Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
KIERAN
The numbers on the spreadsheet blur before my eyes as rain pelts against the window of my office.
I’ve been staring at the same cell for twenty minutes, unable to focus.
I rake my fingers through my hair, exhausted from sleeping outside Francine’s door every night, listening to her soft breaths, making sure she’s safe while knowing I’m the reason she’s broken in the first place.
A flash of movement in the driveway catches my eye. Something unsteady, out of place in the downpour. I blink, focusing through the rain-streaked glass.
My heart stops.
Francine. On crutches. In the fucking rain.
Her red hair is already soaked, plastered against her skull as she struggles toward a yellow taxi waiting at the curb. She’s wearing a thin jacket, and her casts are covered in plastic bags secured with rubber bands to keep them from getting wet.
“No,” I whisper, then louder. “No!”
I’m moving before the word fully leaves my throat, nearly tearing the office door off its hinges as I sprint down the hallway. My feet pound against the hardwood floors, each step echoing the frantic rhythm of my heartbeat.
She can’t leave. Not like this.
I burst through the front door into the downpour, not bothering with a jacket. The cold rain immediately soaks through my thin dress shirt, but I barely feel it. All I can see is Francine, halfway down the drive now, moving with painfully slow determination toward that waiting taxi.
“Francine!” I call out, my voice cracking with desperation.
She freezes, her shoulders tensing. For a moment, she doesn’t turn around, and I think she might ignore me completely. Then, slowly, balancing precariously on her crutches, she pivots to face me.
The sight of her knocks the wind from my lungs. Her face is thinner than before, pale except for the freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. But it’s the look in those green eyes that destroys me—wary, wounded, and so very tired.
“What are you doing?” I demand as I reach her, my breath coming in ragged pants. Water streams down my face, but I can’t tell if it’s rain or tears anymore. “You’re supposed to be resting. Your ribs aren’t…”
“I’m feeling a lot better,” she interrupts, her voice soft but firm. “I’ve stayed long enough. Thank you for everything you’ve done, Kieran.”
The formal politeness in her tone is worse than if she’d screamed at me.
“Stayed long enough?” I repeat incredulously. “You’re not a burden to me or my pack, Francine.”
“I know why you’re doing this,” she says, her knuckles white where they grip the handles of her crutches. “And I appreciate it, for real. But I can’t stay here knowing…”
“Knowing what? Please tell me.”
A raindrop hangs on the tip of her nose, and I resist the urge to wipe it away. I don’t have that right anymore.
“I know you’re only doing this because of the baby,” she finally sighs. “And I understand. I do. But I won’t be a charity case because I’m carrying your pack’s child. I won’t live like that.”
Is that what she thinks? I’m in fucking agony every day over what I did to her. And all I want is for her to forgive me.
I drop to my knees in front of her, not caring about the mud soaking through my pants or the rain pounding against my back.
“Listen to me,” I say, my voice thick with emotion.
“I was coming to your apartment to beg your forgiveness before I ever saw that test. I was standing outside your door like a fucking coward, trying to find the right words to tell you how wrong I’d been, how sorry I was, how much I missed you.
The baby changes nothing about how I feel about you. ”
“Why would you want me back after what my mother did to your family?”
I swallow hard, rain dripping from my hair into my eyes.
“Because I love you,” I say simply. “Because without you, there’s an emptiness inside me that nothing can fill.”
She shakes her head, refusing to believe me. “I wouldn’t be with you if your family hurt mine. So I don’t blame you.”
“I forgive her,” I interrupt, the words leaving my mouth before I even realize I’m going to say them. Shock hangs in the air between us. “I forgive your mother.”
“What?” says Francine, her voice small and broken.
“I forgive her,” I repeat, and something inside me shifts, a burden lifting that I’ve carried for years. “She did a terrible thing. She took my parents away, leaving Nora without a mother and father. But holding onto that rage has only hurt me. Hurt us. And I won’t let it destroy us anymore.”
Tears fill her eyes, mingling with the raindrops on her cheeks. “How can you forgive her when I can’t even forgive her myself?”
