Ronan
She’s an enigma. Quiet. Composed. Not meek like the omegas they parade at court. Not just the way she fights—though that’s part of it. She doesn’t fight like a wolf raised in the fold. She fights like someone who learned pain first and technique later. Raw. Sharp. She doesn't flinch when she bleeds. Doesn't look away when others do. She’s too calm. She doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t bow her head. She meets my gaze every time I catch her watching me—unflinching, unyielding. Most omegas shrink in the presence of an alpha. She doesn’t. And that unnerves me more than I want to admit. Tonight, she’s in the training ring. Again. I didn’t ask her to be. But she’s there anyway. Moving like she belongs. As if blood and ash haven’t burned her from the inside out. Her stance is practiced, patient. She takes a blow from one of my top warriors, recovers with grace, and counters fast enough to bruise his ribs. “She’s learning quick,” Thorne mutters beside me. “She’s not learning,” I say under my breath. “She’s remembering.” Because no stray omega should know how to move like that. Not unless someone trained her. Someone good. Someone lethal. She falls, rolls, pops back to her feet. —but that’s not what keeps catching my attention. It’s her silence. It hums. She says nothing when Jehrin tries to bait her. Nothing when the other warriors mutter under their breath. But I feel her. Like a heat building beneath the earth. A volcano waiting. I should keep my distance. I claimed her to protect her, not to get close. The bond—though fake—is already interfering with my instincts. Every time someone so much as raises their voice near her, my wolf growls. Every time she passes me, I catch her scent in my throat and forget the names of stars. I don’t even know her name. No, that's a lie. I do know it. “Kira,” I whisper to myself. I heard it when she was brought in. But it meant nothing then. Just a name. Now it claws at something inside me. I walk the training grounds, trying to outrun my own thoughts. Warriors nod as I pass. Some bow. Jehrin watches me from across the yard, her eyes narrowed, lips thin. She hasn’t forgiven me for naming the girl as my trial mate. Hasn’t forgiven me for looking at someone else. And that’s when I see it—her shirt sleeve rides up just enough for me to catch a glimpse of pale skin. And a scar. Crescent-shaped. White. Faint, but there. Bitten deep. Healed badly. Because I know that shape. Because I remember blood on my tongue and bark under my knees. I remember smoke. Screams. Roots curling over a small body, trying to hide from death. And a girl. A girl I told not to scream. A girl I bit. My breath catches. Not just a scar. A mark. A bite. And something in me shatters. I remember it—not a dream. A forest burning. A child crying. The scent of ash and pine. Blood. My own hands soaked with it. And her. A girl hiding under roots. Clutching fabric. I bit her. Twelve years ago. I’d been sent ahead by the elders, trained to scout rogue territory even as a child. A war was coming. I was too young to fight, but old enough to obey. I was told to leave no witnesses. But I didn’t kill her. I hid her. Bit her to silence her. To command her to stay hidden. And then I left. I never looked back. My chest feels hollow. She remembers me. That’s why she looked at me that way. Why she said nothing, but her eyes screamed everything. I didn’t recognize her because I never expected her to live. My wolf is silent. Still. Grieving. Because we left her. Because we forgot. Because the bite meant more than just survival—it meant bond. Even if undeclared. Even if unfinished. She’s been carrying that mark alone for twelve years. And now she’s here. Walking these halls. Holding that silence like a sword. I breathe deep, trying to gather the edges of my shattered thoughts. But there’s no gathering this. There’s only truth. And guilt. And the sharp, growing ache of something I can't name—pulling me toward her like a tide I can’t swim against. I walk away before I can be obvious. My steps are heavy, measured. Back inside the hall, I grip the wall to steady myself. Twelve years ago. Twelve years I spent burying that memory, pretending I didn’t see her there beneath the trees. That it was a dream. A flicker of guilt my mind made up. But it wasn’t. It was her. Kira. I don’t sleep that night. I dream instead. Of burning pines and the moon flashing red. Of a girl with soot on her cheeks and a scarf clenched in her fists. Of teeth sinking into skin to buy time, to buy silence. The bond hadn’t even formed yet, but something in me had recognized her. And I left her there. I left her. By morning, my wolf is pacing, frantic. The mark on my arm—hers—aches. No ritual. No claim. But it’s reacting. Pulling. I find her near the stables, alone, hands wrapped in cloth from morning drills. I don’t speak. I just stand there. She looks up at me. Her eyes narrow. Calm. Distant. “I remember,” I say hoarsely. She doesn’t ask what I mean. She already knows. Her mouth twitches—something between a laugh and a sneer. “Took you long enough.” “I thought you were a dream.” She shrugs. “You were real enough to bleed me.” I flinch. “I didn’t mean to forget.” “I didn’t get to.” Her voice is low, tired. “Every time I breathed, it was you.” Silence stretches between us. The guilt in my throat is thick. And still, I don’t move. Because I don’t know what the hell I’d do if I did. Her fingers curl tighter into the cloth around her fists. Her body tenses like she’s waiting for another blow. Or maybe she just doesn’t know how to stand still around me. I should say something. Anything. But all I do is watch her walk away. And I don’t stop her. Not yet.Chapter 8 – The Breach(Ronan’s POV)I didn’t sleep.Again.Not since the moment I carried her back from the woods—barefoot, eyes wide open, but lost somewhere I couldn’t reach.Sleepwalking, they called it.No one knew why.But I did.It wasn’t just trauma. It was memory.She walked the same path she’d run twelve years ago.Back then, she was just a girl bleeding beneath the roots of an ash tree. I had bitten her to shut her up, to protect her, to keep her hidden. And then I left her.Now she walked again—only this time, she wasn’t screaming. She was silent. Shivering. Moonlight clinging to her skin like frost.I had wrapped my coat around her shoulders and carried her back like she weighed nothing.But she wasn’t nothing.She was everything I wasn’t allowed to want.The next morning, I stood in my office, staring at her scent lingering on the coat still draped over the back of the chair. My hands were clenched at my sides. My heart was pacing like it didn’t know where to settle.She
