I followed my mate until we reached an old estate at the edge of the forest.
Not a pack house. Not a council-owned safehouse.
An abandoned family property—one of those quiet, off-record holdings the mafia never put in registries. No cameras. No guards on paper. The kind of place that only existed because powerful men decided it should.
I had never known he still kept it.
Not until I died.
Not until my soul was already slipping out of my body did I learn that someone else had been living there all along.
Selira Nightshade.
His former lover.
The woman the underworld still whispered about in the same breath as his name.
Three months ago, she had been taken by a rival syndicate that trafficked in experimental drugs—black-market powders that broke men before they died. Kaelen was the one who led the extraction operation. The one who burned half a warehouse district just to get her back.
After that… he never really let her go.
And I never knew where he went when he didn’t come home.
A sharp ache curled through what was left of me.
So this was it.
Not late-night strategy meetings. Not enforcement work.
Her.
He arrived like a storm breaking loose—boots hitting gravel too fast, hand already on his weapon before he even reached the door.
“Selira.”
No answer.
Then the door slammed open.
Inside, she was by the fireplace, wrapped in a blanket, small and trembling like she’d been waiting for this exact moment.
The second she saw him, she stood.
And ran straight into him.
Kaelen caught her without hesitation.
At first his body stayed rigid—pure instinct, trained restraint.
Then slowly… his arm came around her.
Like muscle memory.
Like he had done it too many times before.
“It’s alright,” he said low, voice stripped of everything except control. “You’re safe now. No one followed you.”
Selira’s fingers clutched his coat like she was afraid he’d disappear again.
“You were gone too long,” she whispered. “I thought they’d come back for me.”
“I was at the council,” he said. “They brought in the remains from the tunnels. I had to confirm the case myself.”
Her grip loosened slightly.
“The one everyone’s talking about?” she asked carefully.
“Yes.”
His jaw tightened.
“Pregnant female. Dismembered. Left as a warning.”
Selira went still. “That’s… cruel.”
Her voice shook.
But her eyes didn’t.
They stayed on him too long. Watching. Measuring.
Kaelen didn’t notice.
He never did when she looked at him like that.
“The womb was cut open,” he continued quietly, almost like he was trying to convince himself it was just another case. “The pup removed. Then something was inserted—chemical residue. Unknown origin.”
Selira inhaled sharply. “Have they found the people responsible?”
“Not yet.”
His gaze hardened.
“But if this is connected to the powder trade, it’s the same network that took you before.”
A pause.
Then—
“You stay here,” he said. “Don’t leave this estate. Don’t make yourself visible.”
“I won’t,” she said immediately.
Too quickly.
Too obedient.
Then she tilted her head slightly, careful, like she already knew where to step and where not to.
“Kaelen… does your wife not object?”
The word landed in the room like a dropped weapon.
For a second, something in his expression shifted.
Cold. Sharp.
Then gone.
“If it weren’t for her,” he said flatly, “my father would still be alive.”
Silence.
The fire crackled between them.
Kaelen turned away like he’d already ended the conversation.
“Enough. Rest.”
But Selira reached for him again anyway.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
And just like that—his voice changed.
Lower. Softer. Immediate.
“I’m here,” he said. “Sleep. I’ll stay until you do.”
So he did.
He stayed.
Sitting beside her bed in that old estate bought with blood money and buried secrets, speaking in a voice I no longer recognized as mine.
The same voice that once promised me forever now belonged to someone else’s safety.
I stood in the doorway no one could see.
Watching the man I died for become the man I never truly had.
And for the first time, I understood something clearly.
In his world of contracts, bloodlines, and silent wars—
I was never the wife.
Just an obstacle he learned how to ignore.
