"No,it isn't like that."
Alpha Kael shook his head, his eyes wild, his grip tightening rather than loosening.
"Isla, I know what I did. I really do. Mira and I,I made it clear to her, there is nothing between us. There never will be. Come back with me. We'll live like a real mated pair, the way we should have lived. I'm begging you."
That word,begging,coming out of the mouth of a man as proud as Alpha Kael, sounded almost like a debasement.
Something in my chest stirred.
Just a flicker.
I remembered: in five years, he had never once spoken the word please to me.
He had stood above me. He had commanded me. He had ignored me. He had cut me to pieces, again and again.
And now, finally, he had learned how to bow his head.
But it was too late.
"Let me go."
I drew my hand gently from
