Chapter Thirty-Nine - The Price of His Past

Kael’s POV

By the time night settled over Ironcrest, I had replayed my encounter with Damon Vale so many times that I could still hear his laughter whenever the room fell silent.

The bastard had found a way to crawl beneath my skin without laying a finger on me.

I had dealt with arrogant Alphas, rebellious warriors, and rogues who believed they could challenge my authority and walk away with their lives. None of them had managed to unsettle me the way one man had with a few carefully chosen words.

I clenched my jaw.

Damon had said it deliberately. He wanted me to picture Aria in his arms, to imagine the years they had spent together, and to question whether the woman sleeping beside me could ever look at me with the same desire she had once shown him.

The worst part was that I couldn’t stop wondering what had happened between them.

I knew Aria had loved him. She had abandoned Ironcrest, her father, and the future Lucien had planned for her because she believed Damon was worth the sacrifice.

I had spent years loving the same woman from a distance, swallowing my feelings because I thought she would eventually return to me.

Instead, she had chosen another man and now that she was finally my wife, I found myself lying awake at night, wondering whether the man she had chosen first had given her something I never could.

I hated myself for thinking that way.

Aria had returned to Ironcrest. She had stayed when she could have left again. She had begun to trust me, to laugh with me, and to allow me closer than she had ever permitted before.

Those things should have been enough but Damon had planted a seed of doubt, and I was discovering how difficult it was to uproot.

When I finally returned to our chambers, Aria was already there, standing before the mirror as she removed the earrings she had worn to dinner.

She had changed into a simple nightdress, and her dark hair fell loosely over her shoulders. The sight of her should have calmed me.

Instead, I found myself wondering how many times Damon had watched her prepare for bed.

I immediately looked away.

I had no right to punish her for a past she had lived before our marriage. I knew that. Yet knowing something was wrong did not always stop a man from feeling it.

“You’re late,” she remarked, catching my reflection in the mirror.

“Had some work to finish.”

She turned slightly. “Is everything all right?”

I loosened the buttons at my collar. “We need to talk.”

The expression on her face changed.“About what?”

“Damon.” I mouthed.

Her fingers stopped moving.

For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then she placed her earrings on the dressing table and faced me fully.

“What about him?”

“He came to the gate today.”

Her face hardened so quickly that I could almost feel the temperature in the room drop. “He came back?”

“Yes.” I nodded.

“After everything I told him?” Her voice rose. “After I made it clear that I wanted nothing more to do with him?”

“He demanded to see you.”

“And the guards allowed him to stand there demanding anything?” She growled.

“They didn’t let him in.” I said casually.

“Good.” She folded her arms across her chest, anger flashing in her eyes. “Because if that man ever comes here again, I want the guards to kill him.”

I studied her face and noticed she wasn’t joking.

“Aria…” I said tiredly.

“No, Kael. I’m serious.” She took a step toward me. “I have already told him that our relationship is over. I gave him the chance to explain himself, and I listened to his excuses. What more does he want from me?”

I began to question my life decisions.

“make sure he never gets the opportunity to ask me himself!” Her voice trembled with fury. “I don’t want to see him again. I don’t want to hear his name. I don’t want him anywhere near Ironcrest.”

I had expected anger. I had expected her to be offended that Damon had returned after she had dismissed him.

What I hadn’t expected was the intensity of her reaction.

For a brief moment, some of the tension in my chest eased.

She didn’t sound like a woman longing for a former lover. She sounded like someone who wanted to erase him from her life.

I should have accepted that. Instead, another question rose inside me, ugly and unwelcome.

“Do you still have feelings for him?” I asked.

The silence that followed was so complete that I could hear the faint crackling of the fire in the adjoining sitting room.

Aria stared at me. Then she let out a short, incredulous laugh.

“What?”

“You heard me.” I said with a vague expression .

She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what I had just asked.

“Are you serious?”

“Completely.” I stood still.

“After everything I’ve told you about Damon, you still think I have feelings for him?” She looked petrified.

“I asked you a question.” I said, avoiding her initial statement.

“And I am asking you whether you have lost your mind!” She threw her hands up. “That man lied to me. He stole from me. He hid the news of my father’s death because he was afraid I would leave him. I missed my father’s funeral because of him, Kael! Do you honestly believe I could hear all of that and still want him?”

I remained silent.

She stepped closer, her eyes shining with indignation.

“I loved Damon once. I won’t pretend otherwise. But whatever I felt for him is gone. I told him that myself, and I meant every word.”

“Then why does he believe he still has a chance with you?” I asked .

