“Please,” Elara begs, and I feel the words leave my lips. “Please. I’m carrying a child. Please.”
They don’t care. Their hands reach for me.
“No!” I try to fight, but Elara’s body is weak from blood loss. The hands grip my arms, yanking me upright.
A blade appears in my vision. Silver. Ornate. Coming toward my stomach.
Kieran! His name echoes through Elara’s mind, through my mind. Where is he? Why isn’t he here?
The blade drives home—
My eyes fly open.
I’m gasping, tears streaming down my face. There’s someone holding me. Strong arms around my body, a familiar scent—pine and snow and something wild.
Kieran.
I don’t know what my reality is. The dream still clings to me, wrapped around my consciousness like a shroud. I can still feel the blade, still feel the pain in my thigh, still feel that desperate, protective love for a child that isn’t mine.
I clutch at him, my fingers digging into his shirt.
“I ran,” I sob. “I ran. Where were you? Why didn’t you save me?”
The words come from somewhere deep inside, somewhere that isn’t entirely me. Elara’s words. Elara’s grief. Elara’s betrayal that the man she loved didn’t reach her in time.
I see shock flash across his face, followed by a terrible grief that makes his features crumple. He pulls me tighter into his arms, his voice hoarse and broken. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He’s crying.
It hits me slowly, cutting through the fog of the dream. Kieran is crying. This powerful alpha, who never shows weakness, whose control is absolute, is shaking in my arms. His tears are falling onto my skin.
The realization yanks me back to reality. Piece by piece, I remember where I am. My room. My bed. The herbs. The dream.
Just a dream.
I know I should push him away. Should demand to know why he’s in my chambers, how he got in. But something is wrong. Something is so deeply, fundamentally wrong with the way he’s holding me, the way his shoulders shake with silent sobs.
I hold him tighter instead. My neck is wet with his tears, and I don’t understand any of this.
“Kieran,” I whisper, my voice still thick from crying. “Kieran, what—”
“I’m sorry,” he says again, the words muffled against my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t save you. I tried. Gods, I tried.”
I want to comfort him. “It was only a dream. I was dreaming,” I whisper, running my hands down his back. “Just a dream, Kieran. I’m okay. I’m here.”
He shakes his head once. Twice. He’s not crying anymore, but he’s not letting go of me, either. His face is buried in myneck, his breathing uneven, and I feel the tremor that runs through his entire body.
I can’t make myself tell him to leave. Can’t even form the words. I feel too raw, too exposed, like my skin has been peeled back and everything underneath is visible. I can’t make sense of what is going on—the dream, the woman named Elara, the terrible grief in Kieran’s eyes.
But I need him.
The understanding hits me with startling clarity. I need him right now. It’s a desperate desire, one I can’t control or rationalize. I need to be as close to him as possible, need to feel his warmth, his solid presence. I need confirmation that he’s real and alive and here.
It’s not lust. Not exactly. It’s deeper than that. More primal. It’s a need. But I don’t know how to ask for what I want when I don’t even understand it myself.
“Kieran.”
I whisper his name, and my body betrays me. Heat floods through me, my skin hyper-aware of every point where we’re touching. I can smell my own arousal, sharp and unmistakable in the confined space. It’s not from simple desire but from this desperate need for comfort, for closeness, for him.
