“These are all...?” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Yours. Every single one. Five years of thoughts I couldn’t share any other way.” He set the crate down beside the bed, then sat next to me, suddenly looking vulnerable. “I never thought you’d actually read them. They were just... a way to cope. To pretend I hadn’t thrown away everything that mattered.”
I reached into the crate with trembling fingers, pulling out the first envelope. It was dated just a week after he’d left me.
“How many?” I asked, overwhelmed by the sheer volume.
“Two hundred and forty-three,” he said quietly. “I counted once. Probably more now.”
My hands shook as I opened the first letter.
November 15th - Lina, I’ve whispered your name a thousand times since I walked out of that hotel room while you watched me leave. The look in your eyes haunts me. It’s been a week since I left you there, and I’ve started seventeen letters trying to explain why. This is the first one I’ve managed to finish. I’m a coward. That’s the only explanation that matters. You deserved better than a man who runs...
The tears started immediately. Knox pulled me against him, holding me as I read letter after letter, each one a window into his soul.
December 2nd - I wonder if you think of me. Probably not. Why would you remember someone who rejected you so cruelly? I think of you constantly. The way you laughed at my terrible jokes. The way you fit perfectly against me. The way you said my real name when I finally told you...
December 24th - It’s Christmas Eve. I keep thinking about your laugh. Are you laughing tonight? Are you happy? Are you with family? I sat through pack Christmas dinner imagining you there, wondering what traditions you have, what makes you smile during the holidays...
March 10th - Blake would have loved you. He always said I’d fall hard when I met my mate. Didn’t believe in mates then. Do now. Too late now. He would have kicked my ass for leaving you. God, I miss him. Miss you too, though I have no right to...
July 8th - Drove near Pine Valley today for a territory meeting. Couldn’t go further. Sat at the border for an hour like a coward. What if I’d stayed? Would you have let me? Would you have accepted what I am? What we could be? I’ll never know because I didn’t give you the choice...
November 3rd - I wonder if you found someone. Someone better. Someone who stays. The thought makes me want to tear the world apart, but I hope you did. You deserve someone who doesn’t run. Someone who gives you everything. Even if the thought of another man touching you makes my wolf homicidal...
January 1st - New Year. Same resolution. Find the courage to find you. Failed again. I’m so sorry, Lina. Sorry I was weak. Sorry I left. Sorry I can’t seem to move forward or back, just stuck in this hell I created...
Letter after letter, his soul laid bare on paper. His regrets, his obsession, his dreams of what could have been. There were updates about pack life I would have been part of, descriptions of traditions I would have learned. Pages where he’d drawn house plans, designing a home he never built because it was meant for a family he didn’t have. Sketches of a nursery that made my heart clench, dated two years before he even knew about the twins.
“You designed a nursery,” I whispered, tracing the pencil lines with my finger.
“I used to dream about children. What they’d look like. Dark hair like yours, hopefully. Your smile. Maybe my eyes.” His voice was rough. “I never imagined twins. Never imagined they’d be so perfect.”
There were angry letters too, full of self-hatred and recrimination. Letters where he’d obviously been drinking, the handwriting messy, the words raw. Letters about Blake, about guilt that ate at him. Letters about his parents, about pack politics, about everything I should have been there for.
“This is you,” I whispered after reading what felt like the hundredth letter. “All of you. Every thought, every regret, every dream.”
“Every obsessive, pathetic moment,” he said, but I could hear the vulnerability under the self-deprecation. “I told you I was a mess without you.”
“Not pathetic,” I corrected, setting aside the letters to cup his face. “Human. Even big bad Alpha wolves are human sometimes.”
“I wasn’t human,” he said seriously. “I was barely functional. Ask Noah. Ask anyone. I was going feral, slowly but surely. The broken mate bond was killing me, and I couldn’t even tell anyone why.”
I kissed him softly, tasting the pain he’d carried for so long. When I pulled back, I made a decision. No more living in the past. No more letters to ghosts and regrets.
“No more letters,” I said firmly, climbing into his lap, the sheet pooling around my waist. “I want the real thing. I want you here, present, with me. Forever.”
“Forever?” His hands came up to span my waist, holding me against him. “You mean that?”
“I mean it. No more running. No more hiding. Just us.”
“There’s something else,” Knox said softly, his hands stroking up and down my sides. “About what we have. Do you feel it? This pull between us?”
“Every second,” I admitted. “When you’re not near, it’s like I can’t breathe properly. My skin only feels right when you’re touching it. Even when I hated you, I couldn’t stop wanting you.”
“That’s because we’re something special. Something rare.” He cupped my face gently, thumbs brushing over my cheekbones. “Wolves call it fated mates. Two souls that were meant to find each other. Created for each other by the moon herself.”
I processed this new information. “Is that why you left? Because of this bond? Because it scared you?”
