Page 35 of Fated (The Bonded Legacy #1)
CHAPTER THIRTY
LENA
T he drive felt like drowning in slow motion.
Silent.
Tension thick as mountain air.
Each passing mile marker a countdown to confrontation. To the reality of last night. To the uncertain space between her and Kai.
Lena braved a glance at him. Kai’s posture was rigid, breathing shallow as his gaze fixed on the red Jeep ahead. His hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles stark white against sun-darkened skin. Lena returned her stare to the window, taking measured breaths while a storm raged inside her.
Elara prowled the borders of Lena’s consciousness, the wolf’s agitation manifesting as electric pulses behind her eyes. Each spectral paw-step sent concentric ripples of tension across their shared mind, like stones dropped in still water.
“He won’t speak first,” Elara snarled. “Too much a coward to face what he’s done.”
A heavy sigh escaped Lena before she could catch it. From the corner of her eye, she caught his glance, saw the tension ripple through his jaw. Her fingers drummed against her thigh, each tap matching another passing mile marker.
“So,” she said, voice sharp enough to make him flinch, “did you have a specific time frame in mind when you said you ‘hoped we could talk’? Or were you planning to let me stew the whole way back to Moonshadow?”
He shifted, fingers flexing on the wheel as if testing their grip. His jaw worked before he managed, “I’m sorry. I—” He swallowed hard and released a shaky breath. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Well, pick somewhere,” Lena snapped, then forced herself to soften. “Tell me about Ava.”
The name hung between them like smoke. Kai’s shoulders loosened, as if talking about Ava was safer ground. Lena’s ribs contracted around her lungs, each breath shallow. She schooled her features into smooth marble, jaw relaxed, eyes steady as she waited.
KAI
Ava.
The question he’d been dreading most. Kai’s grip tightened on the wheel as memories flooded back—not just of last night’s disaster, but of years of shared history with Ava. How could he possibly explain it all to Lena without sounding like he was making excuses?
“She was from my mother’s birthpack, Raven’s Crest. She came to us after rogues destroyed the pack,” he began carefully.
“My dad and Maxim led the rescue mission. She was eight. Just a terrified pup who’d lost everything.
” He could still remember the way she’d trembled that first night, how small she’d looked huddled between Magnus and Elias.
“She latched onto us—Elais, Magnus, and me. We were always following our dads around, playing at being alpha, beta, and gamma. I think being near us made her feel safe again.”
Orion pressed against the confines of their shared consciousness. “Tell mate the truth. All of it.”
“We were friends first,” Kai continued, a ghost of a smile touched his lips.
“Best friends. The four of us—sometimes Elias’s sister, Lyric, too—were inseparable.
Making everything into an adventure, always causing trouble, and Ava was at the center of it all.
She was like a little sister to us, to me…
” His hands flexed on the wheel. “Until she wasn’t. ”
LENA
Lena nodded, memories of her own childhood with Cian, Ryker, and Jace flashing through her mind. She understood the comfort of finding safety in your packmates, the love that could grow from such a close bond.
“What changed?” The question slipped out before she could stop it. Part of her didn’t want to know, but she had to understand. Had to know what she was fighting against. If she should even fight at all.
Color crept up Kai’s neck as he cleared his throat. “Her first shift. Magnus and I ran with her. I, uh…I accidentally saw her. Before she got dressed. She caught me staring, and...” His ears burned red. “It was the first time I’d ever…reacted…to a female that way.”
“Reacted?” Lena arched an eyebrow, watching him squirm even as something cold settled in her stomach.
“You know what I mean,” he muttered.
Lena hummed noncommittally, but her hands curled into fists in her lap.
The image of a younger Kai discovering Ava that way made jealousy curl hot and sick in her chest. Elara’s growl began as a low vibration at the base of her skull, spreading down her spine, each vertebra resonating with the wolf’s territorial fury.
“Things changed after that,” Kai continued. “We spent more time alone—shifting, running, wrestling as wolves. And when we first kissed, it felt...” His voice caught. “Inevitable.” A pause. “We were in love.” Another pause. “Or what I thought was love.”