“How am I supposed to know what goes on inside his head?” she demanded. “Perhaps he cannot accept that I have finally stopped making excuses for him. Perhaps he thinks that because I loved him once, he can keep returning whenever he wants something from me.”

Her lips tightened. “But I am done with him. I have been done with him since I discovered what he had done. I don’t understand why I should have to keep proving that to you.”

I looked away because I was a fool and I had allowed another man’s arrogance to make me doubt my own wife, knowing a part of me was still that young man watching Aria smile at someone else, wondering why she could give another man the affection I had spent years hoping to earn.

But I couldn’t tell her that. Not when I was supposed to be the Alpha who knew how to control his emotions. Not when I had promised her that she would never have to fight for her place beside me.

“How long were you with him?” I asked instead.

Her eyebrows drew together. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Answer me, Aria.” I snapped.

She stared at me for another moment before speaking.

“Long enough.”

“That’s not an answer.” I peered at her.

“It is the only one I intend to give you if you’re going to question me like this.” She folded her arms stubbornly.

Something tightened inside my chest.

The words seemed to mock me. Long enough to learn her habits. Long enough to know what made her laugh. Long enough to touch her without having to ask where she wanted his hands.

Long enough to share a life with her while I remained here, carrying the responsibilities she had abandoned and pretending that her absence didn’t hurt.

I knew I was being unfair. Aria hadn’t promised me anything during those years. She had been free to choose whom she wanted, even if her choice had caused pain to everyone who loved her.

But the knowledge did little to soothe the bitterness rising inside me.

“You gave him years of your life,” I said quietly.

“And?” She raised a brow.

“You chose him over Ironcrest.” I gritted my teeth bitterly.

Her expression faltered, but only for a second. “I know what I did.”

“Do you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t do this, Kael.”

“Do what?” I frowned.

“Make me feel as though I have to answer for every mistake I made before I came back. I know I hurt my father. I know I abandoned my responsibilities. I have lived with that knowledge every day since I returned.” Her voice softened, but the hurt in it was unmistakable. “I cannot change the past. All I can do is try to become someone who deserves the future I was given.”

I should have stopped. I should have crossed the distance between us, taken her hand, and reminded her that I had seen the effort she was making.

Instead, Damon’s words came back to me.

“She was a wonderful lover.”

I looked at Aria, and the question I had been trying to swallow finally escaped.

“He spoke about your sex life ”

Her face went still. “What?”

“Damon. When he came to the gate, he spoke about the two of you.”

Her eyes searched mine. “What exactly did he say about it?”

I hesitated. For the first time since entering the room, I wished I could take back the decision to tell her about the encounter. I had thought honesty would settle the matter between us. I hadn’t considered how much damage I might cause by repeating a man’s cruel words simply because they had wounded my pride.

“He said he knew you better than I did.”

Aria’s expression changed from confusion to disgust. “Of course he did. He has always believed the world revolves around him.”

“He also said you were a wonderful lover in bed.”

The words sounded even worse when spoken aloud.

Aria went utterly still then a flush of anger spread across her face.

“He said that to you?”

“Yes.” I nodded.

“That arrogant, shameless…..” She stopped, drawing a sharp breath. “He has absolutely no right to discuss our past like that. None!”

“I agree.” I moved closer to the bed.

“Then why are you looking at me as though I’ve done something wrong?” She frowned.

“I am not.” I denied.

“You are!” She pointed at me, her voice trembling. “You asked whether I still have feelings for him. You demanded to know how long we were together. And now you’re telling me he described our private life to you. What am I supposed to do with that information, Kael? Apologize for having loved someone before I married you?”

“No.” I whispered.

“Then what do you want from me?”

I had no answer that wouldn’t expose the truth.

I wanted to know whether she had ever looked at Damon the way she had begun looking at me.

I wanted to know whether he had been able to make her feel safe, desired, and understood in ways I had yet to discover.

I wanted to know whether, when she closed her eyes, she remembered him instead of me and beneath all those questions lay the one I was most ashamed to admit.

I wanted to be the only man who had ever mattered to her but I couldn’t demand that from a woman whose life had begun long before she became my wife.

“You were with him for a long time,” I said at last. “And now he comes here, laughing at me because he believes he knows things about you that I don’t.”

Aria’s anger shifted into disbelief. “So this is about your pride?”

“It’s about my marriage.” I chipped in immediately.

“No, Kael. It’s about your pride.” She shook her head slowly. “Damon can say whatever he wants. He can lie, boast, and try to make himself look important. Why should his words matter to you?”

“Because he was part of your life.” I looked away from her.

“And you are part of my life now!”

The words struck me harder than I expected.

