CHAPTER 8

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 hadn't spoken a word when she woke.

Just blinked up at me, confused and soft and heartbreakingly open.

And I… said nothing.

Because if I did, I’d fall.

> “You don’t get the third. You don’t get my choice.”

Her voice echoed in my head like a vow. Like punishment.

I hadn’t returned the coat. I couldn’t.

Touching it felt like touching her again.

I was losing control.

My wolf was getting louder. Restless.

He didn’t understand guilt.

He only wanted her.

I found her in the library again.

Same corner. Same chair. Same curled posture—like she was trying to fold herself into something smaller.

Her fingers trailed down the page of a book she wasn’t reading.

She didn’t look up when I stepped inside.

I should’ve left.

Instead, I closed the door behind me and said, “You didn’t sleep again.”

She didn’t reply.

I moved closer.

“You were outside again. You don’t remember it, do you?”

Still silence.

Finally, she said softly, “It’s not your job to watch me sleep, Ronan.”

“I wasn’t watching,” I lied.

She looked up then. Her eyes were red. Bruised underneath.

“You carried me back.”

“Yes.”

A beat.

“You touched me.”

“I had to.”

“No,” she said, voice sharp now. “You wanted to.”

I stepped forward. The air thickened.

“Does it matter?” I asked.

She stood. Slowly. “It does when I don’t know which version of you I’m speaking to.”

I blinked. “What?”

“The one who bit me to silence me? The one who claimed me in front of the council for power? Or the one who touches me like I’m already his, but won’t say why?”

My hands curled into fists at my sides.

“I don’t know how to be all of them,” I said.

“Then stop pretending you’re none.”

She stood there—arms crossed, spine straight, but her voice cracked like glass just beneath the surface.

> “Then stop pretending you’re none.”

The words hit harder than they should’ve.

Not because she was accusing me—but because she was right.

I stared at her.

At the stubborn set of her jaw.

The fire in her gaze that always looked too much like survival.

The way her mouth tightened when she was holding back pain.

She looked breakable and invincible in the same breath.

And I hated that I could tell the difference.

“Kira…” I said her name like it hurt. Like I wasn’t allowed to.

She didn’t flinch this time.

She just waited—like she was daring me to cross the line.

So I did.

One step forward. Then another.

She didn’t move.

My hand rose before I could stop it, fingertips brushing the side of her face—feather-light, reverent.

She froze.

My thumb hovered just beneath her cheekbone, her skin warm beneath it, breath shallow. Her lashes flickered but didn’t fall. Her lips parted—barely.

“I shouldn’t…” I breathed.

“Then don’t,” she whispered.

But she didn’t pull away.

And gods, that was worse.

Her breath mingled with mine, close enough that I could count the freckle near the corner of her mouth. Close enough that my wolf was clawing inside me, screaming mine even when I knew I had no right.

The bond pulsed once—hot, electric, wanting.

I leaned in slowly, watching her eyes for any sign of refusal.

There was none.

Just tension.

Need.

Fear.

Hope.

Our lips were a breath apart. My chest ached from holding back.

And then—

> “Don’t ruin me if you don’t mean to stay.”

Her voice shattered something in me.

Because she wasn’t just warning me.

She was begging me.

Don’t touch me if you’re not going to stay.

Don’t kiss me if you’re going to disappear again.

And I knew I couldn’t promise what she needed.

Not yet. Not while the past still owned me.

So I stepped back.

Pulled my hand away like it burned.

And I lied.

“I’m sorry.”

Because I wasn’t.

That night, the bond between us pulsed deeper.

Not just a scar now. A thread. Pulling. Tensing.

My wolf growled.

I pressed a palm over my chest, trying to breathe through the ache.

Kira wasn’t just breaking through my walls.

She was digging into the places I’d buried so deep, I’d forgotten I ever bled.

And if I didn’t stop it soon…

I’d give in.

And I’d burn the world for her.