Gentle Progress

Kade’s POV:

After two days, she stopped eating completely...

It took me two days to confirm it wasn’t just my imagination, and one more to admit it bothered me more than any threat report ever had.

The trays came back entirely untouched every time...

My panic sent everyone in the packs kitchen into a larger panic. They tried different things... Lighter meals, sweeter bread, broth instead of meat, but the pattern stayed the same.

Naya picked. Naya pushed food around. Naya stopped eating.

My wolf didn’t like it.

“She’s alive,” I told him under my breath, standing at the upper hall window as she crossed the courtyard below with Dorian at her side. “Shes not starving herself... She just can't eat. She's not dying...”

Not yet, the bond answered...not in words, but in that dull, steady ache behind my ribs.

She walked like someone holding herself upright through pure refusal. Spine locked. Shoulders squared. Jaw set. From a distance she looked unbreakable.

Up close, I’d started to see the cracks.

The way her steps slowed near loud noises. The way her fingers sometimes flexed like she was remembering weight...a weapon, a child, maybe even a dead body...I didn’t know which and didn’t dare guess or ask.

The way exhaustion sat behind her eyes even when she snapped at someone.

She wasn’t fighting me anymore.

She was surviving me.

And that was worse.

“Alpha,” Dorian said quietly without looking up as he approached the balcony level. “If you keep staring like that, the guards are going to start thinking you’re planning a war.”

“I am,” I said. “With a plate of food.”

He snorted. “Ah!! The most dangerous campaign.”

“She didn’t eat breakfast.”

“She drank tea.”

“That is not food.”

“For someone who used to forget meals during border conflicts, you’ve become very nutritional.”

I cut him a look. He only smiled wider. Irritating wolf.

“Walk, take her with you... Exhaustion will force her to eat more,” I ordered.

“We just came back.”

“Again.”

He blinked. “You’re assigning me… walking duty.”

“I’m assigning you Naya duty. Your future Luna.”

“That is not even an official...”

“It is now.”

His grin softened a fraction. “You could go yourself.”

“No”

That answer came too fast, too sharp, because I knew what would happen if I did. Her shoulders would rise. Her pulse would spike. Her appetite which was already thin would vanish completely.

Care counted more if she could breathe while receiving it.

“You’re hovering,” Dorian said.

“I am managing variables.”

“You’re hovering,” he repeated.

“Take her past the south ridge. There’s wind there and less noise.”

He studied me for a moment not challenging me, but just reading me like he's been doing lately. He’d always been good at that.

“You’re scared she’s going to break herself with this new routine, and i get it... But Kade, you look dead too. Even worse than her. You order food that you dont even taste yourself. You're breaking too” he said quietly.

I didn’t answer.

Because yes, I was breaking, and it was all because she was breaking too, right before my eyes, and I could barely stop it.

She was shattering... And it wasnt the dramatic kind of breaking... She was not screaming or collapsing or losing control, but i knew it was something more dangerous.

The silent kind. The empty kind. The kind that stops trying to live.

“Make sure she eats when you get back,” I added. “Stay while she does.”

“Stay?”

“Yes.”

“So she doesn’t feel watched by you.”

My jaw tightened. “Correct.”

He nodded once. No jokes this time. “Understood.”

He turned to leave, then paused. “You’re doing it right, you know. You're the perfect mate for her”

“I didn’t ask you, idiot.” I said, hoping to stop him from saying things that would give me hope. Hope was too dangerous for me right now.

“It doesn’t matter, I just thought you should know...”

He left anyway.

I stayed where I was, not watching now, but listening through the bond. Not forcing it. Just… keeping a hand on the thread like you would check a pulse.

She was tired, wound tight, but holding on...

Still holding.

Good.

I went to the kitchens myself.

The cooks froze when I entered. That happened often. I ignored it.

“What did she dislike this time?” I asked.

A brave older woman answered. “Nothing, Alpha. She just stopped eating altogether.”

“was it too heavy?”

“Maybe.”

“Too rich?”

“Possibly.”

“Make something simple,” I said. “Warm. Salted. Easy to finish.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“And send it to the small terrace dining table. Not her room.”

“The open one?”

“Yes.”

The open dining room had fresh air, it was bright. Less pressure.

I carried the tray myself when it was ready. I told no one why.

I set it down and stepped back into the shadowed hall before they returned from their walk, because this was not about being seen doing it. It was about it being done.

Minutes later, I felt them before I heard them.

Dorian first, steady, relaxed. Naya second, drained, quieter than before the walk.

They stopped when they saw the table.

Dorian looked around once... he knew. Of course he did. But he didn’t say it.

“Looks like we’ve been ambushed,” he said lightly. “By soup.”

She stared at it like it might argue with her.

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

“You don’t have to be,” he replied. “You just have to eat.”

“I hate you.”

“I hear that a lot.”

Then she sat and I almost got on my knees and thanked the moon goddess.

I didn’t step closer just so I won’t interrupt. This was not the time to claim credit. I stayed where I was, back against the stone, eyes closed, counting breaths like I would in battle.

One spoonful, then another.

Relief hit harder than victory in war ever had.

This was what war never taught you: You could defeat armies and still feel helpless watching one wounded heart refuse nourishment.

“She’s eating,” my wolf said.

“I know,” I answered.

I stayed until she finished half.

Half was enough for today.

Tomorrow, we’d aim for more.