20. Osias #2
And there was Rennick. The man who’d manipulated Celina for thirty years holding Daya with one arm wrapped around her throat, a knife glinting silver against her skin.
Even from this distance, Osias could see the desperation radiating from Rennick’s frame—the way his shoulders hunched with cornered-animal fury and the slight tremor in his knife hand that spoke of a man who’d lost everything and had nothing left to lose.
I’m here, Osias projected, settling into a crouch behind a boulder that offered both cover and a clear view of the confrontation. Don’t turn around. I’ll wait for your signal.
Relief flooded their bond, followed immediately by renewed determination. I’m trying to talk him down, Celina responded without moving a muscle. Maybe I can reach whatever’s left of the man who used to care about me.
Osias’s lion snarled silently at the naivety of that hope, but he forced himself to stillness. She needed to try. For her own peace of mind, she needed to attempt one last conversation with the man who’d shaped her entire life.
“Why are you doing this, Rennick?” Celina’s voice carried across the clearing. “I don’t understand why you can’t just be happy for me. I’ve found genuine joy again—with Bates Films, with Osias. Isn’t that what you always said you wanted? For me to be happy?”
The laugh that erupted from Rennick’s throat was bitter.
“Happy for you?” His grip tightened on Daya, who whimpered softly but kept her eyes fixed on Celina with unwavering trust. “How can I be happy that my star has turned her back on me? That my prized possession is no longer mine anymore? I can’t be happy about that, Celina. I won’t be.”
“I’m not a possession, Rennick.” The steel in Celina’s voice would have made Osias proud if he weren’t calculating attack angles and exit strategies. “I’m a person. A person who didn’t see the warning signs sooner—all the manipulation, all the emotional abuse disguised as protection.”
“I was trying to protect you!” Rennick’s voice cracked with anguish. “Everything I did was to make you the star you wanted to be!”
“No.” Celina took a small step forward, her hands raised in a gesture of peace. “You were trying to make me the star you wanted. There’s a difference, and we both know it.”
Rennick’s face contorted with something between pain and rage. “Celina, just come back to me. We can forget this all happened. Leave Osias and stop this silly fantasy of independence. Come back where you belong.”
Osias felt her recoil through their bond even as her exterior remained steady. When she spoke again, her voice carried the full force of the woman she’d become over the past weeks.
“This isn’t a silly fantasy, Rennick. Osias is my fated mate. We are fully bonded, and I could never leave him or our pride. What we have is real—more real than anything I’ve ever experienced.”
The change in Rennick was instantaneous and terrifying.
His face went white, then flushed deep red as thirty years of carefully constructed control shattered like glass.
“Osias can never have you,” he snarled, his voice dropping to something barely human.
“You are mine, and if I can’t have you, then he can’t either. ”
Time slowed as Rennick shoved Daya forward and she stumbled, crying out as she hit the ground hard, and in that same instant Rennick’s human form began to ripple and distort. The shift tore through him with violent speed—controlled desperation giving way to pure predatory fury as his lion emerged.
Osias didn’t wait for Celina’s signal when Rennick’s lion form coalesced and lunged toward his mate, every protective instinct screaming with overwhelming force. He launched from behind the boulder, his massive lion form covering the distance in two powerful bounds.
The collision when he intercepted Rennick’s attack sent both lions tumbling across the rocky ground.
Rennick was faster than Osias had expected—lean desperation making him quick where Osias was powerful—and before Osias could get proper footing, Rennick’s claws raked across Osias’s flank, drawing blood and a roar of pain-fueled rage.
Osias absorbed the blow and twisted, his own claws finding purchase in Rennick’s shoulder.
Through his peripheral vision, he saw Celina rush to her friend’s side, helping Daya to her feet and guiding her toward Juno’s position.
Rennick’s lion was surprisingly strong and skilled, his attacks precise and calculated even in fury.
He landed another blow on Osias’s shoulder, claws digging deep enough to make the Alpha stumble.
For a moment, the battle felt evenly matched—two powerful males with everything to lose.
But Osias had learned long ago that strength alone didn’t make an Alpha. Strategy did.
Osias let himself stumble more dramatically than the wound warranted, his movements becoming sluggish and pained. Rennick’s lion, scenting victory, grew reckless with confidence. The smaller male lunged forward with killing intent, aiming for Osias’s exposed throat.
It was exactly what Osias had been waiting for.
He used Rennick’s momentum against him, rolling backward and catching the attacking lion with his hind legs.
The maneuver sent Rennick flying over his head to crash heavily against the ground.
Before the other lion could recover, Osias was moving—his massive frame pinning Rennick to the earth, his powerful paws pressing down on the smaller male’s chest.
Rennick’s lion struggled desperately, but the fight was over.
Osias could feel the life pulsing beneath his paws, could see the recognition of defeat in those calculating eyes.
For a heartbeat, he hesitated—this was the man who’d shaped Celina’s entire life, who’d protected her in his own twisted way.
But then he felt Celina’s terror through their bond, remembered Daya’s whimper of pain, thought of all the ways Rennick had tried to destroy what they’d built together.
Osias leaned down and clamped his jaws around Rennick’s throat.
The life drained from the other lion’s eyes slowly, his struggles growing weaker until they ceased entirely. When it was over, Osias stepped back and shifted to human form, his chest heaving with exertion and the weight of what he’d done.
He’d killed to protect his mate. He’d ended a life to preserve the future they were building together. But the necessity of it didn’t make it easier.
“Osias!” Celina’s voice broke through his grim thoughts as she rushed toward him, her arms wrapping around his bloodied, naked form without hesitation. “It’s finally over.”
Her tears came then—thirty years of manipulation and control, terror for Daya’s safety, the crushing weight of almost losing everything that mattered. She sobbed against his chest while he held her, his hands gentle despite the violence they’d just committed.
“You were so brave,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m proud of how strong you’ve become. You’re finally free, Celina. Completely free.”
She pulled back to look at him, and he wiped the tears from her eyes with infinite tenderness. The woman looking back at him was no longer the carefully managed actress he’d met weeks ago. This was Celina—fully herself, fully his, fully ready to write her own story.
“Let’s go home,” she whispered, and the words sounded like the most beautiful promise he’d ever heard.