Rose POV
Rose had been crying in the library for three hours.
She sat between the tall shelves with a book nobody would read and tried to make sense of what Sienna had told her. Execution. The word kept bouncing around in her head like a ball she couldn't catch. They were planning to execute her. The council had decided. If she became too much of a problem, if she destabilized the pack enough, they would kill her.
She'd been here for two days.
Two days and her entire life was already over. She couldn't go home. She couldn't leave. She couldn't even exist without being a threat to everyone around her.
The footsteps made her look up.
Kade appeared between the shelves like he'd been looking for her. His expression was broken. His eyes were red like he'd been crying too. He looked at her and for a moment he didn't move. Just stood there like he was fighting with himself.
Then he sat down beside her without asking permission.
"I don't hate you," he said quietly.
Rose didn't know what to say to that.
"I hate this situation. I hate that you exist and it's making me feel things I shouldn't feel. I hate that I've been loyal to Chase my entire life and now I'm thinking about things that would destroy him. But I don't hate you."
Rose looked at him and understood that he was breaking. That something inside Kade was cracking open and she was the reason.
"What are you feeling?" she asked, even though she was terrified of the answer.
Kade didn't answer right away. He just sat there in the darkness of the library shelves and breathed like it was hard work.
"Like you're supposed to be mine," he said finally. "Like something in my bones knows you. Like the last seven years of my life were just waiting for you to exist so I could finally understand what I've been missing."
Rose's heart was pounding so hard she thought he could hear it.
"That doesn't make sense. You don't even know me."
"I know. It doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense." Kade turned to look at her and his eyes were so sad it made her chest hurt. "But my instincts don't care about sense. They just know that you're mine and I'm terrified because I can't have you and I can't stop wanting you."
He looked away like he couldn't stand to see her face anymore.
Rose felt something shift inside her. She understood what he was saying because she was feeling it too. The pull toward both of them. The way Chase made her feel protected and Kade made her feel seen. The way her body wanted to be close to them even though her mind knew it was impossible.
She reached out and touched his hand.
The moment her skin made contact with his, the entire world exploded.
Electricity shot through both of them so intense that Rose gasped. But it wasn't just electricity. It was connection. It was their bond snapping into place like a lock finding its key. She could hear something that sounded like music but wasn't. A sound that existed only between them. A scent that filled the air and made everything else disappear.
Her bond with Kade was singing.
It was intimate and dangerous and it changed everything. Rose could feel him. Could feel his emotions pouring into her like they were connected at a cellular level. Could feel his love and his desire and his absolute desperation to keep her safe.
Kade pulled his hand away like she'd burned him.
He jerked back so fast he knocked over a stack of books. His breathing was heavy. His eyes were wild. He looked at her like she was both the most beautiful thing and the most dangerous thing he'd ever seen.
"Don't do that," he said, and his voice was rough. Raw. Like it was costing him everything to say those words.
"What? Touch you?"
"Don't touch me like that. Don't make me feel things that will destroy everything." He stood up and started pacing like he couldn't stand to be still. "The bond is too strong. If I let it, if I give in to what I'm feeling, I'm going to do something I can't take back."
Rose stood up too. "Like what?"
"Like claim you. Like mark you. Like tell the entire pack that you're mine and I don't care what the Alpha says. Like start a war that will kill people because I can't control myself around you."
He was looking at her now and she could see the hunger in his eyes. The war between his instincts and his loyalty. The way he wanted to touch her but forced his hands to stay at his sides.
"I'm sorry," Rose whispered.
"Don't be sorry. Don't apologize for existing. Just don't touch me again. Please. I'm barely holding on."
He walked toward the door.
Rose wanted to call him back. Wanted to tell him that she felt it too. That her bond with him was singing and she could still hear it echoing in her bones. That she didn't want him to leave.
But she could see how much control it was taking him to walk away. Could see the trembling in his shoulders. Could see that if he stayed, if she touched him again, something would break and there was no putting it back together.
"Kade, wait," she called out anyway.
He stopped at the library entrance but he didn't turn around.
"Tomorrow night. I'm coming to your room. And we're leaving together. You and me and Chase. We're getting away from this pack, away from the council, away from everything that's trying to tear us apart."
Rose's heart stopped.
"What about the pack? What about your loyalty?"
Kade finally turned to look at her and his expression was resolved. Decided. Like he'd already made peace with whatever was coming.
"I choose you over all of it. And you need to understand what that means. By choosing me, by letting me claim you, you're going to destroy this entire pack. You're going to start a war. People are going to die because of us."
He left before she could respond.
Rose stood alone in the library with her heart pounding and her bond still singing for a man who'd just told her that loving him meant destruction. Meant betrayal. Meant blood.
She could hear voices somewhere in the compound. Pack members moving around. Going about their lives like the world wasn't about to end.
Rose sat back down and put her head in her hands and cried.
Not because she was scared.
But because she knew she was going to say yes to Kade. She was going to leave with him and Chase. She was going to choose the two men she barely knew over her own safety. She was going to burn down an entire pack because her heart couldn't survive without them.
And there was nothing she could do to stop it.
The tears fell faster and Rose realized she wasn't crying for herself anymore.
She was crying for everyone who was about to pay the price for her existence.
She was crying for the war that was coming.
She was crying for the blood that would spill because she couldn't choose between two men when she should have chosen neither.
Behind her, in the shadows of the library, a figure watched and smiled.
Sienna had heard everything.