"Because of my father."
I snapped my gaze back to him, startled.
Kayden finally spoke, his eyes deep, like opening a wound buried too long, already rotting.
"He had a fated mate. But not my mother."
My breath stopped. Dusty memories of Silver Moon Pack stirred hazily. I remembered whispered rumors treated as taboo, caught in passing when older women thought no one listened.
"He and my mother married for love." Kayden leaned against the wall, gaze drifting toward the night outside. "Everyone in the pack envied them. Said they were the Moon Goddess's perfect match."
"Until..." His hand slowly clenched. "Until one night after a banquet, my father got drunk. He wandered into the forest and met a woman. A she-wolf from outside the pack, disfigured by beasts, staying there on charity."
"Fated mate." I breathed the impossible, most cruel answer.
"The bond formed that full moon night." Kayden's voice took on a mocking edge. "Father said he couldn't control it. The pull was stronger than reason, stronger than love..."
He closed his eyes.
"He betrayed my mother. Not intentionally, but he did. Worse—the she-wolf got pregnant. That child was Finn."
I thought of that gaunt, shadowy man I'd seen only once before the engagement ceremony. The man who made me a murderer.
"Then everything fell apart. The beautiful, perfect marriage—like a fragile soap bubble. Father, Mother, the she-wolf—rumors swirled around all three. Mother started believing the vicious whispers. She hated that she wasn't the fated one."
Kayden's voice began shaking.
"She stopped smiling. Stopped talking. Just stared at mirrors all day. She got thinner and thinner until she was nothing but bones. Until the pain finally broke her. She slit her wrists. I was two years old."
I covered my mouth, eyes stinging—two years old. He lost his mother at two. Kayden had carried this all along.
"Father spent the rest of his life drowning in guilt." Kayden continued. "After the she-wolf gave birth to Finn, he drove her out of the pack."
"But the dead don't come back. He had nightmares every night, dreaming of Mother lying in a pool of blood. He grew more unhinged, more obsessive... For as long as I can remember, he told me fated mates were a curse. And Victoria... she looked so much like my mother. Father thought she'd be my perfect wife. On his deathbed, he made me swear to marry her. He thought we'd have the happiness he and Mother never got."
I stood, slowly walked over to Kayden. This man I thought invincible—his eyes were red, shoulders trembling slightly.
"So when you discovered I was your mate..." I gently laid my hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him.
"I panicked." Kayden looked away. "My father's decades of twisted beliefs had become my instinct. I was terrified of becoming him."
"So you rejected me." I finished his thought.
"I rejected you in the cruelest way possible." His hand covered mine. I didn't pull away. "I thought that was right."
"But I was wrong. I just..." Kayden exhaled heavily. "I just made the tragedy repeat in a different form."
"Kayden..." I said his name without thinking.
"I'm not making excuses." He cut me off, eyes genuinely remorseful. "What I did, how I hurt you, there's no justification. I just wanted you to know... It was never your fault. It was me. I was the coward."
My throat closed. I couldn't speak for a long moment.
Kayden Blackwood—the man I thought strong, perfect, fearless—had laid himself bare, showing me his darkest past, his deepest, most painful wound. Shock, heartache, and a secret flutter of... joy? That he trusted me enough to confess it all. He trusted me.
Everything tangled in my mind.
"I need time," I finally said, lost and exhausted. "Kayden, I don't know what to say. So much has happened. I need to think. About my future, and..."
