Unclaimed

43. Rowan

He kissed me like he had been holding it back for months. Like he was afraid I would disappear if he let go. Like love was not a confession but a surrender.

I had been kissed before.

By strangers in neon dressing rooms.

By pretty people after dangerous races. By people who wanted my body and mistook that for wanting me.This was nothing like that.

This felt like being known.

Like every ugly part of me had been seen and chosen anyway.

I kissed him back with everything I had.For a moment, I let myself believe in impossible things.

That love could be enough. That fate wasn’t cruel. That maybe being mates meant something more than punishment.The first thing I noticed when I went back to racing was how quickly the city welcomed me like I had never left.

Like palaces and kings and heartbreak had only been some ridiculous dream I’d had under silk sheets I never belonged in.

The underground circuit was still exactly the same.

Still loud.

Still dangerous.

Still alive.

Music pounded through the warehouse district hard enough to shake the rust from the steel beams overhead. Neon signs flickered against graffiti-covered walls. Engines roared like beasts waiting to be fed. Money changed hands in dark corners, bets placed with bloody knuckles and sharp smiles.

No crowns.

No court politics.

No careful words.

Just speed.

Just survival.

It should have felt like coming home.

Instead, it felt like crawling back to a version of myself I had already buried.

I stood beside my bike in the loading bay, helmet dangling from one hand, cigarette burning slowly between my fingers as rainwater dripped from the broken roof above.

My bike was black with silver detailing, low and vicious and fast enough to kill a man who respected it too little. I’d rebuilt half of it myself years ago, piece by piece, when I still believed speed could outrun grief.

Turns out grief was faster.

“Look who decided to rejoin the land of the damned.”

I glanced over.

Sky leaned against a concrete pillar, grinning like the devil himself, leather jacket soaked from the drizzle outside.

Some people got older.

Sky just got more illegal.

“You look terrible,” he added.

“Good. I was aiming for tragic.”

He snorted and shoved off the pillar, coming over to clap a hand against my shoulder.

“People said palace life made you soft.”

I looked down at the cigarette between my fingers.

“People say a lot of things.”

His grin faded a little.

He knew better than to ask.

Everyone in the underground had heard some version of the story... Rowan, the king’s bodyguard. Rowan, the idiot who got too close to royalty. Rowan, who got thrown back to the wolves where he belonged.

Rumors were easier than truth.

The truth was that I still woke up reaching for someone who wasn’t there.

The truth was that every quiet moment felt like withdrawal.

The truth was that I had left because staying would have destroyed him.

And somehow leaving had destroyed me instead.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” Sky asked.

I flicked ash onto the concrete.

“No.”

“Excellent. That’s usually when you drive best.”

That got the smallest smile out of me.

Gods, I had missed this.

Not the recklessness. Not the blood.

Just the honesty.

No one here expected me to be noble.

No one here asked me to be anything but dangerous.

I could survive dangerous.

Love was what ruined me.

I crushed the cigarette beneath my boot and reached for my helmet.

The crowd was growing thicker now, bodies pressing around the makeshift track that cut through the abandoned industrial district and out toward the cliff roads by the sea.

Illegal races weren’t about rules.

They were about reputation.

About who was stupid enough to risk death for the right to say they had outrun it.

Tonight, I needed that.

I needed the engine screaming beneath me.

I needed wind so violent it drowned thought.

I needed something louder than the bond in my chest that refused to die.

Because mates, apparently, were forever.

Cruel joke.

Even separated, I could still feel him sometimes.

Not clearly. Not enough.

Just flashes.

A pull in my ribs. A sudden warmth that wasn’t mine. An ache sharp enough to make breathing difficult.

Like my soul was a dog scratching at a locked door.

I hated it.

I hated that some part of me still turned toward him like sunlight.

I hated that I would do it forever.

“Rowan!”

Someone shouted my name from the betting crowd.

Then another voice.

Then more.

Recognition spread fast.

People remembered me.

The former king of bad decisions had returned.

I raised two fingers without looking.

Let them cheer.

Let them place their bets.

Let them think I was here because I missed the thrill.

