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JACE

“ L yra—wait.”

The word left him before he could stop it, sharp and gruff. Not pleading—he didn’t plead—but there was something in his voice that had her halting mid-step.

She spun, her curls catching the wind, eyes blazing like stormlight.

“You want me to wait?” she snapped. “After everything? You swoop in, save the day, say nothing , and now you want me to wait ?”

Jace braced himself, every instinct screaming to stay still. To shut down. To control the moment before it cracked him open.

But he didn’t move.

Didn’t run.

Didn’t retreat behind the careful armor he’d been wearing since his father disappeared into shadow and he’d been left to carry the weight of the whole damn pack on his back.

Because this wasn’t a pack issue.

This was her .

“I didn’t mean for it to happen like this,” he said quietly.

Lyra laughed, a bitter, heartbroken sound. “You mean with magic attacks and half-truths in the woods?”

He stepped closer, just enough that her breath hitched, but not enough to spook her again. “I meant me... us. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“But you did ,” she said, voice shaking. “And you keep doing it. So either tell me the truth, or let me go because I can’t deny that I feel something as well, even before the other night. But this… This is toxic.”

Jace’s jaw clenched.

The silence stretched between them, taut and unforgiving.

“You’re my mate.”

Her breath caught.

And in that tiny pause, the whole forest seemed to go still.

“Say that again,” she whispered.

“You’re my mate,” he repeated, the words scraping past his lips like they cost him something. “I’ve known since the first day you walked into the Keep.”

She blinked, slowly. “Then why—why all this? Why act like I’m some stranger barging into your territory?”

He exhaled harshly, turning from her, dragging a hand through his hair. “Because I can’t claim you.”

Her face twisted. “Can’t or won’t ?”

He spun back toward her, voice rising. “You think this is easy for me? You think I don’t want to mark you—pull you close and never let go?”

“Then why don’t you?” she shouted.

“Because everything I touch, I ruin!” he snapped.

She flinched.

He stopped. Closed his eyes. Lowered his voice.

“I’m not made for soft things,” he said. “I’m not built to love the way you deserve.”

Lyra’s lips parted, but he barreled on, like a dam had finally cracked behind his ribs.

“My father disappeared the night he should’ve passed the full mantle to me. One minute he was this unshakable force—the alpha every other alpha answered to—and the next he was gone. No explanation. No trail. Just me, twenty-three, holding a pack and a town and the Moonlit Pact in my bare hands.”

His voice roughened, like gravel underfoot. “I didn’t have time to grieve. Didn’t have space to fall apart. I had to become the version of him they needed—even if it broke me.”

He looked at her then. Really looked.

And the truth in his eyes nearly dropped her to her knees.

“I can’t bring you into that,” he said, barely a whisper. “Not when it would make you a target. Not when it would tie you to this... this weight .”

Lyra’s hands trembled, but she held her ground. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”

“I know.”

“Then why—why keep pushing me away?”

“Because if something happened to you because of me ,” he said, voice shaking, “I wouldn’t survive it.”

Lyra stepped closer. “So you’d rather break both of us slowly than take the risk?”

He didn’t answer.

She stood there, chest heaving, magic curling around her like smoke and heartbreak.

“You say you can’t claim me,” she said. “But you already have. Every look, every word, every time you’ve saved me—you’ve carved yourself into me.”

He swallowed hard.

“I don’t know what this means now,” she whispered. “But I know this—if you keep standing there holding back, you’re going to lose me. And it won’t be Ezra who takes me. It’ll be me , walking away.”

She turned again.

And this time, he let her go.

Because for all his strength, all his certainty...

He didn’t know how to hold her without breaking her too.