All Chapters of The cursed mate's return : Chapter 201 - Chapter 210

Kael's povThe rain didn’t bother me. The cold didn’t touch me. The city noise didn’t exist.All I felt was the hollow space where Maia had just walked away.The wolf inside me slammed against my ribs, snarling in a way it hadn’t in years, not since the night she disappeared without a trace. I dug my fingers into my palms hard enough to sting, grounding myself before I did something reckless. Something Alpha. Something I couldn’t hide beneath this polished corporate skin.Her scent, muted, carefully masked still clung to the air. Beneath it, faint but unmistakable, glowed the ghost of the bond she’d tried to kill.Maia.Alive.In my city.Working under my company.Running from me with the same stubborn fire she always had.And Elara had made it worse.I turned sharply, storming toward the glass doors of Silvercrest Tower. “Kael—Kael, wait!”Her voice hit me before her heels did. Click-click-click, fast and sharp across the floor. Elara grabbed my arm, but I didn’t slow. Didn’t look a

Kael's povI stood outside her door, waiting for her breathing to settle. The hallway was quiet, washed in the smell of rain and cold concrete. Her presence lingered in the air like a faint trail, almost invisible, but not to me. Six years changed everything about her, yet the space around her still bent in a way I recognized.My wolf paced inside me, restless, alert.Maia.I kept my back against the wall across from her door. My hands stayed at my sides. My thoughts stayed fixed on the fact that she ran from me the moment our marks sparked. She hid her face, hid her voice, hid every single piece of herself as if she expected me to break her again.Maybe she was right to expect that.A soft sound came from inside her apartment. A breath she tried to steady. She was close to the door. Listening. Deciding. Trembling.My chest tightened.I had imagined meeting her again in countless ways. None involved her backing away from me like I was something that could swallow her whole.The elevato

Maia's povThe rain followed me all the way back to my building, soaking through my clothes until my bones felt heavy. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, no matter how tightly I curled them. Not from the cold. Not from him. From everything piling at once like a storm I had outrun for six straight years.I pushed through the front door of my apartment building and climbed the stairs fast. Too fast. My breath came out uneven by the time I reached my floor. My fingers slipped on the key twice before I managed to twist it.The hallway lights flickered overhead.I stepped inside and locked the door behind me, sliding the bolt twice out of habit.Silence spread through the room, thick and stale. My tiny kitchen smelled faintly of spices from last night. The cracked window rattled with the wind. It should have felt normal. Familiar. Safe.Instead, my skin crawled.I walked slowly toward the table. Something was different. Nothing looked out of place, yet the air felt wrong. Too still. Too quiet

Maia's povI pressed my palms against my eyes. Nora was right, I looked pale.I was shaking.And no amount of lying to myself was going to fix that someone had not only broken into my apartment but left a warning so sharp it still felt like a blade at my throat.I inhaled. Exhaled but work didn’t get the chance to start.My phone buzzed. A calendar update flashed on the screen.'Meeting with Silvercrest Industries — 10:30 AM. Mandatory, assigned, Maia Reyes'I was stunned.Silvercrest? Kael?No. No, no, no—I scrambled through the company software, searching for a mistake. A reassignment. A ticket misfiled. Anything that told me this wasn’t real.But my name sat right there in black letters. Assigned to the meeting was required.Someone had placed me in Kael’s orbit. Someone knew exactly what they were doing.A chill rippled through my spine.This was a trap.Either for me or for him.By ten-fifteen, I had run out of time to think.The conference room sat on the twelfth floor—glass-wa

Maia's povThe moment Rydan disappeared, I ran.“Faster,” my wolf urged, prowling close to the surface.I pushed harder.The rooftop meeting had shaken something loose inside me. The stranger, Rydan yet hadn’t attacked. He hadn’t forced me. He hadn’t even touched me.He’d only delivered a warning I never wanted:They know you’re alive.The words still echoed like a drumbeat against my skull.Six years of hiding.Six years of silence. Six years of pretending the past had died with the forest.All undone in one night.I landed on the next roof, knees bending with the impact. A hiss of pain escaped between my teeth, my muscles still sore from the tense hours spent waiting for the stranger last night. But I didn’t stop.Kael.His scent seeped into my senses like warmth beneath cold ashes. I felt it before I breathed it. Felt it in the mark glowing faintly under my skin, pulsing in tune with a heartbeat I didn’t want to acknowledge.He was close.I crouched by the edge of a rooftop and pee