SO, I'M GOING TO BEG YOU?

AUTHOR’S POV 

He remembered the Moon Ceremony. The silence after his rejection. The way Elena had refused to beg him to reconsider.

He remembered watching her walk through the gates before sunrise and telling himself that letting her go was the right decision.

Then he remembered the years that followed, when he had never once sent a messenger to find her.

He had been too proud to admit that he sometimes wondered where she was. Too convinced that she would eventually regret leaving. Too certain that his choice had protected his pack.

Now Elena had built something in the wilderness while he had watched everything he commanded crumble around him.

"How many people does she have?" he asked.

"We don't know."

"Warriors?"

"Unknown."

"Supplies?"

"Enough to maintain the settlement, according to the reports. But I doubt they have much to spare."

Kaiden began pacing.

If Elena truly controlled Haven, approaching her would be complicated. She had every reason to distrust him, and he had no right to expect that she would welcome him simply because his own territory had fallen.

But he could not ignore the possibility that Haven was the only place left where his people might survive.

He would not lead the remaining Blackthorn families into the wilderness without a destination. He would not watch children starve because his pride refused to ask for help.

And if Elena was alive, he needed to see her.

The second thought was quieter.

More dangerous.

He tried to dismiss it, but his wolf had already lifted its head.

Find her.

Kaiden stopped pacing.

"How far is Haven?"

"Half a day's journey if the northern road is clear. Longer if we encounter infected."

"Then we leave at dawn."

Rowan's brows drew together. "You intend to approach her territory with the entire surviving pack?"

"Not the entire pack. We'll take the families who can travel, the wounded who can be moved safely, and enough warriors to protect them."

"And if Elena refuses us entry?"

Kaiden had no answer.

He could imagine her standing behind the gates, looking at him with the same quiet resolve she had shown three years ago. He could imagine her remembering every word he had spoken at the Moon Ceremony.

I will never make you my Luna.

His throat tightened.

He had once believed those words were a declaration of strength.

Now they sounded like the beginning of his ruin.

"Then we will have to find another way," he said.

Rowan studied him. "You understand that she owes us nothing."

"I know."

"She owes you nothing, Kaiden."

The use of his name rather than his title made the warning unmistakable.

Kaiden looked at the older wolf.

"I said I know."

But knowing something and accepting it were different matters.

He had spent three years believing Elena was a woman who had walked away from a future he could have given her. He had never considered that she might build a life better than the one he had denied her.

Now he was preparing to arrive at her gates with a broken pack, exhausted warriors, and families who needed shelter.

He would be asking for something he had once believed she was too weak to offer.

A chance to survive.

Kaiden turned toward the shattered windows. Beyond them, the sky had darkened with smoke, and the last light of the day was fading behind the mountains.

"Tell the warriors to prepare," he ordered. "No one leaves a wounded pack member behind. We take what food we have, all the medical supplies, and the children first."

Rowan nodded.

"And the settlement?"

Kaiden's gaze remained fixed on the distant mountains.

"We go to Haven."

He did not say Elena's name again.

He did not need to.

For the first time since the plague began, his wolf had stopped pacing inside him. It had fixed its attention on the north, toward a woman Kaiden had once rejected before an entire pack.

A woman who might be his last hope.

And perhaps the one person in the world who had every reason to turn him away.