Elara’s growl vibrated through Lena’s mind. “That’s not love. Not like what we share.”
Could the fated bond even be considered love? The question burned in her chest as she stared out at the passing landscape.
“But then she turned eighteen,” Kai continued softly, “and we realized we weren’t fated.
” His voice dropped so low she had to strain to hear him over the hum of the engine.
“I stayed up to bake her a cake. I wanted to be the first to wish her happy birthday at midnight. I was...desperate to know for sure if she was mine.” A bitter laugh escaped him.
“The cake was terrible, but the moment was worse.”
“What happened?”
“Orion, my wolf, completely dismissed her.” Kai’s words came out rough, like they were being dragged from somewhere deep. “After two years of running with her, wrestling with her, he suddenly wanted nothing to do with her. She wasn’t his mate.”
Lena’s breath caught, windpipe closing as though she’d been the one rejected. The taste of copper flooded her mouth—the flavor of devastation. “And you?”
“I didn’t care,” Kai continued, the words spilling freely now.
“I was too deep in it. Told myself that what we had was stronger than fate, but Orion fought me every day after that. He hates how close I’ve stayed to her.
The promises I’ve made. How I’ve given pieces of myself he says aren’t hers to have.
And my father...” He snorted, gripping the wheel tighter.
“He’s always raised issue with our relationship.
He doesn’t believe it’s what’s best for me or the pack.
He doesn’t think what Ava and I have is genuine. At least not on her side.”
“Not genuine?” Lena’s brow furrowed. “How?”
Kai released an exasperated sigh. “He worries that Ava wants to be luna more than she wants to be mine.”
KAI
The words hung heavy between them. Kai could almost hear the pieces clicking into place as Lena processed.
“So, what did you do?” she asked finally.
“We tried cooling things off for a couple months. Kept ourselves open in case we found our fated mates. But as time passed, we fell deeper.” His throat worked, Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Once we decided to pursue a chosen bond blessing, nothing else mattered. We made so many plans—for us, for Bloodstone. It felt perfect and being with her was consuming, especially after...” His words evaporated, gaze fixed on the road ahead.
“After?” Lena’s voice was careful, controlled.
Blood rushed to his face, staining his neck and burning the tips of his ears. “With the chosen bond as our goal, it was easier not to hold back...physically,” he managed, words sticking to his tongue like peanut butter.
Kai heard her sharp intake of breath—a sound like fabric tearing. Her fingers dug into her knees, knuckles blanching beneath taut skin.
“You fell deeper after sleeping together.” Her voice flattened to ice as she turned to stare out the window, jaw so tight he could hear teeth grinding.
“No!” The word burst from him. “We’ve explored each other but agreed to wait for the claiming ritual for...that.”
The rigid line of her shoulders eased slightly, but her voice stayed hard when she spoke again. “So, what the fuck was that last night then?”
Kai felt her question like a slap, the venom in her tone slicing through his fragile control.
Shame burned through him as memory flooded back—Ava’s mascara tracking down flushed cheeks in black rivers.
The hiccupping sobs that had made her shoulders shake so violently he feared she’d break apart.
Eyes so swollen, so red-rimmed they barely resembled the bright blue he’d known for years.
She’d looked broken. Lost. Like the same frightened pup who’d first come to Bloodstone.
No matter how he tried to justify it, shame burned deeper.
It wasn’t just Ava’s pain that had driven his actions, it was his own weakness.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”
“Just tell me the truth.” Her voice softened but remained insistent. “What happened last night? What were you thinking?”
LENA
Lena braced herself for Kai’s truth, fingernails biting into her palms. Deep down, she already knew the answer.
Had seen it in the desperate way he’d pressed Ava against that car.
In how his hands had gripped her hips with such familiar possession.
The memory made bile rise in her throat and the bond twist in her chest.
Elara’s grief bled through their connection. “He wanted to have her first,” the wolf whimpered. “Make her his before being bound to us forever.”
The thought felt like a punch to the gut. As if Ava was his choice, and Lena was just his sentence.