CHAPTER 7 - KADE’S POV
825 Words
I closed the door to my office and stood there longer than necessary, my hand still resting on the handle.
I hadn’t meant to stop her in the corridor.
Hadn’t planned to say anything at all.
And yet, the moment I felt her presence slipping away—quiet, distant, wrong—I had acted.
That alone unsettled me.
“You handled that poorly.”
Rowan’s voice came from behind me, calm as always. Too calm.
I didn’t turn around. I crossed the room instead, shrugging off my jacket and tossing it onto the table with more force than necessary. The familiar scent of ink, parchment, and old wood filled the air—grounding, steady. My territory. My rules.
“She didn’t need an explanation,” I said.
Rowan exhaled softly, the sound heavy with restrained disagreement.
Rowan wasn’t much older than me, but there was a steadiness to him that I could never replicate.
Broad-shouldered, always impeccably dressed in muted dark tones, with eyes that seemed to read through my carefully constructed walls. Calm, precise, annoyingly patient—he was the kind of man who never panicked, never faltered, and never, ever revealed what he truly thought.
And yet, he was the only one who could push me to confront the truths I refused to admit, the only one who could see the storm brewing behind my control.
“You don’t really believe that.”
I moved toward the window, resting my hands against the stone ledge as I stared out over Nightclaw’s grounds. Warriors trained below, their movements sharp and disciplined.
Everything was as it should be.
Orderly. Predictable.
Unlike her.
“She’s been acting strangely,” Rowan continued. “Avoiding you. Distracted. And now this.”
I clenched my jaw. “You’re reading too much into it.”
“Am I?”
I didn’t respond.
Rowan had been at my side since we were boys. He knew when to press—and when silence spoke louder than words.
“You can’t keep this from her forever,” he said finally.
That did it.
I turned slowly, meeting his gaze. “It’s not something she needs to know.”
His brows furrowed. “Or something you don’t want her to know?”
The words struck closer than I cared to admit.
“She’s an orphan,” I said flatly. “She has no lineage. No standing. No proof of where she comes from.”
Rowan’s expression didn’t change. But I saw it—the flicker of something unreadable in his eyes.
“That doesn’t change what this is,” he replied.
I looked away.
For years, I had told myself it was nothing. A mistake. A misreading. Something that would fade with time if I ignored it long enough.
It hadn’t.
“She doesn’t belong here,” I continued, more to myself than to him.
“And I won’t destabilize the pack over a possibility.”
“A possibility?” Rowan echoed quietly.
I turned back sharply. “Watch your tone.”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “You know I don’t like her,” he said honestly. “She’s a complication. A risk. And if it were my decision, I’d have sent her away years ago.”
I stilled.
“But,” he added, “that doesn’t mean I can pretend this isn’t happening.”
Silence stretched between us.
I returned my gaze to the window, my reflection staring back at me—controlled, composed, unyielding. The Alpha Nightclaw needed. The Alpha I had trained myself to be.
“I’ve already made arrangements,” I said at last. “The engagement will be announced tomorrow. That will put an end to speculation.”
Rowan hesitated. “And if it doesn’t?”
“It will.”
Because it had to.
A sudden pressure rolled through the air—subtle, sharp, unmistakable.
I stiffened.
It wasn’t painful.
It wasn’t fear.
It was recognition.
Rowan felt it too. I saw it in the way his shoulders tensed, the way his eyes flicked instinctively toward the door.
“Did you—” he began.
“Yes,” I cut in.
The pressure faded as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a hollow stillness that made my chest tighten.
I knew that sensation.
I had felt it once before.
Years ago.
My fingers curled slowly into fists.
“She should have awakened by now,” I muttered.
Rowan’s gaze snapped back to me.
“Kade…”
“If this is happening now,” I continued, my voice low, “then it means time is running out.”
“For you,” he said quietly.
I said nothing.
Because for the first time since I had made the decision to deny it—to bury it—to pretend it didn’t exist—
I wasn’t sure I could anymore.
What I have been trying to deny for years…
was no longer willing to stay buried.
- Writer
