Chapter 47 Why I Like Cian
Malia’s POV
The scent of a little burnt bacon lures me downstairs.
I stop at the bottom of the stairs, suddenly hyper-conscious of the too-big gray henley I’m still wearing—Aiden’s—and how it’s riding up over my thighs. My hair is a disaster. My lips still feel tender and the wolf pendant lies warm against my collarbone like a brand I can’t conceal.
I should have changed. Should have showered. Should have done everything to look less like I just spent the night wrapped in one brother while another walked away with his heart in pieces.
But the kitchen light is already on, and the distant sound of voices halts me in my tracks.
They are all three there. Shirtless, all of them.
The image punches me in the gut and instead of them being embarrassed, I find hest rushing up my cheeks.
Aiden leans against the open fridge door, broad shoulders glistening under the overhead lights, dark hair still sleep-tousled. Baird stands at the counter, in my head shirt sleeves rolled up (I’m pretending he’s not wearing a shirt), the muscles of his back sliding as he places plates. And Cian—quiet, steady Cian—baking at the stove, spatula in hand, gray eyes on the pan as if it holds the secrets of the universe? All of them look like hot super models and I swallow.
Smoke, coffee and testosterone pervade the kitchen.
I freeze in the doorway.
Aiden sees me first.
His mouth comes up with a slow, bad smile that makes me stomach flip even when I’m trying to be guilty. He takes the glass jug of milk out of the fridge, brings it straight to his lips and drinks like he’s dying of thirst. A slender white line runs down his chin; he moistened it with the back of his hand, his eyes still on mine.
“Morning princess,” he drawls.
Rowan stiffens. Doesn’t look up, continues setting the table—forks are all lined up perfectly, napkins folded by the military. His jaw is clenched, but he doesn’t say a word.
Cian glances over his shoulder. Nothing in his expression—calm, inscrutable—changes, but the line of his mouth relaxes.
“Grab a seat,” he says simply, gesturing to the head of the table. “Food’s almost ready.”
I move like I’m walking through water. They treat me as though I’m royalty.
Aiden slides a plate in front of me first — bacon (the less‐burnt ones), scrambled eggs, toast with butter. Rowan silently adds a small bowl of sliced fruit, fanning the strawberries with great care. His last action is to set the mug of coffee black, two sugars, exactly how I like it down on the table then he pulls out the chair for me and takes his seat opposite me.
We have our meal in quiet stillness.
The only noise to be heard is the clatter of cutlery on china, the occasional clink of a cup, the gentle creak of seats.
Aiden’s hand is on my thigh under the table. I bite my lip.
His palm is warm, tender, familiar. His thumb strokes slow, lazy circles over my knee—hidden form the rest, but intentional. Possessive.
I don’t push him away.
I can’t.
Rowan’s gaze remains on his plate.He eats mechanically, every movement controlled . When he at last looks up, it is only for a brief moment — long enough for our eyes to meet, long enough for me to glimpse the pain darting behind the calm.
He averts his gaze first.
Cian sees all.
He doesn’t talk. Doesn’t judge. Just observes, grey eyes as unblinking as the night sky.
Breakfast concludes as quietly as it started.
Aiden squeezes my thigh once more, final, before rising. Rowan silently consumes his plate and vanishes upstairs. Just long enough to stack the dishes, then Cian slips out the back door and into the secluded courtyard.
I follow him.
Because I can't breathe in that kitchen anymore.
The courtyard is hidden behind the crumbling exterior wall of the dormitory, off in plain sight but accessible only by a narrow walkway framed by ivy-laden arches. Moonlight streams through the boughs of towering oaks, glittering on the mossy bench where Cian normally waits.
He’s there now. Legs stretched out, sketchpad balanced on one knee, charcoal moving in slow, sure strokes.
He never looks up as I draw near.
I sit beside him any way—at a distance where our shoulders nearly met, but far enough away to give him the illusion that he could look away from me.
For a long time neither of us utters a single word.
