Without Getting Her Killed
1193 Words
Aaron
Walking away from her feels like tearing my own spine out.
The door closes behind me with a soft click, far too quiet for the violence ripping through my chest. For a moment, I stand frozen in the hallway, staring at nothing, my ears ringing as if someone struck a bell inside my skull. The world narrows to pressure and heat, to the echo of her scent still clinging to my clothes like an accusation.
Then Shay explodes.
- YOU LEFT HER!
The roar slams into my mind, raw and feral, carrying pain sharp enough to make my vision blur. My hands curl into fists at my sides as a low growl crawls up my throat, barely contained. It takes everything I have not to turn back, not to slam my palm against the door and damn the consequences.
“I know,” I grind out under my breath.
- She is ours.
- I know.
The bond between us stretches tight, vibrating like a wire pulled too far. Shay thrashes against the mental walls I’ve built over years of discipline, years of learning to rule him instead of the other way around. He doesn’t understand restraint. He understands instinct. Claim. Protect. Anchor.
- Go back, he snarls. Take her. Claim her. Now.
Every instinct in my body screams to do exactly that. To turn around, rip the door open, pull her into my arms and breathe her in until nothing else exists. Her scent still clings to me, summer salt and dawn-warm air, the promise of heat rising with the sun. It drags memories from deep places I don’t visit often: bare feet in sand, a surfboard under my arm, the ocean stretching endless and free before responsibility chained me to a desk and a title.
Before Alpha became heavier than man.
Mate.
The word isn’t just a truth. It’s a wound.
“I can’t,” I say hoarsely.
Shay goes still.
The sudden silence is worse than the rage. It presses in on me, heavy and watchful.
- Explain, he demands, voice low and dangerous.
I drag a hand through my hair and start walking, needing movement before I tear something apart. Every step down the corridor feels heavier than the last, as if the floor itself resents the direction I’m going.
- She doesn’t know who she is to us, I tell him, She doesn’t know this world. And right now, she’s standing in the middle of a political powder keg.
- She is our destiny.
- And she would become our weakness, I snap back. Immediately.
Images flash through my mind without invitation. Bethany’s manicured hand gripping my arm, her sharp possessive gaze; Alpha Vincent’s calculating eyes; the council chamber full of wolves who watch every move I make, waiting for a c***k. Waiting for proof that instinct still rules me.
One impulsive claim.
One public acknowledgement.
And Reza becomes leverage.
- She didn’t choose this, I mutter. She didn’t even come here looking for me.
- But she found us anyway. He huffs.
The bond hums painfully, pulled taut between us, aching with unanswered need. I stop near a window and brace one hand against the cool glass, breathing hard. Outside, the pack grounds are bathed in late afternoon light, everything deceptively calm. Wolves move through their routines, unaware that their Alpha’s world just tilted on its axis.
Behind me, I hear familiar footsteps.
Carl doesn’t announce himself. He never does when he knows I’m barely holding myself together.
“She’s safe,” he says quietly.
My head snaps up. “You stayed with her?”
“Of course.” His voice is steady, grounding. “I wasn’t about to leave her alone after that.”
Relief crashes through me so hard my knees almost give. I straighten slowly, forcing myself to look like an Alpha again instead of a man unraveling from the inside out.
“What did she say?” I ask.
Carl exhales through his nose. “Not much. She was overwhelmed. Confused.”
I nod once, already knowing that.
“Hurt,” he adds.
That word lands like a punch straight to the ribs.
“But,” he continues, “she didn’t crumble.”
A breath escapes me. “I didn’t think she would.”
“There’s steel there,” Carl agrees. “Untrained, but strong. Her wolf’s young… or at least inexperienced.”
That tracks. I felt it the moment our bond snapped into place. Raw, unshaped, but powerful. Like fire without a hearth.
“She doesn’t know,” I murmur.
“No,” Carl says. “But she felt it.”
I turn to him sharply. “You’re sure?”
Carl nods once. “Enough to shake her. Enough that she’ll be questioning everything tonight.”
Shay stirs again, anger tempered now by something darker.
- She thinks we rejected her.
The thought twists viciously in my chest.
“I won’t let her believe that,” I say out loud.
“When?” Carl asks, studying me carefully.
I look back out the window. The sun is sinking lower now, shadows stretching long across the grounds. Night is coming, and with it, questions I won’t be able to avoid much longer.
“Soon,” I answer. “Before that doubt takes root.”
Because if there’s one thing I know about wounds like that, they fester.
Carl folds his arms. “Bethany won’t take this well.”
A humorless laugh escapes me. “Bethany already isn’t taking it well.”
“She thinks she’s your future,” he says bluntly.
I grind my teeth. “She’s my past. I just haven’t made it official yet.”
Carl raises an eyebrow. “You’ll need to.”
“I know.”
Ending things with Bethany won’t be clean. Or quiet. She’s invested too much, in the title, in the image, in the idea of being Luna, to walk away gracefully. But dragging it out would be cruel. To her, and infinitely more so to Reza.
Shay rumbles approvingly.
- Choose our mate.
- I am, I reply silently. I just have to do it without getting her killed.
Carl watches me for a long moment, then nods once. “You did the right thing.”
I scoff softly. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
“No,” he agrees. “It feels like standing in front of a wave you know will knock you flat on your back.”
I glance at him. “You always have a way with words.”
A faint smile tugs at his mouth. “Comes with age.”
“When she’s ready,” he adds, more serious now, “she’s going to need answers.”
“And protection,” I say.
“And you,” he finishes.
I straighten, rolling my shoulders back as the Alpha settles fully into place again, not as armor, but as resolve.
“She’ll have all three.”
Shay presses closer, fierce and unyielding.
- We will not lose her.
- No, I agree quietly. We won’t.
Not to fear.
Not to politics.
And not to my own hesitation..
- Writer