She looked almost startled by her own outburst, but she didn’t take it back.

“You are my husband,” she continued. “You are the man I came home to. You are the man I have been trying to trust, even when trusting you hasn’t been easy. And yet one conversation with Damon is enough to make you look at me as though you are competing with him.”

I swallowed.

She was right but that didn’t make the jealousy disappear.

“I don’t like the way he spoke about you,” I admitted. “I don’t like that he thinks he can come here and speak as though he still has a claim on you and I don’t like that he knows parts of you that I don’t.”

Her lips parted, but she said nothing.

The confession hung between us, stripped of the anger I had used to disguise it.

For a moment, I thought she might understand. I thought she might see the insecurity beneath my words and offer me some reassurance.

Instead, her expression softened with something that looked painfully close to pity.

“Kael,” she said quietly, “I cannot change the fact that I loved him before I understood who he was. But I can choose what I do now. And I have chosen to be here.”

I looked at her. “With me?”

“With you.” She forced a smile.

They should have been enough but the elders’ voices rose in my memory, reminding me of the Nightshade bloodline, the future of Ironcrest, and the heir they expected me to produce.

Then I remembered standing at the gate while Damon laughed at the marriage he believed was nothing more than a title.

I had spent my life learning how to lead warriors into battle. I knew how to protect borders, negotiate treaties, and make decisions that could determine whether a pack survived the winter.

Yet I had no idea how to ask my own wife to let me closer without making her feel trapped and I was growing tired of feeling as though I was the only one expected to wait.

“How long do you expect me to be patient?” I asked.

Her face tightened. “What are you talking about?”

“Our marriage.”

She stared at me, and I could see her preparing herself for another argument.

“I thought we had already discussed this.”

“We discussed many things. We discussed your boundaries, your fears, and your decision not to have pups yet.” I said impatiently.

“Then why are we discussing them again?” She frowned.

“Because the situation hasn’t changed.”

Her eyes widened slightly.

I knew what she heard in those words. I knew how they must have sounded after everything we had promised each other.

But I continued anyway. “The elders are asking questions. They want an heir, Aria. They want to know when the next Nightshade bloodline will be born.”

“Then tell them to wait.” She scoffed.

“I have and they won’t wait forever.”

She let out a disbelieving breath. “So now I am supposed to have a child because the elders are impatient?”

“That isn’t what I said.”

“Then what are you saying?” She looked at me with disgust.

I dragged a hand over my face.

I wanted to tell her that I understood her fear. That I remembered the night I had crossed a line and taken away her choice. That I knew I had no right to make demands of her after forcing her to bear a mark she hadn’t wanted.

But another part of me was tired of carrying the expectations of an entire pack while pretending they weren’t weighing on me.

I was Alpha. I was her husband. I was expected to secure the future of Ironcrest and I wanted a child with my wife.

Was it so wrong to want that?

“I want pups, Aria,” I said. “I want a family with you. I want to see our child running through these halls, carrying your stubbornness and my temper. I want to give Ironcrest an heir who belongs to both of us.”

Her expression shifted, and for a brief moment, I thought she might hear the longing beneath my words.

Then she looked away. “I told you I am not ready. Then why are you making me feel guilty for it?”

“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty.” I tugged on my shirt.

“Well, you’re succeeding.” She shrugged.

She turned toward the dressing table, bracing both hands against its edge. Her shoulders rose and fell with a slow breath.

“I don’t know when I’ll be ready, Kael,” she said. “I cannot give you a date. I cannot promise that tomorrow I’ll wake up and suddenly stop being afraid of everything that has happened between us.”

Her voice grew quieter. “I am trying. I thought you could see that.”

I couldn’t and that was what made the conversation so difficult.

I could see her trying. I could see the way she had begun to seek me out, the way she sometimes smiled when she thought I wasn’t looking, and the way she had slowly allowed me into the corners of her life she once guarded fiercely.

I could see all of it but I could also see the years stretching ahead of us, the elders growing impatient, and the possibility that the family I wanted might remain nothing more than a dream.

And, like a fool, I allowed my fear to speak before my better judgment could stop it.

“If you still refuse to have pups with me, then perhaps I will have to take a breeder.” I admitted.

Aria turned around so quickly that her hair swept across her shoulder.

For several seconds, she simply stared at me.

I knew I should explain. I should tell her that I was angry, that the elders were pressuring me, that I hadn’t thought through what I was saying, but the words had already left my mouth.

And I had never seen my wife look at me as though she no longer recognized the man standing before her.

I forced my face to remain straight, even as something inside me began to twist.

Then I turned toward my side of the bed and left my words hanging between us.