Page 67

Seren looked at their joined hands.

His thumb still moved in slow, absent strokes across her skin, as if trying to memorize her. As if trying to remind her.

She should've pulled away.

Should've said something sharp, cold, and final to end this moment between them.

But her hand didn't move.

Gods help her, but a part of her still wanted to believe him.

Still remembered the boy who used to watch her like she was the sun on snow. Who used to run ahead just to clear the path for her feet. Who'd bring her wildflowers in awkward silence because he didn't know how to say I missed you.

That boy had been hers.

And then he'd vanished—drowned under the weight of ambition, expectation, and the soft spell of a girl who was not her.

And now here he was again.

Different.

Older .

But the same steel-blue eyes. The same scent that curled through her ribs like a familiar song.

The familiar anger had her by the throat. Why couldn't he stay away? Why couldn't he let her be?

Her voice, when it came, wasn't quiet.

It was raw.

"You want to talk about regret, Hagan?" she said, her tone trembling with the pressure she was barely holding back. "I lost everything."

"I lost my father when I left the tribe too young to remember the sound of his voice.

My brother when I was old enough to feel the sting of being forgotten.

And my mother..." Her voice faltered for half a second.

"Long before I ever left her. They gave me away like a bargaining chip.

Sent me off to a tribe I didn't know, to a mate I barely understood. "

Her gaze locked onto his, and it burned.

"I haven't seen my brother grown, don't know if he still remembers me. I don't know what my mother's hands feel like anymore. My friends- Talis and Niva. The only people who made me feel like I belonged somewhere. I gave up my whole world for the promise of a new one."

His expression changed, pain flashing across his face, but she didn't stop .

And he kept listening without interrupting.

"And still," she went on, her voice cracking, "still, I believed. I believed that maybe, just maybe, I had a new family waiting for me. A tribe that would welcome me. A fated who would hold me above all else. A boy I loved more than air, more than my own pride."

Her breath came ragged now. Her eyes shone, not with softness, but fury. Fury tempered by grief.

"Instead, I got silence. Suspicion. I got hostility from your people, and indifference from you. I got second-best. Not once. But twice."

His face crumpled, but she kept going.

"It took bleeding out onto the sacred sands for me to be free of you, Hagan. Free of that bond that felt more like a shackle than a gift."

He stepped closer, cautiously, like she was something wild and hurting. Maybe she was.

"I've built a whole life around learning how not to need you," she whispered then, the edge in her voice softening but never dulling. "How to live without the bond. Without the pain. And now you're back and I feel it again. Like the earth re-opening under my feet."

He said nothing, only looked at her like she was the sun and he'd been wandering blind in the dark. Her voice, when it came, was quiet.

"I want to believe you," she said. "I do. "

His eyes searched hers, full of hope.

"But I don't know if I can."

He leaned closer, his presence warm even in the cool twilight.

"I know I am asking you to take a huge leap of faith.

After all, I have failed you in so many different ways.

If someone were to write a book on how not to treat your beloved, I would be on the front page.

I can't change the past, no matter how badly I want to.

All I can do is promise you that I'll never be that version of me again, Seren. It's not possible"

"That's what I'm afraid of," she said. Her smile was sad. "That you'll mean it now. That I'll fall. And one day you'll forget again."

She turned her face away, blinking hard.

"I don't know if I'm strong enough to survive you twice."

The silence stretched between them. And then, gently, he drew their joined hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles—not demanding, not pleading.

They sat on the edge of the stone ledge, the sun sliding lower, the sky streaked with rose and bronze. Below them, the sprawl of the city glimmered, a patchwork of lights and shadow.

Hagan held her hand gently between his, but now his eyes were fixed on the skyline. His voice came low, gravel-rough. He looked like she'd carved him open .

"There are nights I still wake up—sweating, choking—seeing you on that ground," he said with torment in his voice . "Bleeding out. Paler by the second. Your head had fallen forward. I couldn't reach you. Couldn't touch you. I'd never felt so helpless in my life."

Seren looked at him, but he didn't turn.

"I thought I'd lost every chance," he whispered. "That whatever shot I had at making things right was gone. Until your arm fell outside the circle. And I dragged you out like a madman."

His throat bobbed. "You were ice. And I thought I'd killed you."

Seren's heart twisted.

He turned to her then, finally, blue eyes raw.

"I kept away because I finally understood something." His voice trembled, not with weakness, but with restraint. "While I was free to be wild and stupid and spoiled, you —you were shackled. First, by the weight of your tribe. Then by mine. And then by me."

A breeze lifted strands of her hair. She said nothing, afraid that if she spoke, she'd crumble.

"You never got the childhood you deserved. Or the mate you were meant to have—the kind who should've worshipped the ground you walked on." He gave a bitter smile. "Instead, you got me. A fated fool who couldn't even figure out who he was, let alone how to deserve you. "

She tried to pull her hand away then, but he held on—gently, reverently.

"I've been here for two months," he said. "Trying. Learning. Failing. Watching."

He swallowed hard.

"I know I'm sometimes heavy-handed. Gods, I feel like I'm made of fists and growls half the time. It drives me mad to see other men look at you. The wild in me doesn't understand restraint when it comes to you."

She inhaled, slow and sharp.

"But I'm trying, Seren. I swear it. I can live with Threk being close to you because I know what he is to you. I know he'd die before he hurt you. But part of me still howls when I think of it. How the most precious thing in my life is being protected by someone else."

He looked down at their joined hands. Then up again, his expression open, raw, nothing held back.

"I know a better man would let you go. He'd want your peace more than his own happiness." His thumb brushed over her knuckles. "But I'm not that man."

He leaned in, voice barely more than breath.

"I'm going to keep showing up. Keep pushing your boundaries. Even your hatred is better than your indifference. I will keep trying to earn every inch of space beside you—until the day you choose someone else."

A beat of silence.

"And if that happens... I'll break. Quietly. Far away from you. But until then, I'm here. All in. Mine, if you'll still have me."