Kira’s POVThe cold kissed my bare feet before the air did.I didn't know I was moving.Didn't know I'd left the warmth of the packhouse or the borrowed blanket tangled at the end of my bed.All I knew was the hum—low, deep, ancient. It pulled at something buried in my chest. A string I hadn’t realized was there until it was tugged.My legs moved on their own, quiet over the damp forest floor. Moonlight filtered through the trees in broken shards, silvered like old bone. I stepped over roots and rocks, eyes open but unseeing.Somewhere inside, I knew I should’ve been afraid.But instead… I felt strangely calm. As if something out there was waiting. As if I belonged more under these stars than inside four walls with whispers and stares.The air was thick with pine and something else—something wilder. My pulse should’ve raced. But it didn’t.My body, scarred and taut from a life of fighting, was now loose. Vulnerable. Exposed in only a thin shirt and sleep shorts. The wind slid beneath
(Ronan’s POV)The clearing behind the training barracks was colder than usual. Morning mist clung to the grass, curling around my boots like breath I couldn’t release. I stood in the center, arms crossed, eyes on the treeline.Waiting.My wolf was restless beneath my skin, pacing behind my ribs. Not from impatience—no, this was different.She was coming.I felt it before I heard her footsteps.Kira walked into the clearing like she didn’t care who was watching. She wore a loose training shirt, sleeves rolled, braid swinging against her back. The sunlight caught in her scars—silver glints along her forearms, a shadow on her jaw.My chest tightened.“You're late,” I said.She arched a brow. “You're always early. That’s not the same thing.”I didn’t answer. I tossed her a staff. She caught it easily, spinning it once in her fingers.“What’s the lesson today, Alpha?” she asked, voice light but laced with challenge. “How to keep a trial mate in check without actually touching her?”My fing
Kira’s POVThe night air bites sharper than his teeth ever did.I stand outside the barracks, arms wrapped around myself, listening to the wolves howl from the northern ridge. They sound hungry. Restless.Like me.He’s late.I told myself I wouldn’t wait. That I didn’t need answers from an alpha who only sees what he’s allowed to see. But here I am. Boots planted in the dirt. Jaw tight. Heart louder than my thoughts.The door swings open.Ronan steps out.His shirt’s rumpled. Hair wet from a late shift or a cold rinse. He pauses when he sees me, and something flickers in his eyes—hesitation, maybe. Or memory.“You shouldn’t be here,” he says.I tilt my head. “That’s funny. You’re the one who dragged me into this lie.”“I protected you.”“No.” I take a step forward. “You claimed me.”His expression doesn’t shift, but his body does—chest drawn, like he’s bracing for impact.I take another step. “Do you remember the Blood Moon?”Silence.My nails dig into my palms. “The fire. The roots.
RonanShe’s an enigma.Quiet. Composed. Not meek like the omegas they parade at court.Not just the way she fights—though that’s part of it. She doesn’t fight like a wolf raised in the fold. She fights like someone who learned pain first and technique later. Raw. Sharp. She doesn't flinch when she bleeds. Doesn't look away when others do.She’s too calm.She doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t bow her head. She meets my gaze every time I catch her watching me—unflinching, unyielding.Most omegas shrink in the presence of an alpha.She doesn’t. And that unnerves me more than I want to admit.Tonight, she’s in the training ring.Again.I didn’t ask her to be.But she’s there anyway. Moving like she belongs. As if blood and ash haven’t burned her from the inside out.Her stance is practiced, patient. She takes a blow from one of my top warriors, recovers with grace, and counters fast enough to bruise his ribs.“She’s learning quick,” Thorne mutters beside me.“She’s not learning,” I say under my bre
(Kira’s POV)They take me to the east wing.Not a prison. Not quite a room, either.A holding chamber with furs instead of chains. A gilded cage for the girl the Alpha just claimed.Trial mate.What a joke.I sit still on the edge of the bed, my wrists aching from the iron cuffs. They took them off when Ronan spoke. When he lied.“She’s mine,” he said.And the Council believed him.They always do when an alpha speaks.I twist the scarf still tied at my wrist. My mother’s. The fabric’s worn through where I’ve touched it too much. But it’s all I have left of her. Of who I was before the fire.Before him.Ronan Maddox.He doesn’t recognize me.Twelve years ago, he looked me in the eyes and told me not to scream. Bit me like it meant something. And left me under the roots to die with the rest.Now? He doesn’t see a girl from the ashfields. He sees a problem to protect. A lie to cover.My wolf paces under my skin, restless and bitter.I haven’t shifted. Not since the night of the fire. My