Chapter Nine: A Heart Left on the Table
496 Words
Kael
The box wasn’t fancy.
Just a simple wooden one, polished but unpainted. No crest, no power games. I didn’t want to impress her. I wanted to be real this time.
I waited on the porch of her small cabin just outside the pack borders—neutral ground. Lior had gone inside to wash up, and Lyra stood at the threshold like she always did lately… somewhere between letting me in and locking the door forever.
I offered her the box without a word.
She looked at it, then at me, one brow raised. “What is it?”
“Memories,” I said. “The ones I couldn’t give you back then. But maybe… I can now.”
She hesitated, then slowly took it from my hands. Her fingers brushed mine. A jolt passed between us — not magic, not heat.
Regret.
Inside the box were three things:
1. A smooth stone — the one she gave me when we were fifteen, carved with the initials “K+L” in our childish script. I had kept it all this time.
2. A small silver hairpin shaped like a crescent moon — she lost it at our first gathering. I found it the next day and never told her.
3. And finally… the drawing of her I made during warrior training. Rough lines. Smudged charcoal. But unmistakably her — fierce, soft, beautiful.
Her lips parted slightly as she stared down into the past.
“You kept these?” she whispered.
“I wasn’t allowed to love you out loud,” I said, voice breaking. “So I loved you in secret. And hated myself for it every day.”
Her eyes flicked to mine, wide, stormy.
“You still chose her,” she said, her voice sharper now. “You chose Celina. You let her humiliate me.”
I nodded. “I did.”
No excuses. No justifications.
“But I would burn the entire council to ash to take it back,” I said. “Even if it cost me the crown.”
A silence fell. Tense. Electric.
Then she said, “Too bad you didn’t say that when it actually mattered.”
And just like that… she turned and walked inside.
The box still in her hand.
She hadn’t thrown it away.
And maybe… that meant I still had a chance.
⸻
Lyra
The moment I closed the door behind me, I let out a shaky breath.
The box trembled in my hands.
Why did he still remember all these things? Why did he keep them while pretending I didn’t exist?
Why did my heart still want to believe he meant every word?
I placed the box on the table. Lior peeked over my shoulder.
“Is that from the angry-smelling Alpha?”
I choked on a laugh. “Yes.”
He squinted at the stone. “Why is your name on it?”
I froze.
Because once… we were going to be forever.
- Writer
