Chapter 41 GUILT
(Adam’s POV)
Dawn came too quickly.
I remember waking to the soft creak of the cabin door as Kael stepped back inside after checking the perimeter. He thought I was still asleep, but I wasn’t. I’d barely slept at all. My head was on his chest most of the night, his arm heavy around my waist, and even though part of me hated how safe it made me feel… another part of me clung to it like I needed it to breathe.
But reality always comes back.
Kael is an Alpha. The Alpha. And his people needed him.
I couldn’t ask him to keep hiding out in a cabin in the woods with me, even if every piece of me wanted to stay there forever; far from whispers, far from fear. If possible, far from the burning marks that wouldn’t let me have peace.
So when the sun rose, I sat up and said the words that felt like swallowing stones.
“We should go back.”
Kael only looked at me for a long, heavy second. I could see the hope in his eyes, the hope that maybe I’d ask for one more day, one more hour. But he nodded. Because he always nods when it comes to my comfort, even when it hurts him.
The whole ride home, I tried not to think about the proposal. About Kael kneeling under the cherry blossoms, voice trembling when he asked me to marry him. I tried not to think about the way he looked after I said no… like I had taken a blade and pushed it straight through his chest.
Guilt… didn’t leave me. Not even for a minute.
I didn’t regret saying no, because I’m not ready. My life is already a mess; binding it to his would only drag him deeper into the ruin that seems to follow me everywhere. But I hated the way I said it. I hated how unprepared I was. I hated the silence that followed.
Kael didn’t bring it up again. But that somehow made the guilt worse.
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A few days passed after we returned to the pack house.
Nothing got better.
If anything, everything fell apart faster.
The marks burned more frequently now. At first I could hide them with long sleeves or staying in the room, but after the last flare, the glow had reached my neck and almost half of my face: my jaw, my cheek…
People saw.
People talked.
And news spread like wildfire through the pack, and especially to the elders, to the council members, to everyone who already doubted Kael’s decisions since the moment he refused to hand me over to the Star Moon pack.
I could hear whispers around every corner.
“The cursed human thing.”
“The unstable outsider.”
“The burden dragging the Alpha down.”
They weren’t wrong.
That part is what makes it ache the most. They weren’t wrong.
The elders called for an immediate meeting, and Kael pulled me along with him despite my protest. He sat me beside him at the long council table, as if daring anyone to question my right to be there.
And of course… they did.
“Alpha Kael,” one of the Elders began in that too-calm voice that always meant trouble, “the boy’s strange mark is unstable. Dangerous. We cannot risk the safety of the pack any longer. He must be isolated.”
The word isolated hit me hard. It wasn’t just isolation. They meant exile. Containment. Locking me away somewhere until either I stopped glowing or the marks consumed me entirely.
Kael’s hand closed around mine under the table.
He spoke before I could.
“No.” One word. Final.
The elders exchanged looks, the kind that said we knew he’d say that.
Another elder leaned forward. “Then hand him over to Star Moon. They created this mark. Let them fix what they started.”
Fix.
Fix.
As if I’m a broken object passed from one owner to another.
I felt my stomach twist.
Kael’s chair scraped the floor as he stood. “Adam is my mate.” His voice thundered through the room. “He will be treated with the same respect you give me.”
The same respect they give him.
I almost laughed. It was a bitter sound, stuck in my throat.
They respect him… but they fear he’s losing control.
And because I’m the reason, they fear me too.
I could understand their concern, even if I hated being the cause of it. People had children. Responsibilities. Lives worth protecting. And every day that passed, Star Moon pushed harder, their threats more violent, their attacks closer to home.
They fear their Alpha leader is descending into his downfall. What were the chances Kael wasn’t, in fact, descending into downfall?
He’s defending me against elders twice his age, threatening to fight an entire pack because of me, watching his people suffer because of his choice to shelter someone like me. Someone who can barely keep himself together, someone who wakes screaming from nightmares, someone who has to cling to his shirt just to breathe through a burning skin.
Someone who rejected his proposal.
My chest tightened.
After the meeting ended, Kael walked out stiffly, jaw clenched, fury still vibrating off him. He didn’t speak. He just pulled me along by the hand, through the hall, back to our room.
I sat on the edge of the bed first. He stood across the room, breathing hard.
The guilt pressed down on me like a physical weight.
I finally whispered, “You didn’t have to defend me like that.”
Kael turned sharply. “Yes, I do have to.”
“You’re their Alpha,” I said weakly. “You’re supposed to lead them. Not fight them because of—”
“Because of you?” His eyes softened then, painfully. “I’d fight the world for you, Adam.”
And that was the problem.
He shouldn’t have to.
He shouldn’t have to choose between his pack and someone like me.
I looked down at my hands. My fingers trembled. Small dots of light pulsed under the skin, threatening another flare.
“Maybe they’re right,” I whispered. “Maybe I should stay away from everyone.”
Kael sat beside me immediately. “You are not a threat.”
“But I am a problem,” I said, voice breaking. “And you’re trying so hard to pretend it’s fine when it’s not. Your pack is scared. They’re suffering. You’re suffering. And the marks—” I swallowed as another small burn flickered through my arm. “Kael, I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
His silence after that made everything worse.
I knew he had theories; about me supposedly having a dormant wolf, about Star Moon… but he didn’t want to say anything that would hurt me more.
So we sat there together in suffocating silence, surrounded by problems neither of us knew how to fix.
And underneath it all… the guilt stayed.
The guilt of rejecting him.
Not because I suddenly wanted to marry him. I wasn’t ready. I’m still not ready. But I keep replaying the moment in my head; the way his face fell, the hurt he didn’t hide fast enough.
I wish he’d never asked.
I wish I didn’t remember the way his heart sounded under my ear as he slept last night.
I wish I didn’t secretly like how safe I feel when he touches me.
I wish I wasn’t this confused.
But the truth stays the same: Kael deserves someone who can be his strength, not someone the pack wants locked away.
I rubbed the back of my hand over my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said softly.
“For what?” his voice dropped, quiet but firm.
“For everything.”
Kael shook his head immediately, but I could see in his eyes that he didn’t know how to fix this any more than I did. He could fight everyone, but he couldn’t fight what I felt.
Or what was happening to me.
Outside, I could hear distant voices. The pack moving around. Talking. Whispering. Afraid.
And all of it was because of me.
I pressed a hand to my burning skin and breathed out shakily.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I repeated, voice thin. “But I know you shouldn’t be dragged down with me.”
Kael reached out slowly; so slowly, like he expected me to run… and placed his palm on the back of my neck.
“I told you before,” he said, eyes locked on mine, steady and warm and terrifying. “You’re not dragging me down. You’re the reason I keep trying. Our bond is worth the fight.”
I closed my eyes.
And the guilt only grew heavier.