Chapter 31 The Edge
Kier's POV
I had tried to stay away.
Gods know, I had tried.
For five years I built walls high enough to block out the scent of her, work deep enough to drown out the sound of her name. I turned Ironclad into an empire. I became the man the pack expected—the Alpha in waiting, the businessman with the city at his feet.
And still, the bond hummed beneath it all. Faint at first, then sharper each year, like a splinter working deeper into my skin. A heartbeat I couldn’t forget. A thread I couldn’t cut.
Then she walked into my boardroom.
Five years, and there she was—standing at the far end of my table, confident, polished, a stranger in human clothes and yet achingly familiar. The sight had gutted me. My wolf had surged so violently I’d nearly gone to her in front of everyone.
The scent of her. The sound of her voice. The way her eyes slid over me like I was a stranger. It was a knife twisting deeper with every second.
By the time the meeting ended, my wolf was pacing, claws scraping my ribs. She was here. She was within reach. And I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
I told myself to wait. To think. To plan.
But by nightfall, waiting was impossible.
So I found her.
Not because of power, or control, or any claim. Because I had to. Because if I didn’t see her—if I didn’t breathe her in, even once more—I was going to tear myself apart from the inside.
I told myself I would be calm. That I would speak, not demand. That I would offer her a choice.
I believed it, right up until she opened the door.
She stood there in only a loose T-shirt, bare feet, her chestnut hair spilling down her shoulders. She smelled like warm sheets and city air and still, impossibly, like cedar smoke and rain. My heart slammed against my ribs. The bond surged so hard my knees nearly buckled.
And she looked at me like I was a stranger. Like I was an intrusion.
I told myself I just needed to see her. To breathe her in. To prove she was real and not a ghost I’d conjured from memory. I didn’t go as Alpha-in-waiting, or as Ironclad’s master. I went as a man driven half-mad by the mate bond, clinging to the one thread that had bound me through every year of her absence.
But Sable was no ghost. She was flesh and fire, standing in her doorway with fury in her eyes and walls around her heart.
And when I reached for her, she gave me nothing but rejection.
The door slammed in my face, final as a blade to the chest.
I stood there, fists trembling at my sides, my wolf howling for me to break it down, to claim what was ours. But I forced myself still, pressing my palms to the wall just to keep from moving. If I gave in, if I let instinct take me, I would destroy the one thing I swore to protect: her freedom.
So I walked away.
But her words still rang in my head, sharp and brutal. Go.
She’d meant it. Every syllable had landed like a killing blow, and though my wolf refused to understand, I had.
Every step down the hall felt like a death sentence, every breath a war between my wolf and my will. By the time I reached the car, my chest was a battlefield of rage and longing, my body thrumming with the mate bond’s cruel fire.
The drive back to my penthouse was a blur, the city lights streaking past like fireflies. I kept replaying the look in her eyes—the fury, the betrayal, the wall she’d built brick by brick in my absence. That look hurt worse than the rejection itself. She didn’t just want me gone. She didn’t trust me.
And gods, maybe she was right not to.
By the time I reached the penthouse, the ache had hollowed me out. I stripped off my jacket, loosened my tie, and sank into the armchair in the living room. The glass walls gave me the whole skyline, glittering and endless, but all I could see was her. Barefoot in her doorway. Fire in her voice. The bond thrumming between us, alive and cruel.
My wolf paced inside me, restless, snarling. She was near and yet impossibly far, still tethered to me but beyond reach. It was torment. Every breath of the city air felt wrong without her scent in it.
I dragged a hand over my face, the sting of exhaustion pulling at me. I should have felt in control—Alpha-in-waiting, Ironclad’s master, heir to a legacy. Instead, I felt raw, stripped, barely holding on.
That’s when I caught it.
Not cedar smoke. Not storm winds. Something sweeter. Heavier. Too familiar.
Liora.
Her scent drifted down the hall, floral and cloying. My wolf growled instantly, unsettled, but I was too worn down to summon anger. Too hollow to send her away before even seeing her.
I pushed open the bedroom door.
She was waiting.
Naked, sprawled across silk sheets, eyes dark with hunger. Her legs spread, pussy dripping with her arousal. The scent heavy in the air, wrapping around me.
“Welcome home baby” she said softly. "She doesn’t want you, Kier. But I do. I always have.”
Her voice was silk, her body an invitation. For a moment, the storm inside me paused, torn between fury and temptation.
I stepped closer, drawn by exhaustion and anger, by the need to drown out the bond’s fire, just for a moment. She got onto her knees meeting me at the edge of the bed. Her hand slid along my jaw, soft, steady.
And when her lips met mine, it was heat. Desperate, reckless, wrong.
But the bond roared in protest, my wolf slamming against my ribs, howling in rage. Not her. Not ours.
I tore away, breathing hard, the taste of her still on my lips. My hands shook with restraint, with the war inside me.
Liora’s eyes searched mine, pleading. “She left you, Kier. She left you five years ago. How much more proof do you need to know I'm the one for you? Let her go. Let me in.”
I stared at her, chest heaving. The hard peaks of her nipples rubbing against my shirt.
Temptation was a knife, sharp and sweet. But no matter how much I wanted to cut away the pain, no matter how deep the ache of rejection went, the truth was unshakable.
“I can’t,” I said hoarsely. “Because she’s mine. Whether she wants it or not. No one else will ever be. Get dressed and get out."
Her face fell, her eyes burning with hurt. But I couldn’t soften it. I couldn’t lie.
I turned away, fists clenched, heart split between fury and longing.
And I knew: if I didn’t get control soon, I might not just lose Sable.
I might lose myself.