Chapter 31 Chapter 31 – Broken Trust

Chapter 31 Chapter 31 – Broken Trust
Kira POV

The door clicks shut behind him with deceptive gentleness, the sound echoing in the sudden silence like the last nail in a coffin. I stand frozen in the middle of the room, his crumpled note still clenched in my fist so tightly the parchment has torn at the edges. My knuckles are white. My breathing shallow. Every drop of his blood hitting the stone floor sounds obscenely loud—plink, plink, plink—like accusations timed to my heartbeat.
I look at him.
He leans against the door because standing straight costs too much. His shirt is soaked dark from ribs to waist, the fabric clinging to the ragged claw marks beneath. Steel-gray eyes meet mine without flinching, without apology, without anything soft. Just that iron certainty I used to admire and now hate with every fiber of my being.
"You promised together," I say. My voice comes out low, measured, almost calm. The calm of a blade held steady before the strike.
"I lied," he answers, rough from pain and exhaustion. "So, you'd still be breathing when I came back."
The mate bond answers before I can. His pain slams into my side—sharp, burning, wet—as though invisible claws had ripped through me too. My knees buckle for half a second. Black spots dance at the corners of my vision. I press a hand to my ribs and feel nothing but unbroken skin, yet the agony is real. Visceral. Proof in blood and fire that the bond has fully reactivated after the marriage ritual. If he bleeds out here, I follow.
"Sit," I order.
He doesn't move.
"Sit," I repeat, colder. "Or fall. Your choice. But I'm not carrying your corpse through this compound tonight."
Something flickers in his gaze—recognition, maybe respect—but he pushes off the door and limps to the heavy oak chair by the hearth. Each step leaves a smear of red on the flagstones. He sits without a sound, though his jaw clenches white.
I cross the room in three strides, yank the medical kit from the shelf, and drop to my knees in front of him. Forced proximity. No escape. No hiding behind alpha posturing or mate-bond excuses. I tear his shirt open with one vicious pull. Buttons scatter across the floor like broken promises.
The wound is brutal—three deep parallel gashes across his ribs, edges ragged, bone visible at the bottom of the longest one. The metallic scent of blood mixes with pine sap and the faint unnatural tang of whatever clawed him.
I don't gentle my touch. I clean the wound with stinging alcohol, press hard enough to make him hiss through his teeth. He doesn't complain. Doesn't pull away.
"You kissed me," I say as I work, voice low and precise. "You held my face between your hands and told me we'd face it together. You looked into my eyes and let me believe—for one idiotic, desperate moment—that you saw me as a partner. Not a thing to be protected. Not a weakness to be shielded. A partner."
His jaw ticks. "I do trust you."
"No." I meet his gaze over the bloody cloth. "You trust me to survive. You trust me to stay behind walls while you bleed for answers. You trust me to be grateful. That isn't trust. That's possession."
He doesn't deny it.
I pack the wound with clotting salve and wrap it tight with linen. Every press of my fingers sends fresh waves of his pain through the bond. My own breath hitches. Sweat beads on my forehead. The room tilts once; I grip his knee to steady myself.
"If you die from this," I whisper, "I die too. The bond isn't romantic anymore, Damon. It's a death sentence we share. And you still chose to walk out alone."
"I know," he says quietly.
"Then why—"
"Because I would do it again." His voice is flat, unyielding. "Every single time. I would leave you sleeping, walk into every trap, take every claw, if it meant you stayed behind these wards. I would do worse."
I finish the bandage. My hands shake as I tie the final knot.
I stand. He reaches into his jacket with a wince and pulls out a folded parchment from Lila's camp. Holds it out. I take it. Unfold it slowly.
…daughter of both lines… anchor cannot wake without the blood of the crescent and the shadow… if she reaches it first, the waking reverses. Marcus knows. He's waiting…
My stomach plummets. I look back at him.
"What else?"
He produces the small metal disc—black interlocking circles around a central staring eye. No pack sigil. Nothing I recognize.
"They weren't Shadowmere," he says. "Not Marcus's wolves. Something older. Something watching. They spoke of a daughter. Marked. The waking begins."
I stare at the disc until my eyes burn.
"You kept this from me, too," I say, soft as a blade.
"I brought it back to show you."
"After you lied. After you bled alone. After you decided my life was yours to gamble with."
He doesn't answer.
I throw the parchment at his chest. It flutters to the floor between us like a dead bird. The silence stretches, thick with everything we're not saying. I can feel the bond pulling—his guilt, his fear, the stubborn love he won't voice. It only makes me angrier.
I step back, putting distance between us for the first time since he walked in bleeding.
"If you ever lie to me like that again," I tell him, voice barely above a whisper, "I walk. Bond or no bond. I will walk until the tether snaps, and we both bleed out on whatever ground we're standing on."
He looks up at me—really looks. For the first time since he limped through the door, something fractures in his expression. Not regret. Not surrender. Just the raw acknowledgment of what I've said. The bare, unguarded recognition of a man who has finally heard something that cannot be unheard.
"Then you'll kill us both," he answers quietly.
I hold his gaze for one more second. Long enough to make sure he sees that I mean every word. Long enough to feel the bond wrench against my ribs like a fist closing around something vital.
Then I turn.
The door slams behind me. The corridor swallows the sound, but the bond keeps pulling—pain, anger, something deeper that neither of us can name. It tugs at the center of my chest with each step I take away from him, insistent and relentless, like a thread being slowly unraveled from a wound that has not yet finished bleeding.
I don't look back.
The stone walls close around me, cold and indifferent, and I press my back against one just far enough down the hall that he can't see me through the gap. My eyes sting. I refuse to call it crying. I press my palm flat against the wall, breathe through my teeth, and wait for the trembling in my hands to stop.
It doesn't.
But I stay standing. That has to be enough.