It is cool in the night air on my bare legs. The henley is not sufficient, but I don’t mind. I require silence.
At length the words come.
“I’ve hurt him,” I whisper. “Rowan. I never meant to Rowan. And now everything’s… The bond, the rumors. The way everyone looks at me like I’m some hybrid anomaly who’s going to be the downfall of the Moonfall line. Lydia’s got one thing right — I’m turning you all against each other."
Cian’s charcoal pauses.
He doesn’t interrupt.
I keep going, my voice splintering at the margins.
“I never asked for this. Any of it. I never chose the bond. I didn’t choose three alphas. I didn’t pick to be the thing that makes Rowan look like somebody punched him in the soul. But still, I did. Last night. With Aiden. And Rowan went and saw. He saw, and he just… walked away. ”
My hands scrunch up the hem of the shirt.
“I don’t know how to fix it.”
Cian places the sketchpad on the bench between us.
“You can’t help what you feel,” he says finally, voice low and even. “And neither can they. The bond doesn’t give you a choice—it just is.”
So when I look at him—really look.
Moonlight sculpts layered shadows within all the jagged angles of his face. His hair is silver on the edges, his eyes are the color of storm clouds, calm even in this moment.
He turns the sketchpad toward me. Three wolves.
Large and powerful, all are different in posture and look. One snarls, teeth bared—Aiden. RowanOne stand guard, ears pricked—Rowan. The third one sit apart, his headaching, his eyes unwavering — that is Cian himself.
They surround a smaller figure in the middle.
A derivative wolf—smaller, darker fur, eyes wide and unsure. Me.
The three larger wolves are not attacking.
They’re shielding.
But they are also looking at each other, shoulders stiff, hackles up, caught in a triangle of confrontation.
I feel a lump in my throat.
“They’re fighting ‘cause they don’t know how to share,” Cian continues quietly. “Aiden wants to claim. Rowan wants to cherish. I…” He exhales. “I want to understand. To wait till you’re ready to decide what you need. Only the bond doesn’t care a fig about our preferences. It’s older than hierarchy. Older than Mooncrest. Older than bloodlines.”
He runs one finger along the smallest wolf’s edge. “Maybe that’s not what the bond wants,” he says. “Maybe it wants all of us.”
I stare at the sketch.
My heart is beating too loudly in my ears.
“Have you ever thought,” Cian asks, voice barely a whisper, “that you don’t have to pick?”
The question lies between us like smoke, I look up at him.
His expression is serious and steady. No need to ask. No jealousy, nothing but truth, exposed in the moonlight.
“I don’t know if I can do that,” I confess.
“All three of you. The campus would shred me. The purebloods already want to kill me for existing. A hybrid with three alpha heirs? They’d call it blasphemy. They’d call me greedy. Dangerous.”
“Let them.”
These are such simple words they literally take my breath away.
Cian leans in — just enough for me to feel the heat of him, the quiet power that never needs to shout.
“They’ll always have something to say. Hierarchy summons it, tradition summons it. But the bond?” He taps the sketch lightly. “The bond is not subject to them. It answers to you. And to us. If we can find a way to be in the same sun without incinerating each other… that’s where the real strength is. Not picking just one. But picking them all.”
I swallow, hard.
His hand covers mine on the armrest- tender, warm, cautious.
“You don’t need to decide tonight,” he says. “I’m not expecting you to promise anything. I'm not even asking you to consider it. To maybe the thing that feels impossible is the thing the bond has been trying to teach us all along. ”
Moonlight glints off the charcoal dust on his fingers. I don’t back down…I don’t speak.
And I just sit there, hand beneath his, watching three wolves revolve around a tiny, unsure hybrid.
And for the first time since the bond awakened in me, the pressure in my chest doesn't feel quite so suffocating.
Because Cian—quiet, patient, devastatingly nice Cian—doesn’t expect me to make a choice.
He just makes me think that maybe, just maybe, I never had to… and that’s probably one of the reasons I like Cian.