Exiled, yet still claimed
1307 Words
Chapter 2
I don’t wake up.
I surface.
Pain drags me upward in jagged pieces—cold ground against my cheek, the copper taste of blood, the distant howl of wolves that are not mine anymore.
Exile land.
The word echoes as consciousness creeps back.
My eyes flutter open to darkness broken by moonlight filtering through twisted branches. The sacred boundary stones are far behind me now. They didn’t even wait to see if I could stand before throwing me beyond them.
My body trembles violently.
The rejection wound still burns like poison in my veins. The mating bond may be severed, but the ache it left behind is a living thing—deep, relentless, intimate.
I force myself onto my elbows.
The forest spins.
“Easy.”
The voice is low. Male. Familiar.
My heart slams hard enough to hurt.
“No,” I whisper, even as my body reacts before my mind can. Heat flares under my skin. Recognition. Instinct.
I struggle to sit up, panic slicing through the haze. “I said no—”
A hand grips my shoulder, steady and warm and impossibly strong.
“Lyra.”
Just my name.
Just that.
And my control shatters.
I shove at his chest with what little strength I have left. “Get away from me.”
Kael doesn’t budge.
Moonlight spills across his face, carving harsh lines into features I know too well. His eyes glow faintly, silver cutting through the dark. He looks exactly as he did hours ago beneath the Blood Moon—powerful, unyielding, devastating.
Except now, there’s something else.
Tension. Restraint. Something burning just beneath the surface.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say hoarsely. “You rejected me. Remember?”
His jaw tightens.
“You were bleeding,” he says. “The guards went too far.”
A laugh claws its way out of my throat. “You ordered them to remove me.”
Silence.
That’s answer enough.
I push harder this time, my arms shaking. “Go back to your pack. Go back to Selene.”
His name tastes bitter in my mouth.
Kael’s hand tightens slightly on my shoulder. Not enough to hurt. Enough to remind me he could.
“I didn’t come for Selene.”
That shouldn’t matter.
It does.
My breath stutters. I hate myself for it.
“Why are you here?” I demand. “To finish the job? To make sure I die quietly so you don’t have to feel guilty?”
His eyes flash.
“I don’t feel guilty.”
The lie is sharp. Too sharp.
I look away before he can see the tears burning my eyes. “Then leave.”
“I can’t.”
The word lands between us, heavy and dangerous.
I turn back slowly. “You can’t—or you won’t?”
For a moment, the Alpha mask cracks.
Just a fracture.
“I shouldn’t have rejected you like that,” he says quietly.
The pain surges again, fresh and brutal.
“You humiliated me,” I say. “You called me a traitor. You denied our child.”
His gaze drops to my stomach again, lingering this time.
“You put me in an impossible position,” he says.
I let out a broken laugh. “I existed.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Then say what you meant,” I snap. “Say it clearly. Because last time, you spoke very clearly.”
The forest hums with tension. Wolves howl somewhere far off. Predators circle.
Kael shifts closer, his presence overwhelming, familiar in a way that makes my body ache with memory.
“Selene is backed by the Council,” he says. “They wanted you gone long before tonight.”
My heart stutters. “Why?”
“Because you don’t bend.”
I swallow.
“You don’t obey,” he continues. “You question orders. You challenge tradition. And now—” His voice lowers. “Now you’re carrying an heir they can’t control.”
Cold dread creeps through me.
“So you sacrificed me,” I say. “To keep your throne.”
His eyes snap to mine. “To keep you alive.”
I stare at him, stunned. “You exiled me to rogue territory.”
“Where Council law doesn’t reach,” he says. “Where Selene’s allies can’t touch you.”
My chest tightens painfully. “You could have told me.”
“They would have killed you before sunrise.”
The truth hangs heavy between us.
For a heartbeat, I almost believe him.
Then the memory of his voice echoes in my mind.
I reject you.
My hands curl into fists. “You still rejected me.”
“Yes.”
The word is quiet. Controlled.
“I had to.”
“There is always a choice,” I whisper.
Kael’s gaze darkens. “Not when the pack is watching.”
Anger flares, sharp and hot. “So you broke me instead.”
Something raw flickers across his face.
“I broke myself with you,” he says.
The admission sends a shiver through me.
I hate how close he is. How my body still leans toward his heat. How the bond—dead, severed—still echoes between us like a ghost.
“Leave,” I say again, softer now. “If you don’t… I won’t survive this.”
His eyes search my face, intense and intimate.
“Then come back with me.”
The words steal my breath.
“What?”
“I’ll protect you,” he says. “I’ll claim the child once the Council is dealt with.”
I shake my head, disbelief flooding me. “You want me to hide in the shadows while you wear another woman’s mark?”
His silence answers for him.
Rage surges.
“You don’t get to have me half,” I say fiercely. “You don’t get my body, my child, my loyalty—while you give your throne and your name to someone else.”
Kael steps closer, towering over me, his dominance rolling off him in waves.
“You are mine,” he says, voice low and dangerous. “Rejected or not.”
Heat coils low in my stomach, traitorous and undeniable.
I lift my chin. “You lost that right the moment you turned your back on me.”
For a second, I think he might grab me. Kiss me. Tear the world apart.
Instead, he exhales slowly.
“You’re not safe out here,” he says. “Rogues patrol these woods.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
He watches me for a long moment, something unreadable in his eyes.
Then he nods once. Sharp. Final.
“I’ll assign guards,” he says.
I laugh bitterly. “Your guards?”
“They won’t approach you,” he says. “They’ll watch from a distance.”
I hesitate.
“You think I don’t see what you’re doing?” I ask. “You want control without responsibility.”
Kael’s gaze locks onto mine. “I want you alive.”
Thunder cracks overhead.
Rain begins to fall, cold and sudden.
Kael steps back, shadows swallowing him as he retreats into the trees.
“This isn’t over,” he says, his voice carrying through the rain. “Not for us.”
My chest tightens as he disappears into the darkness.
I sink back against the tree, shaking, one hand pressed to my stomach.
He rejected me.
But he hasn’t let me go.
And that terrifies me more than exile ever could.
As the rain soaks through my clothes and the forest closes in, a sharp wave of dizziness hits me.
I gasp, clutching my stomach as pain flares low and dangerous.
“No,” I whisper.
Something is wrong.
Very wrong.
And Kael is already gone.
- Writer
