KANE POV
Kane makes a decision that will haunt him forever.
He can't have her. Not because his wolf doesn't want her. But because his wolf wants her so badly that it's destroying his ability to think rationally. Every moment he spends near Iris, the walls get thinner. The control gets weaker. In a few more days, his human side won't be strong enough to stop what his wolf is demanding.
So he's going to make her leave.
He'll be cruel enough that she'll hate him. He'll hurt her badly enough that she'll run. He'll protect her by pushing her away so violently that the mate bond can't hold.
It's the worst idea he's ever had. It's also the only one he can live with.
Kane finds her in the common area the next morning. She's eating breakfast and reading something on her phone. The moment she sees him, her entire face lights up. Like his presence is the best thing that's happened to her all day.
It breaks something in his chest.
He sits down across from her like this is casual. Like he's not about to shatter her.
"I need you to leave," Kane says. His voice is flat. Emotionless. "Pack your things and get out."
Iris sets down her coffee. Her smile fades slowly like she's trying to understand what he just said.
"What?" she asks.
"You heard me," Kane continues. He forces himself to look at her coldly. To let all the warmth drain from his expression. "I want you gone by this afternoon."
"Kane, what's happening?" Iris stands up. "Why are you—"
"Because you're nothing but a distraction," Kane says. The words come out like poison. Designed to hurt. "You're a human who wandered into my territory and now you think you understand the world you're in. You don't. You're naive and reckless and completely unprepared for what being my mate would actually mean."
He sees her flinch. Sees the hurt flash across her face. But he doesn't stop.
"Everything that happened between us was manipulation," Kane says coldly. "I saw an opportunity and I took it. You're easy to manipulate. You came here looking for answers about your brother and I gave you just enough to make you trust me. To make you fall for me. It was a game, Iris. Nothing more."
Her eyes fill with tears.
This is the moment where Kane's wolf tries to break free. It throws itself against the cage he's built. Screaming at him to take back every word. To go to her. To hold her. To fix what he's just broken.
Kane holds firm.
He stands up and walks away from her before she can see his hands shaking. Before she can realize that every word he just said is a lie. Before his control completely shatters.
He hears her behind him. Hears the small broken sound she makes when she finally accepts that he's not coming back.
All day he avoids her.
He stays in his quarters with the door locked. Stays in the forest with the pack. Stays anywhere that's not where Iris is. But it doesn't matter where his body goes. His wolf knows exactly where she is at every moment. Can track her heartbeat. Can smell her pain like it's his own.
Around sunset, Iris goes back to her room.
Kane stands outside her building in the darkness, far enough away that she can't see him but close enough that he can hear everything. He listens as she cries. Actually cries. Deep, wrenching sobs that sound like they're tearing her apart from the inside.
His wolf howls and Kane realizes he's made a terrible mistake.
He's not protecting her. He's destroying her. He's doing exactly what he promised himself he'd never do. He's becoming the same kind of cruelty that his parents suffered. The same kind of selfishness that got them killed.
But he can't take it back now. If he goes to her now, she'll forgive him. She'll believe his lies. She'll stay. And if she stays, the wolf will win completely and he'll transform her whether she's ready or not.
So he stands in the rain outside her building at three in the morning and accepts that this is what he deserves. This is the consequence of being broken.
Marcus finds him there.
His second-in-command doesn't say anything. Just stands beside Kane in the darkness and rain like he understands without explanation. Like he knows what it means to have your heart begging you to do one thing while your mind screams at you to do another.
They stand like that for a long time.
Finally Marcus speaks. "This is stupid."
Kane doesn't answer.
"She's your mate," Marcus continues. "And you're destroying her trying to protect her from a future that doesn't exist. You're afraid, Kane. And fear looks a lot like cruelty when you're too broken to see the difference."
"I'm not breaking her," Kane says. "I'm saving her."
"You're both suffering," Marcus replies. "That's not saving anyone. That's just making sure you both bleed."
He walks away and leaves Kane alone in the rain.
By morning, Iris is packing.
Kane watches from a distance as she loads her camera equipment into her car. Watches as she carries her clothes out. Watches as she puts everything she brought with her back into the vehicle like she's erasing her presence from this place.
She's leaving.
He's won. He's successfully pushed her away. He's protected her from the pain of a mate bond that would destroy them both. He's saved her from a future where she'd resent him.
So why does it feel like he's dying.
Iris carries the last box to her car and loads it in. She closes the trunk. Then instead of getting behind the wheel, she just stands there looking at the forest.
She doesn't drive away.
Instead she turns the car around and drives it deeper into the compound. She parks it near the boundary where the forest thickens. Where the trees are so tall they block out the sky. Where the wolves hunt.
Then she gets out and walks into the forest.
Kane's wolf goes completely rigid.
He's already moving before he understands what he's doing. He's already following her scent before his human mind catches up. She's walking into the deep forest. Into the territory where humans shouldn't be. Into the danger she was supposed to be running from.
She's not leaving.
She's choosing to stay.
And Kane realizes in that moment that he's going to lose the battle he's been fighting since she arrived. Because a woman who walks into the forest looking for a man who just broke her heart isn't afraid of anything he can do to her.
A woman like that is exactly what his wolf has been waiting for.