Maren had separated them with a blast of Alpha command and a severely disapproving scowl.

The memory flared, briefly warming her cold skin. But the Brand of Shame throbbed, and the warmth was instantly replaced by the metallic taste of hatred. He didn’t laugh when he burned me. He didn’t even flinch.

She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting to keep the rage pure.

(Flashback: The Mate-Marking)

The first kiss hadn’t been soft, either. It was a hungry, brutal collision in a darkened hallway after a near-death skirmish with a rival pack. The adrenaline was still pumping, the scent of their combined blood was a dizzying aphrodisiac, and the mate-bond was screaming at them both. He’d pinned her against the cold wall, his mouth devouring hers, demanding and promising everything at once.

When they finally pulled apart, Kael had looked stunned, his own control shattered. He lifted his hand to her shoulder, his finger tracing the line of her collarbone, right above where his mark would eventually go.

“I will take you as my mate,” he’d whispered, his voice rough with absolute possession. “And I swear on my Alpha’s honor, Lyra, I will never let politics or the Council come between us. They can have the throne. But you… you are mine. Forever. My allegiance is to you first.”

She had believed him. She had wanted to be possessed by him. That promise, whispered in the darkness, had meant everything.

The memory was so potent it made her stomach churn. The memory of his promise was now her greatest torture. Her hand went to the burning wound on her forearm. The Goddess’s Mark on her shoulder pulsed, answering her pain with cold, fierce clarity: He broke the promise. He chose the Council. He chose the lie.

Lyra focused on the warmth of the power mark. I won’t let the memory kill me. I’ll let it fuel me.

She curled inward, seeking the small, burning spark of her own magic, feeding it with the rage the memories spawned. Her inner wolf stirred, no longer whimpering, but snarling.

She was not broken. She was being reforged.

But what she didn't realize was, while she was torturing herself with memories, at that moment, Kael was in a mental prison of his own doing as well.

Kael POV.

He paced his chambers, the familiar scent of pine and woodsmoke offering no solace. His hands were clean, scrubbed raw to remove the lingering scent of wolfsbane and the phantom sensation of burning flesh... her flesh.

He hadn’t slept in days.

He looked down at his desk. Where her initials were carved, the ones he had protected Raina from seeing, the wood felt cold and accusing. He had done what he had to do. He had administered the mark of shame himself to make it look definitive, to satisfy the Elders’ lust for public control. It was the only way to save her from the ultimate penalty. It was the only way to keep her alive.

But he felt no victory.

Instead, the un-severed mate bond, that cursed, agonizing tether, pulsed with Lyra’s raw, volatile hatred. He felt the cold, sharp edge of her fury like a knife pressed against his own soul. It was worse than the public humiliation, worse than the fight with the Elders. He felt her pain, amplified by the link, yet his wolf still wanted it. It was a sick, possessive obsession.

He poured a stiff, throat-burning drink of firebrew and downed it in one swallow. The fire crackled weakly in the hearth behind him.

She refused to break.

He’d ordered the branding to finalize the political narrative, to cut her off from the pack forever. He expected tears, rage, begging. He expected to see the woman he had loved collapse.

But the woman in that courtyard? That blood-soaked, defiant heroine who spat in his face? That wasn’t the girl who once kissed him under storm clouds. That was something new. Something dangerous.

And when she collapsed, he had seen it. The flicker of white light beneath the skin of her unbranded shoulder. Something sacred. Something divine.

The Moon Goddess should’ve turned away from a traitor and a witch. But Kael felt the opposite: The Goddess had claimed her.

And now? She wasn’t just his mistake. She was his reckoning.

His grip tightened on the edge of the desk.

She was becoming something he couldn’t predict. Couldn’t control.

And the mate bond, still unbroken, thanks to his own twisted refusal to let her go meant she could become his undoing. It was a race now.

Unless he found a way to sever it. But he didn't want to.

Unless he ended her before she rose any higher. But he couldn't. The thought of killing her, of that fire going out forever, made his powerful Alpha heart seize with genuine, terrifying pain.

“I should’ve let her go,” he muttered into the empty chamber.

But he didn't. He couldn't.

And as the pain from the bond spiked, a phantom burn on his own arm, Kael understood that his own obsession had just sealed his pack's fate.