I was here because if I sat alone in my apartment one more night thinking about Caelum’s hands on my face in the rain, I was going to lose my mind.

The memory still lived in me like a wound.

I care that you left.

Gods.

I should have lied.

I should have been cruel enough to save us both.

Instead, I gave him honesty and let the world punish us for it.

The morning still replayed like a nightmare.

The priest standing in the royal chambers with that sanctimonious expression. The recording crystal glowing in his hands. Me and Caelum in the gardens, kissing like fools under the storm.

Evidence.

Condemnation.

Execution without blood.

I remembered Caelum shouting. Remembered the council’s outrage. Remembered the way his voice broke when they ordered me dismissed.

And I remembered walking away.

Because if I had stayed, they would have torn him apart trying to get to me.

Sometimes love looked a lot like leaving.

Sometimes it looked like cowardice.

I still didn’t know which one I had chosen.

“Five minutes!”

The starter’s voice cut through the noise.

The racers moved.

Helmets on. Engines checked. Final bets placed.

I swung onto my bike, the familiar weight of it settling something feral in me. My gloves tightened around the handlebars. My pulse slowed.

This part, at least, I understood.

Speed made sense.

You leaned too hard, you crashed. You hesitated, you lost. You trusted the wrong person, you died.

Simple.

Cleaner than love.

The other riders lined up beside me, engines snarling.

Across the crowd, people shouted my name again.

And then...

It hit me.

The bond.

Sharp.

Violent.

Like someone had grabbed the center of my chest and pulled.

I froze.

My head snapped up.

Across the sea of bodies and flashing lights and smoke...

him.

Caelum.

Standing at the edge of the crowd like he had stepped out of every dream I’d been trying to kill.

For a second, I forgot how to breathe.

He wasn’t dressed like a king.

No royal coat. No ceremonial gold. Just dark clothes, rain-damp hair, and exhaustion written into every line of him.

But even stripped of all the symbols, he was still unmistakable.

Still mine.

Still impossible.

The mate bond roared alive between us.

Not a whisper now.

A storm.

Every nerve in my body lit up.

I felt him...shock, relief, something desperate and aching and bright, and it slammed into me so hard I nearly dropped the bike.

His eyes found mine.

Gods.

Those eyes.

Silver-blue and ruined.

Like he had been drowning too.

The whole world narrowed to that moment.

Just him. Just us. Just the unbearable distance between.

He took one step forward.

Someone shouted for the race to start.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t think.

All I could feel was him.

I had spent weeks trying to forget the shape of his mouth, and there he was, standing in the middle of my old life looking like he still belonged in every future I had denied myself.

I should have been angry.

I should have turned away.

Instead, all I felt was relief so painful it was almost grief.

He came.

He came for me.

The starter flag lifted.

Sky shouted something I didn’t hear.

Caelum’s mouth moved.

I think he said my name.

Then the flag dropped.

And instinct took over.

I launched forward.

The world exploded into speed.

The engine screamed beneath me, tires tearing across wet asphalt as the city became streaks of light and shadow. The other racers fell into formation beside me, close enough to taste disaster.

Good.

I needed disaster.

I needed something brutal enough to match the war inside me.

Rain slicked the roads, the kind that made sane people stay home and idiots like us feel invincible. Neon reflected in puddles like shattered stars. The first turn came fast and vicious, and I leaned hard into it, bike nearly kissing the ground.

Behind me...chaos.

Ahead of me...freedom.

And somewhere back there, watching.

Caelum.

I could feel him.

Not physically.

Something deeper.

The bond stretched between us like live wire.

Every time my heart slammed against my ribs, it answered.

Every reckless move. Every impossible turn.

He felt it.

And gods help me, I rode like I wanted him to.

Like I wanted him to remember exactly who I was.

Not a courtly fantasy. Not some tragic almost-love.

This.

Teeth bared against the storm. Speed as prayer. Violence as survival.

I overtook the first rider on the harbor stretch, cutting so close our handlebars nearly clipped. He shouted something obscene.

I laughed into the wind.

The cliff road opened ahead...narrow, dangerous, one side stone and the other a drop into black ocean.

