The Dragon's Mate

chapter five

FIVE YEARS LATER

Five years had passed since Kai walked out of the Silvermoon territory with a shattered heart and blood in his lungs.

The small village nestled in the valley wasn't a werewolf town. It was a haven—a quiet, unbothered sanctuary where werewolves, elementals, witch-blood, and all manner of shifters lived side by side without territory wars or pack politics. Nobody cared where you came from, and nobody asked about the scars you brought with you.

For his first two years, Kai lived with Becky, Martha's bubbly cousin. When Kai had first arrived, half-dead and swallowed whole by a dark, suffocating depression, it was Becky's sheer, stubborn willpower that dragged him back to the living. She refused to let him fade away.

Between her relentless optimism, her terrible late-night baking experiments, and her constant chatter, she gave him a reason to wake up every morning. Eventually, a fierce spark ignited in Kai's chest—maybe it was pure spite at first, a refusal to let Cole and the pack win, but it evolved into a real, burning desire to build a life of his own.

He worked his fingers to the bone, taking every extra shift he could find, until he finally saved enough to rent a cozy, sunlit little place of his own. Becky remained his absolute best friend and ride-or-die.

Now, Kai worked at a lively café near the town square, wiping down tables, steaming milk, and serving fresh pastries. He'd made a few genuine friends among the locals—a cheerful dryad who managed the flower shop next door and a soft-spoken badger shifter who worked the morning shift with him.

For the first time in his life, Kai was content.

He had a warm bed, a stable routine, and a small circle of people who cared if he ate lunch.

Because of his quiet, gentle nature and soft, striking features, he naturally drew attention. A few local shifters and townspeople had tried to court him over the years, leaving flowers on the counter or asking him out after his shift. But Kai turned them all down with a polite, nervous smile. Deep down, no matter how many times Becky told him otherwise, Kai still couldn't see any beauty in himself when he looked in the mirror.

The brutal ghost of his eighteen-year-old self was too deeply ingrained. He remained strictly, completely romantically unavailable.

His heart was sealed tight, but his life was good. If he ignored the occasional midnight nightmare that left him waking up breathless with phantom pain in his ribs, Malakai was somewhat okay.