The question is soft, vulnerable, laid bare between us like an open wound.
“Can you?” I ask gently. “Can you forgive her, Francine?”
Her tears come faster now, streaming down her face as she shakes her head, lost and confused.
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I’ve been so angry for so long. She killed my dads, Kieran. She burned them alive for money. How do I forgive that?”
I rise slowly to my feet, careful not to crowd her, though every instinct in my body screams to pull her into my arms, to shield her from the rain and pain and everything that threatens to hurt her.
“One day at a time,” I say softly, aching to hug her.
“I don’t know,” she says with uncertainty, trying push me away with her crutch, but the rubber tip slips in the mud. I catch her before she can fall, my hands gentle on her shoulders.
“Please. Stay here where we can take care of you. You don’t have to forgive me. You don’t even have to speak to me. But please don’t go where I can’t protect you.”
Something in her expression softens ever so slightly.
“Fine,” she whispers. “But only until I’m better.”
Relief floods through me so intensely that my knees nearly buckle. “Okay, thank you for not running away.”
I scoop her up into my arms, carefully supporting her injured ribs and casted limbs. She weighs almost nothing, and it hurts my heart.
I carry her back toward the house, where Drake, Rowan, and Elias wait beneath the shelter of the porch. They’ve been carefully watching our interaction the entire time.
Drake steps forward. “I prepared the couch for her,” he says quietly. “With pillows for her feet and extra blankets.”
I walk inside, grateful to get out of the rain.
The fire in the living room crackles invitingly, and I see that Drake has indeed transformed the couch into a nest of comfort for her. The pillows are arranged to support her various injuries, plush blankets folded neatly beside them, a mug of something steaming on the coffee table.
Carefully, I lower Francine onto the couch, arranging her limbs with the utmost care. I’ve done this countless times in the weeks since her accident, but this time feels different.
“You’re soaked,” I say, reaching for a towel Drake must have left nearby. “Let me help you dry off before you catch a chill.”
I expect her to refuse, to maintain the distance between us. But to my surprise, she allows me to gently pat her hair dry, to drape a warm blanket around her shoulders, and to elevate her broken foot on the pillow.
When I’m done, I step back, reluctant to push my luck by lingering too long.
“I’ll give you some space,” I say, turning to go.
“Kieran.”
Her voice stops me in my tracks. I turn back slowly, afraid to hope.
Francine’s hand is outstretched toward me, small and pale against the dark fabric of the couch. I move closer, drawn by that hand like a moth to flame. When I’m within reach, she touches the side of my face, her fingers cold against my skin but so, so gentle.
“I forgive you,” she whispers, those three words undoing me completely.
Tears spring to my eyes, hot and sudden. I try to blink them away, but they spill over anyway, tracking down my cheeks to where her fingers still rest against my jaw. Her skin is like ice, but her touch burns through me, setting fire to parts of my soul I thought had died when I sent her away.
“I don’t deserve it,” I say, my voice raw. “I don’t deserve you.”
“I’m choosing to forgive you. And I’m choosing to stay. Not because I have to, but because I want to.”
I turn my face into her palm, pressing my lips against it, a desperate need to be closer to her in any way she’ll allow.
“I’ll never break your heart again,” I promise, the words inadequate but all I have to offer. “I’ll spend the rest of my life making this up to you, if you’ll let me.”
Her lips curve into the smallest smile, but it’s genuine, and it makes my heart expand painfully in my chest.
“I love you,” she confesses quietly.
I lean down, giving her every opportunity to pull away, to change her mind. When she doesn’t, I press my lips to hers in the gentlest kiss I can manage, despite the wolf inside me howling for more.
Her eyes flutter closed, her cheeks flushing that delicate pink that has haunted my dreams since the moment I first saw her. The kiss is brief, chaste, but it feels like coming home after being lost for an eternity.
When I pull back, she opens her eyes, and for the first time since the accident, I see something like peace in her gaze.
“Rest now, love,” I murmur, brushing a strand of damp hair delicately from her forehead, as she smiles at me. I fucking feel complete now.
She’s our omega, I can feel it. My forever.