Chapter 188

Chapter 188
Kael

The question twisted like a knife, because I'd asked myself the same thing a thousand times during those first months at Zenith, when the nightmares were worst and the weight of all those deaths sat heavy on my chest. For what? For the chance to shape young soldiers who might fight smarter, survive longer, make better choices than the ones I'd been forced to make? For the desperate hope that teaching might atone for some small fraction of the blood on my hands?

Or just because I'd been so tired of killing, so sick of watching good soldiers die for causes that seemed increasingly meaningless, that teaching had felt like the only escape that wouldn't destroy me completely?

My father turned from the window, and I saw the verdict in his eyes before he even spoke. Disappointment. Resignation. The particular brand of contempt reserved for family members who fail to live up to the Striker name.

"You're thirty years old," he said, and each word fell like a hammer. "Your brother, at twenty-five, had already bonded with his mate, produced an heir, and secured his position in both military and political circles. You? You're still a captain teaching basic tactics, living alone, with no mate bond, no family prospects, no legacy to show for three decades of life."

The words shouldn't have hurt—I'd heard them before, in different configurations, different contexts, always carrying the same essential message: you are not enough, you have never been enough, you will never be enough.

But they hurt anyway. They always hurt.

"How much longer," my mother added, her voice carrying that particular blend of maternal concern and social embarrassment that made my skin crawl, "are we supposed to wait? Your father and I aren't getting younger. We'd like to see all our sons settled before we die. Alaric's boy calls us Grandma and Grandpa. He's learning to ride. He's learning the family business. What are you giving us? Empty promises and wasted potential?"

My fingers had gone numb where they gripped each other behind my back, my nails digging crescents into my palms. Thirty years. Thirty years of trying to earn their approval, their respect, their love. Thirty years of pushing myself harder, fighting better, achieving more, hoping that maybe this time, this accomplishment, this sacrifice would be enough to make them look at me the way they looked at Alaric.

And it had never been enough. It would never be enough.

Because the problem wasn't what I did or didn't achieve. The problem was that I wasn't Alaric, and I never would be.

The realization settled over me like ice water, sharp and clarifying. All those years of chasing their approval, and I'd been running after something that was never going to be offered. They didn't want me to succeed on my own terms. They wanted me to be a copy of my brother, and when I insisted on being myself, they saw it as failure.

Through the bond—thin and distant but still there—I felt Rhea. Her warmth, her fierce determination, her absolute refusal to be defined by anyone else's expectations. She'd run from a kingdom rather than accept a life someone else had chosen for her. She'd disguised herself, fought, bled, nearly died, all for the right to choose her own path.

And here I was, standing at attention in my childhood home, letting my parents reduce me to a list of failures because I'd never learned to stop seeking their validation.

Something in me shifted. Hardened. Crystallized into a resolve I'd never quite managed before.

I lifted my chin, meeting my father's eyes with a steadiness that came from finally, finally understanding what I was looking at. Not a father who loved me but didn't know how to show it. Not parents who wanted the best for me but expressed it poorly. Just two people who'd decided long ago that I was worth less than my brother, and who would never, could never see me as anything more than a disappointment.

"You asked why I left special forces," I said, and my voice came out steady, controlled, nothing like the screaming protest building in my chest. "I left because I watched too many soldiers die. Good soldiers. Young soldiers who'd trusted me to bring them home. And in their last moments, you know what they called for? Their mothers. Their mates. Their children. The people they loved."

My father's eyes narrowed, but I pressed on, the words coming faster now, thirty years of silence finally breaking.

"Not one of them called for glory. Not one of them died thinking about the honor they'd brought their families or the political capital their deaths might generate. They died scared and alone, and the last thing they wanted was someone who loved them to hold their hand."

"Kael—" my mother started, but I cut her off, something wild and desperate clawing its way up my throat.

"I became a teacher because I wanted to give those kids a better chance. I wanted to train soldiers who might actually survive, who might make it home to the people waiting for them. I wanted to do something that mattered beyond body counts and mission reports and classified commendations no one's allowed to read."

I took a breath, and the next words came out raw, scraped from some deep place I'd kept locked away for far too long. "And as for my mate—I found her. She's brave, and strong, and she sees me. Not my rank, not my family name, not my potential usefulness to Striker interests. Me. The person I am when I'm not trying to be someone's weapon or someone's disappointment."

My father's face had gone hard, his jaw tight with the kind of anger that usually preceded punishment. "And who exactly is this mate? What family? What connections can she bring to—"

"I don't care," I said, and the words felt like jumping off a cliff, terrifying and liberating all at once. "I don't care if she brings political connections or social advantages or anything else you think makes a person valuable. I love her. She loves me. And for the first time in my life, that's enough."

The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the ticking of the antique clock on the mantle—the same clock that had counted off the seconds of my childhood, marking time in a house where love was rationed and approval was earned through achievement.

Then my father laughed. A short, sharp bark of sound that held no humor, only contempt. "Love. You gave up your career, your position, your family's respect for love?"

"Yes," I said simply, and meant it with every fiber of my being.

My mother set down her embroidery, her elegant features arranged in an expression of pity that made my stomach turn. "Kael, darling, you're not thinking clearly. This girl, whoever she is—"

A knock interrupted her, sharp and urgent. The butler appeared in the doorway, his usually impassive face showing the first crack of emotion I'd ever seen there.

"Sir, Madam," he said, his voice carefully controlled. "Prince Alexander Winterbourne and Princess Rhea Winterbourne are at the gate, requesting an audience."

My father took a sudden step back and bumped into the chair. My mother's hands flew to her hair, her collar, smoothing invisible imperfections with movements made jerky by panic. The two people who'd spent the last half hour dissecting my failures with surgical precision now looked like students caught cheating by the headmaster.

"What—what?" My father's voice climbed half an octave, the crisp general's command fracturing into something almost shrill. "The Winterbournes? Here?"

"Yes, sir," the butler confirmed, and I could see him struggling to maintain professional neutrality.

"Get them—no, wait—" My father's hand went to his own collar, straightening a tie that didn't need straightening. "I'll greet them myself. Personally. Isolde, your hair—fix your hair. No, the other side. Kael, for Moon's sake, stand up straight, you look like—"

But I didn't move.

Three minutes ago, I'd been a disappointment. A failure. A waste of potential and family resources.

Now I was an inconvenience to be managed while they rushed to curry favor with royalty.

Confusion flickered through me. Rhea? Here? How did she even know where I was? I'd left before dawn, hadn't told her I was coming home—hadn't wanted her to see this weakness, this pathetic need for parental approval I should have outgrown a decade ago. I'd throttled down the bond to almost nothing, keeping my turmoil carefully contained so she wouldn't feel the shame of it, the hurt.

So how—?

But even as the questions swirled through my mind, something else stirred deep in my chest.

She'd come for me.

My mate had come for me.