Perfect.

This was where races were won.

This was where people died.

I pushed harder.

Faster.

The bike became an extension of instinct, of rage, of every unsaid thing still bleeding between me and the king standing somewhere behind me.

I thought of that morning.

Of being dismissed like a scandal instead of a man. Of Caelum trying to fight for me. Of choosing to leave because love had become a weapon.

I twisted the throttle harder.

If I was going to break, I wanted it to be at two hundred kilometers per hour.

Second place vanished behind me.

First came into reach.

The lead rider glanced back once.

Saw me.

Realized.

Too late.

I passed him on the inside of a turn so tight it should have killed us both.

The crowd at the checkpoint erupted.

I heard none of it.

Only the engine. Only the rain. Only the mate bond burning like a second pulse.

For one wild, stupid moment, I felt alive.

Not broken. Not exiled. Not some discarded secret.

Alive.

And then...

impact.

Violent.

Sudden.

Wrong.

Something slammed into the back of my bike with brutal force.

Metal screamed.

The world snapped sideways.

There was no time to think.

Only the sickening realization...

I’m going down.

The bike twisted beneath me.

The road vanished.

I hit asphalt like being torn apart.

Pain exploded white-hot through my body. My helmet cracked against the ground. I rolled, skidding across wet pavement, skin and leather and bone meeting violence at impossible speed.

Everything became noise.

Then silence.

I stopped.

For a moment, I didn’t know where I was.

Rain hit my face.

Cold.

Sharp.

Real.

Somewhere nearby, people were screaming.

My bike burned a few meters away, twisted metal and sparks against the storm.

I tried to breathe.

Agony.

Something was wrong with my ribs. My shoulder. My leg.

Maybe everything.

I tasted blood.

The sky above me was black and endless.

Funny, I thought distantly.

For someone who spent half his life daring death to catch him, I was surprised by how quiet the ending felt.

Voices blurred around me.

Footsteps.

Shouting.

Someone yelling for medics.

But all of it sounded far away, like I was already underwater.

And then I saw him.

Caelum.

Running.

Not walking. Not royal. Not composed.

Running like the world was ending.

Because maybe, for him, it was.

People moved out of his way instinctively, the crowd splitting like they remembered too late that kings were made for tragedy.

His face...

Gods.

I had never seen him look like that.

Terrified.

Destroyed.

Human.

Rain soaked him as he dropped to his knees beside me, hands shaking as they hovered over me like he couldn’t decide where to touch without hurting me more.

“Rowan.”

My name broke in his mouth.

I smiled, or tried to. It probably looked like a grimace.

“Bit dramatic,” I managed.

His laugh came out like a sob.

And then...

I saw tears in his beautiful eyes, The eyes that I destroyed, the eyes that I turned empty.

It hurt more than the crash.

Because I had done that.

I had left. I had made him carry that silence. I had convinced myself distance was mercy while he had been drowning without me.

His tears mixed with the rain, and I wanted, stupidly, desperately...to wipe them away.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

His expression shattered.

“No.”

His voice was fierce now, shaking.

“No, you do not get to apologize for surviving.”

I coughed, tasted more blood.

“Still bossy.”

“I am literally the king.”

“Fair point.”

His hand finally found mine.

Warm.

Real.

The bond between us surged so hard it nearly stopped my heart.

Home.

That was the unbearable truth of it.

Not the palace.

Not the city.

Not the reckless streets I had crawled back to.

Him.

He was home.

And lying there on broken asphalt with death breathing down my neck, I realized how tired I was of pretending otherwise.

His forehead pressed to mine, just like in the garden.

Only this time there was blood instead of rainwater between us.

“Stay with me,” he whispered.

Not an order.

A plea.

My vision blurred at the edges.

I wanted to.

Gods, I wanted to.

I wanted mornings with him. Arguments over terrible tea. Stolen kisses in palace corridors. A life where love did not have to be hidden like a crime.

I wanted all the impossible things.

And for the first time, I was afraid I had run out of time to ask for them.

So I held his hand tighter.

And I fought to stay.