She Would Not Believe

Kade’s POV

The bond did not quiet when the dungeon door closed behind me.

If anything, it screamed at me to go back. To hold her... To touch her a few minutes more.

Naya’s fury pulsed through my veins like poison, clawing at every nerve.

I could feel her rage, her grief and her hatred so thick it nearly drowned the thinner, more dangerous emotion beneath it...fear.

I knew that feeling well. Not fear of death, but fear of being trapped. Of being owned. Of being made powerless.

I knew that fear well, more than she could ever imagine.

I forced myself to keep walking, my boots echoing against the stone corridor as I put distance between us. The farther I went, the more violently the bond tugged at my heart, but it never loosened completely.

It was now becoming a constant ache now, like a blade lodged beneath my ribs.

She would rather die than stay here.

She had meant it.

I pressed my palm flat against the wall, breathing once, then again, grounding myself. An Alpha who could not master his own reactions had no business ruling a pack this strong and volatile.

I had felt her collide with me before she even left the cell. I’d been in council when it hit, when the taste of her emotions flooded my mouth like blood.

Betrayal. Hope. Did it make me weak if the thought of her running gave her hope hurt my chest?

I had moved before my thoughts even caught up, my wolf surging forward with a singular purpose. She was mine.

And then she had slammed into my chest like a storm given flesh.

She hadn’t looked at my face. Not once. Just my chest. As if I were nothing more than a wall in her way.

That memory burned.

Most wolves felt the mate bond as a pull. A comfort. A balance.

For me, it was a damned war zone.

I reached the stairwell and descended, the deeper levels of the stairwell, keep giving way to the familiar scents of my pack...stone, oil, iron, and the distinct smell of wolves.

Voices echoed faintly above, the strong and the wounded alike carrying on because survival demanded it.

They always did.

My pack had survived things that should have broken us.

Because I made sure of it.

Because I always made sure of it.

They called me a butcher. A tyrant. A conqueror.

They never called me wrong.

I entered my private chambers and shut the door behind me, finally allowing the rigid control I wore like armor to crack, just slightly. I dragged a hand through my hair and exhaled slowly.

She believed I murdered her father for nothing.

For power. For cruelty. For pleasure.

And no matter how many times I replayed the night in my head, I could not find a version of the truth that she would hear as anything but a lie.

Because she did not know the full story.

And worse, she did not trust me enough to learn it.

Her father had been warned.

More than once.

He started it. He may have been her father, but he was not a saint. The threats had come quietly at first, messengers intercepted, trade routes disrupted, scouts disappearing near our borders. Then came the formal challenge, wrapped in false diplomacy and sealed with blood.

Submit your pack. Or we will take it. He and his alpha must have thought they had me at a chokehold. They had made alliances with my strongest enemies.

What they did not know was that i always get the information and victory i wanted.

Her father had pompously sent a letter telling me that I had three days to respond.

Three days before my people...my children, my elders, my warriors would be slaughtered in their sleep.

What he did not know was that I was going to use his own plan against him.

I had gone to Naya’s pack not as a monster, but as an Alpha defending his territory. Her father had chosen alliance with my enemy. Whether out of fear or ambition, I still did not know.

But I knew the result.

If I had waited, my pack would have burned.

So I struck first.

I always struck first.

Because hesitation got wolves killed.

Because mercy without leverage was just weakness dressed in pretty words.

And yet...

I closed my eyes, the bond pulsing insistently.

And yet she had watched her world die at my hands.

Both truths existed,

And neither canceled the other.

I poured myself a drink and let it sit untouched on the table. Alcohol dulled the senses, and I could not afford dullness now.

Naya did not feel the bond the way I did.

That was painfully clear.

Where it wrapped around my spine and squeezed, demanded, felt, hers was buried beneath rage so dense it blocked everything else out. When she looked at me, she did not see a mate. She saw an executioner.

And perhaps that was my fault.

Because I had put her in chains.

Because I had locked her in a dungeon like an enemy combatant instead of what she was. She is traumatized, unmoored, and bound to me whether she wanted it or not.

At the time, it had been the only choice.

She had been feral with grief, slipping in and out of consciousness from the poison of the rogue werewolf.

If i had turned my back on her then, she would have died within hours. Either from exposure, or from the poison that would make her run mad.

Keeping her contained had been safety.

But safety without dignity was just another kind of violence. And she felt every bit of it.

I thought of the way she had walked backward into the cell rather than beg.

The way she had looked at me and said she would rather die.

I had faced down entire armies without flinching.

That had shaken me.

"Trouble in paradise?" My beta asked with that stupid smirk on his face.

"Everything is handled" i stated firmly, hoping they would get the point right away .

"And your prisoner? Naya, was it?” another council member asked. “What is your plan for her, Alpha?”

That was the question they really wanted to know, wasn’t it?

I rose slowly, the room instinctively yielding space as my Alpha power pressed outward. “She is not a prisoner of war anymore,” I said. “She is under my protection.”

Protection.

The word tasted strange.

I returned to my chambers afterward, mind racing, thoughts colliding. I replayed every interaction with Naya since the night of the raid. Every order. Every silence. Every moment I had chosen control over compassion.

I could not explain the truth to her yet.

She would not hear it.

But I could show her something else.

Trust was not given.

It was built.

And if I wanted her to ever stand beside me instead of plotting my death, the dungeon had to go.

I summoned the guard without hesitation.

“Prepare a room in the east wing,” I ordered. “No chains. No bars. She eats when she wants, walks where she’s permitted, and no one lays a hand on her without my command.”

The guard stiffened. “Alpha..."

“She is still dangerous,” I said. “But she will never trust a cage.”

He bowed and left.

I stood alone again, the bond stirring... I could feel her emotions.

She was confused now, wary, still burning with anger.

This would backfire.

I knew that.

She might run again. She might attack me. She might never forgive me.

But keeping her locked away would guarantee only one thing.... She would hate me forever.

And I had not survived this long by choosing certainty over possibility.

I moved toward the dungeon once more, my steps steady, my resolve hardening with each breath.

Trust before truth.

Freedom before forgiveness.

If she was ever going to listen...truly listen...I had to give her a reason to believe I was more than the monster she saw.

Even if it cost me everything.