Jade
The night pressed against me as I stood on the edge of the clearing, my breath fogging in the cold air. My hands were still trembling from the encounter, from the fear, the rage, the heartbreak swirling so thick inside me that I didn’t know which way was up anymore. Behind me, Zade moved cautiously, his steps slow and careful, like he was approaching something wounded and dangerous. I didn’t turn around to face him right away. I couldn’t. I needed a moment to gather the shreds of myself before I looked into those dark eyes and saw all the things I wasn’t ready to feel.
He stopped a few feet behind me, the space between us crackling with everything unsaid. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. I listened to the frantic beating of my own heart, the shaky pull of my breaths, the faint, cursed throb of the bond that refused to die no matter how hard I wished it would. Finally, when the silence became too much to bear, I wrapped my arms around myself and turned to face him.
He looked wrecked. His clothes were torn from the fight, blood splattered across his knuckles, his hair wild from the wind. His chest rose and fell in uneven bursts, but it was his eyes that nearly undid me. They were wide and haunted, filled with an agony that mirrored too closely the one hollowing me out from the inside.
“You need to leave,” I said, my voice rough from holding back too many screams. “I can’t do this anymore, Zade. I can’t keep surviving you.”
For a moment he only stared at me, his mouth opening and closing like he was searching for the right words and finding none. Then he took a small step closer, his hands held out slightly, palms up like he was offering me some invisible, broken thing between them.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” he rasped, the words hitting me harder than any blow. “God, Jade, I was trying to protect you.”
I laughed then, sharp and bitter, the sound ugly in the stillness. “Protect me?” I echoed, my arms tightening around myself. “By breaking me apart piece by piece? By making me believe you didn’t want me? That you never loved me?”
He flinched at that, and something about it made the ache in my chest sharpen. He ran a hand over his face, his fingers trembling slightly. “You don’t understand,” he said hoarsely. “After we bonded, everything changed. People knew. They found out. And not just the pack — others. Rogues. Enemies. People who would do anything to get to me, to hurt me.”
I shook my head, the rage inside me burning hotter, the hurt deeper. “So you thought if you pushed me away,” I whispered, barely able to force the words past the lump in my throat, “if you made me hate you, they would leave me alone?”
He nodded once, the movement stiff, broken. “I thought it was the only way,” he said. “I thought… if you hated me, they wouldn’t see you as a weakness. I thought I could survive losing you better than watching you die because of me.”
The weight of his confession settled heavily between us, suffocating and endless. I wanted to scream at him, to pound my fists against his chest and demand why he hadn’t trusted me, why he had made that choice without giving me a say. But beneath the fury, beneath the betrayal, there was something else too — a sick, aching understanding that made my knees want to buckle.
He hadn’t wanted to hurt me. He had believed he was saving me.
And maybe that made it worse.
“You don’t get to decide what’s best for me,” I said finally, my voice shaking, my vision blurring with the tears I refused to let fall. “You don’t get to rip my heart out and call it mercy.”
“I know,” he said, stepping closer again, his voice cracking. “I know I did it wrong. I know I lost you anyway. But everything I did — I did because I love you.”
The words shattered something deep inside me. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and pretend that love could fix everything. But I couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Love, no matter how fierce, didn’t erase the scars he’d left behind.
I turned away from him, staring out into the darkness where the trees whispered secrets I couldn’t quite hear. “You broke me,” I whispered, and it was the closest thing to the truth I had spoken aloud in weeks. “And you broke yourself too.”
The wind picked up, lifting strands of my hair, carrying away the last fragments of the girl who had once believed that love was enough. Behind me, Zade stayed silent, the distance between us as wide and impossible as the stars scattered across the sky.
I didn’t know what would happen next. I didn’t know if forgiveness was even possible.