KADE POV
She's a tool.
I repeat it like a prayer as she walks down the aisle. A tool. A bridge to Riverside. A temporary piece in a ten-year strategy that will end with her father's pack burning to ash.
I've been planning this moment for a decade.
Every decision I've made has led here. Every warrior I've trained. Every border I've strengthened. Every painful year I've spent swallowing my rage and building toward this single point in time. Marry the Alpha's daughter. Weaken her family from the inside. Destroy them when they're vulnerable.
That's the plan.
That's always been the plan.
So I stand at the altar and I remind myself that she means nothing. That her soft eyes and pale skin and the way her hands shake don't matter. That in six months or a year or whenever the time is right, her death will be just another strategy coming to fruition.
She's a tool.
Then she looks up at me.
Her pale green eyes meet mine and something snaps in my chest. Actually snaps. Like a bone breaking. Like something essential inside me cracks open and I can't put it back together.
She's terrified. I can see it in the way she's holding her breath. In the way her hands grip the white fabric of her dress. In the way her entire body is vibrating with fear of what's about to happen.
And I want to stop it.
The realization hits me like a punch to the gut. I want to stop the ceremony. I want to tell her to run. I want to do something to stop that fear in her eyes.
This is dangerous. This is weakness. This is everything I've spent ten years training myself not to feel.
The ceremony master raises the silver knife and my pulse quickens. The bonding is ancient magic. Powerful magic. It requires a blood exchange and a soul connection. For a moment, our essences will touch. For a moment, I'll feel what she feels.
For a moment, I'll have to let her in.
I've done this before with pack members. Council officials. People sworn to me. But this is different. She's different. And I know the second our souls connect, everything changes.
I tell myself it doesn't matter.
The knife comes down and cuts my palm first. My blood drips onto the silver basin the ceremony master holds. It's dark red. Almost black in the torchlight. The blood of an Alpha. The blood of a man who's spent ten years planning destruction.
Then it's her turn.
The ceremony master makes a small cut on her palm and she doesn't flinch. She doesn't cry out. She just lets her blood fall into the basin next to mine. Red and gold like summer and winter mixing together.
Our blood swirls together in the basin and the ceremony master begins to chant in the ancient language. Words that haven't been spoken in decades. Words that bind two people together in a way that magic can never undo.
He takes our cut hands and presses them together.
Pain shoots through my palm but it's not the cut that matters. It's what happens next.
The moment our skin touches, the magic ignites.
I feel her.
It's not like I expected. I thought it would be a formal connection. A magical link that lets me sense her location and health. Something clinical. Something I could control.
Instead I'm drowning in her.
I feel her terror like it's my own. I feel it flooding through me, stealing my breath, making my heart race in panic. I feel her loneliness like a weight pressing down on my chest. Years of being sheltered. Years of being kept away from the harsh realities of the world. Years of not knowing who she really was beneath the soft exterior.
And underneath all that fear and loneliness is something else.
Gentleness.
A strange, fragile gentleness that shouldn't exist in a world like this. A kindness that's been beaten down by her father's expectations but hasn't broken yet. A capacity for love and trust that she's about to learn will destroy her.
It's overwhelming.
I can't breathe. I can't think. I can only feel her essence pressing against mine like it's trying to merge with me. Like it's trying to become part of me.
I break the connection.
Protocol says I should hold the bond for a full minute. There are rules. Traditions. Ways that bonding ceremonies are supposed to happen. I break all of them and tear my hand away from hers faster than I've ever done anything in my life.
She sways.
The moment I break the connection, the lack of her nearly kills me. It's like a piece of me was ripped away. Like part of my soul was attached to hers and now there's a void where it was. The pain is physical. It's crushing.
She's swaying and I almost move forward to catch her. My body wants to move. My instincts want to pull her into my arms and never let go.
I grip the altar instead.
My fingers dig into the stone so hard I feel it crack beneath my hands. The marble crumbles under my grip. I'm shaking. My entire body is shaking from the effort of not moving. Not touching her. Not acknowledging that something fundamental has changed.
The ceremony master looks at me with confusion. I've never broken the bond early. I've never reacted like this.
From the crowd, Viktor watches with knowing eyes.
He sees what just happened. He sees that I felt something I shouldn't have felt. He understands that the girl has somehow gotten under my skin in a way I'm not prepared for.
His expression doesn't change but I know him well enough to read the message there. This is a problem. And problems need to be solved.
I ignore him because I have nothing to say to him right now. I can barely stand. I can barely remember my own name.
The ceremony finishes in a blur. There are words. There are vows. There's the moment where the ceremony master proclaims us bonded. There's applause from the crowd that feels like it's happening underwater.
Through it all, I feel her presence at the edge of my consciousness. The magical bond is complete now. It will always be there. I'll always be aware of her. I'll always feel a version of what she feels.
I'll always know when she's afraid.
That night, I tell her I have work to do.
She's waiting in my chambers in a white nightgown that makes her look like a ghost. Her eyes are still wide. Still terrified. Still holding that strange gentleness even after everything.
I can't stand to be in the same room with her. If I stay, I'll do something I can't take back. I'll tell her that the bonding has changed everything. I'll admit that I felt her and she felt me and we're now connected in a way that can never be severed.
I'll tell her the truth.
So instead I tell her a lie.
"I have work to do," I say quietly. "Council matters. Don't wait up."
She nods like she understands. Like she doesn't know that I'm running. Like she doesn't feel through our bond the panic and conflict tearing through me right now.
I leave before she can ask questions.
My study is dark and cold. I pour myself whiskey with hands that won't stop shaking. The alcohol burns going down but it doesn't help. Nothing helps. I drink another glass and then another.
Around midnight, I've finished half the bottle and I'm no closer to understanding what's happening to me.
I lie back in my chair and stare at the ceiling.
I try to remember the plan. I try to remember the ten years of preparation. I try to remember the feeling of my father's death and the rage that's defined me since that day. I try to summon the hatred that's kept me focused for so long.
But all I can feel is her.
Her terror through the bond. Her loneliness. Her strange, fragile gentleness that shouldn't exist but does.
And I realize the most dangerous thing possible.
I realize that I'm no longer sure I can go through with killing her.
The thought hits me like I've been struck. My glass shatters against the floor. Whiskey spills across the stone like blood.
This is impossible.
I've spent a decade building myself into something that doesn't feel. That doesn't hesitate. That doesn't fail. And now, in a single moment, a soft girl from Riverside with pale green eyes and a pendant around her neck has shattered that entire identity.
In the darkness of my office, I try to remember why I hate her family.
I try to remember the murder of my father.
I try to remember the pain and the rage and the ten years of planning.
But all I can remember is the feeling of her essence touching mine. All I can feel is the gentleness underneath her terror. All I can think about is the way her hands shook when she cut her palm.
And I understand with horrible clarity that I've made a terrible mistake.
I should never have let her in.
I should never have felt what was underneath that fear.
Because now I can't unsee her. Can't unfeel her. Can't go back to thinking of her as just a tool.
In the darkness of my office, I pour another drink and realize something even more terrifying.
I think I might be in love with her.
And that's going to destroy everything.