Chapter 38 Boundaries
Kier’s POV
The city below my office window pulsed like a living thing—streets glinting with headlights, glass towers cutting the sky, the hum of a thousand ambitions whispering against the night. My palms pressed flat to the cold pane, shoulders braced. From this height, everything looked small. Manageable. Prey.
But I couldn’t stop hearing her voice.
“Ironclad will need to decide if it wants to be chosen… or if it’s content to be feared.”
Sable’s words had sliced through the boardroom hours ago, cool and sharp as a blade. In front of my team. In front of hers. She’d thrown the challenge down like a gauntlet, and goddess help me, I admired it. My wolf prowled under my skin, pacing and restless, aching to chase her down. To pull her back where she belonged.
But instinct had no place here. Not yet. She’d come back. She had to.
The soft click of my office door broke my concentration. No knock. Of course.
Liora slipped inside like a shadow, closing the door with unnecessary care. Her blouse was unbuttoned a fraction too far, dark hair glossy over her shoulders. The look in her eyes wasn’t new, but it burned sharper tonight—intent, calculated, desperate.
“You need something, Liora?” I asked, my tone flat. A warning. She wasn’t welcome. Not now.
Her smile wavered but she came closer anyway. “You don’t have to do this to yourself, Kier.” Her voice was honey stretched over steel. “She left you. She made her choice. I’m still here.”
I lowered myself into my chair behind the desk, deliberately slow, my eyes never leaving hers. “And I didn’t ask you to be.”
The words should have stopped her. They didn’t.
She circled the desk, slow and deliberate, like a predator stalking prey. Then, before I could move, she dropped to her knees at my side. Her hands slid over my thigh, fingers trailing heat I didn’t want.
“You don’t have to ask,” she whispered, her lips too close to my skin. “I can give you everything she never would. I can be your Luna.”
For one heartbeat, rage and temptation tangled like barbed wire in my chest. My wolf snarled at her touch, revolted. But the ache of rejection—the hollow Sable had left behind—made the offer sting with dangerous appeal.
And then the mate bond roared.
It slammed through me like fire, a violent, living reminder of who was mine. Sable’s fire. Her defiance. Her strength. It burned hotter than Liora’s hands ever could.
I caught her wrist in a grip of steel and yanked her hand away. “Enough.”
Her eyes widened, startled, but I didn’t soften.
“You mistake proximity for permission,” I said, my voice low, dangerous. “I let you serve at my side because you were competent. Loyal. But don’t confuse loyalty with destiny.”
Her lips trembled, pride cracking like thin ice. “I rejected my mate for you,” she spat, her voice breaking. “I gave up everything because I thought—”
“That was your choice,” I cut in sharply. “Not mine. Don’t lay it at my feet like a debt I owe.”
Her shoulders shook. For a heartbeat, I almost pitied her. Almost. But pity was weakness, and weakness had no place here.
“You don’t even see what she’s done to you,” she whispered, the sweetness gone from her voice. “She’s going to walk away again, Kier. And when she does, who will be left?”
“I’m not interested in someone who isn't my mate,” I said, leaning back in my chair, my stare unrelenting. “If you ever put yourself at my feet again, Liora, you won’t just lose your position. You’ll lose the right to stand anywhere near me. Do you understand?”
Silence stretched between us, brittle as glass. Her breath came sharp and fast.
Finally, she pushed to her feet, smoothing her blouse like armor. “You’ll regret this,” she hissed. “When she leaves you again. When you’re alone.”
“Get out,” I said, quietly. Deadly.
Her eyes glittered with something between fury and heartbreak before she turned on her heel and stormed out, the door slamming hard enough to rattle the window glass.
I stayed still, staring at the space she’d left behind. My pulse was sharp, my wolf prowling under my skin with restless fury.
The city outside went on humming. Cars. Lights. People. All of it meaningless noise.
Sable had left me once. She thought she could walk away again.
But I wasn’t that boy anymore—the boy who waited, the boy who begged. I had built an empire from steel and instinct, from every scrap of power the world tried to deny me. I would not break. I would not bend. And I would not lose her.
Not again.
My phone buzzed on the desk. A message from my secretary: Shall I confirm with Everbright a follow-up meeting? You have an opening for Friday morning.
I stared at the screen, Sable’s name already written between the lines. She’d be there. She’d walk into my space again. I would be ready.
“Confirm it,” I typed back. “And clear my afternoon.”
If Sable thought she could outrun the bond, she was wrong.
I pushed back from the desk and stood, returning to the glass wall, my reflection burning back at me—dark eyes, sharper edges, the wolf’s hunger a shadow beneath my skin.
Somewhere in the city, she was breathing, living, pretending the space between us was freedom. But space was an illusion. So were boundaries.
I’d drag the world to its knees before I let her go a second time.