CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: ARIA

"Are you asking me to leave?"

The question came out much smaller and more vulnerable than I'd intended.

"I'm asking you to understand that this situation has become extremely complicated. As Alpha of this pack, I have a fundamental obligation to consider the welfare of the entire community, not just..."

He stopped abruptly, his jaw tightening with visible tension.

"Not just what?" I pressed, though part of me dreaded hearing his answer.

"Not just my personal feelings,"

He finished quietly, but the admission sounded more like a curse than any kind of confession of care.

Adeline cleared her throat uncomfortably.

"Perhaps I should give you two some privacy to discuss this sensitive matter."

"That won't be necessary," Alpha Kael said quickly, his voice sharp with dismissal.

"This isn't a personal conversation. It's strictly pack business."

The casual dismissiveness of those words hit me like a physical slap. Pack business.

That's all I was to him now – a problem to be efficiently managed rather than a person he cared about protecting.

"I see."

I pushed myself upright in the bed, ignoring the wave of dizziness that threatened to overwhelm me.

"Well then, as pack business, what exactly are my options here?"

"The Luminas have sent official representatives to the territory. They're offering to take you in, help you understand and properly control your abilities."

His voice remained frustratingly neutral throughout.

"It might be the safest option for everyone involved."

"The safest option for everyone," I repeated slowly, tasting the bitter poison of those words.

"And what about what I might want?"

For just one moment, something cracked in his carefully controlled facade.

Raw pain flashed across his features, but he schooled his expression back to neutral so quickly I might have imagined the vulnerability entirely.

"What you want isn't the only consideration here, Aria. You're not just any ordinary supernatural being – you're potentially one of the most powerful creatures alive today. That kind of power comes with serious responsibilities and dangerous consequences whether you asked for them or not."

"So that's it? You're just going to ship me off to complete strangers because I'm too dangerous to have around?"

"I'm trying to keep you alive!"

The words exploded from him with enough explosive force to make both Adeline and me flinch backward.

His careful control cracked completely, revealing the churning turmoil underneath.

"Do you have any conception of what's coming for you now that the entire supernatural world knows exactly what you are?"

"The Umbra won't stop with one failed kidnapping attempt. Other factions will want to either claim you for their own purposes or eliminate you as a threat."

"Staying here makes you a target and puts everyone I'm sworn to protect in mortal danger."

"And sending me away solves your problems how exactly?"

"It doesn't," he admitted heavily, running a hand through his dark hair in obvious frustration.

"But it's the responsible thing to do as an Alpha."

"What about as a man?" The question slipped out before I could stop it.

"What would you choose if you weren't constantly thinking about pack politics and Alpha responsibilities?"

The silence stretched between us, heavy with unspoken truths and painful possibilities.

When he finally answered, his voice was barely above a whisper.

"It doesn't matter what I would choose as a man, Aria. I don't have that luxury."

"Right."

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, ignoring Adeline's immediate protest that I should rest longer.

"Well then, I suppose I should start packing my things."

"Aria, wait—"

"No." I held up a hand to stop whatever he was planning to say.

"You've made your position perfectly clear, Alpha Kael. I'm a liability you need to manage efficiently, not a person you actually care about. Message received loud and clear."

I made it halfway to the door before his voice stopped me in my tracks.

"You think this is easy for me?"

I turned back to find him staring at me with an expression of such raw, unguarded pain that it stole the breath from my lungs.

"You think I want to send you away? That I don't lie awake every night thinking about what could have happened if I'd been thirty seconds later getting to your room?"

"That watching you unconscious for three straight days didn't nearly drive me completely insane with worry and fear?"

"Then why—"

"Because caring about you is selfish!"

He shouted, his carefully maintained composure finally shattering completely.

"Because wanting you here, wanting to protect you myself, wanting to explore whatever this connection is between us"

"– all of that puts my personal desires above the safety of dozens of innocent people who depend on me to make the hard choices they can't make themselves."

The raw honesty in his voice broke something deep inside my chest, but it also ignited a spark of righteous anger that I'd been trying desperately to suppress.

"So you're pushing me away for my own good? How incredibly noble of you,"

I said with bitter sarcasm.

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, I should have some say in what's best for my own life?"

"Did it ever occur to you that sometimes what we want and what's actually right aren't the same thing?"

We stared at each other across the sterile medical room, both breathing hard from the intensity of our emotional confrontation.

In that charged moment, I saw past his Alpha authority to the vulnerable man underneath – and realized he was just as scared and confused as I was.

But scared or not, he was still choosing duty over whatever precious connection existed between us.

And that knowledge settled in my chest like a cold, heavy stone.

"Fine,"

I said quietly, my voice steady despite the chaos in my heart.

"I'll meet with these Lumina representatives. But I want you to understand that I'm doing it because I choose to, not because you're forcing me."

I left the medical wing before he could respond, but his final words followed me into the empty hallway:

"Aria... I'm sorry."

Sorry didn't change anything, though.

The walls of ice had been built between us, and I wasn't sure either of us knew how to tear them down.