Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Anne
I wake to sunlight streaming across my face and my back devoid of the warmth of Kain’s body.
My mind spins, fragments of last night flooding back. The shower. His hands. The desperation. The way he held me after, like I might disappear.
It didn’t mean our relationship was fixed, but I didn’t want him to leave.
An ache throbs dully in my chest. I roll over, sheets tangling around my legs, only to stop in surprise.
He didn’t leave.
Kain sits at the edge of the bed in just his boxers, his jeans bunched in one hand. His other hand is closed around something, his thumb moving over it with slow, deliberate strokes. His shoulders are tense, his head lowered.
“What are you doing?” I ask tentatively.
He turns to me, and the expression on his face makes my breath catch. Cloudy. Raw. Like he’s been wrestling with something heavy—and losing.
“You’re awake,” he says quietly.
I push myself up to a sitting position, clutching the sheet to my chest. My eyes drop to his closed fist. “What’s that?”
For a moment, he doesn’t answer. Just stares at his hand like he’s not sure he wants to open it. Then, slowly, he uncurls his fingers.
In his palm sits a gold ring.
It’s scratched. Bent slightly out of shape, like it’s been through hell. But it’s clearly a ring. Simple. Delicate. The kind of thing a teenage boy might have saved up for.
My throat tightens. “Kain...”
He gives me a small smile, but it’s sad. Devastating in its quiet resignation.
He stands and comes around to my side of the bed, then kneels beside it. The position is so intimate, so vulnerable, that my heart clenches painfully.
He takes my hand and places the ring in my palm, then closes my fingers around it. His hands are warm, steady despite the storm I can see in his eyes.
“I know last night doesn’t mean you forgive me,” he starts, his voice low and careful. “And I fully understand why you can’t. But I’ve been holding on to this, waiting for the right moment to give it to you.”
He pauses, his thumb stroking my knuckles.
“And now, there is no right moment left but this one.”
The weight of his words settles over me like lead. There is no right moment left. Because tomorrow, he may be dead. We both may be dead if the Covenant is stronger than the pack can handle.
I swallow with difficulty, my voice barely above a whisper. “What is it?”
“Remember when I said I kept something to remind me of you and give me hope?” His eyes search mine. “This is it.”
My fingers open, and I stare at the ring. Really look at it this time.
The scratches aren’t random. They’re deliberate—worn into the metal from years of being held, rubbed, touched. The bend in the band looks like it came from being hidden, maybe stuffed into a boot or wrapped in cloth and shoved into a crevice where guards wouldn’t find it.
Evidence of survival. Of defiance. Of love that refused to die even when everything else was being destroyed.
“I bought it during the war, a week before I was taken,” Kain continues, his voice rough. “I’d saved up for months from odd jobs around the pack. It wasn’t much, but I thought—I thought it would be enough. A promise that I’d come back to you. That we had time.”
My vision blurs.
“When they took me, it was the only thing I managed to hide. They stripped everything else away. My clothes, my dignity, my sense of self. But I kept this.” His hands cup mine as I hold the ring.
“Every night in that place, I’d take it out.
Run my fingers over it in the dark. Try to remember what your smile looked like.
What your laugh sounded like. Whether your eyes were more green or more brown. ”
A tear slides down my cheek.
“There were days I couldn’t remember,” he admits, and his voice cracks. “Days when the torture was so bad that I forgot my own name, let alone yours. But I always remembered that this ring meant something. That someone, somewhere, was worth surviving for.”
I can’t speak. Can’t breathe past the emotion clogging my throat.
“When they told me I’d been sold, that no one was looking for me, I almost threw it away.” His thumb traces the bent band in my palm. “Almost gave up completely. But part of me wouldn’t let go. Couldn’t let go.”
“Kain—” I whisper, but he shakes his head.
“I held onto it through everything they did to me. Hid it when they searched my cell. Kept it on me during missions. It was the one thing that remained mine. The one piece of the boy I used to be that they couldn’t break or twist or corrupt.”
The tears are falling freely now, hot and fast.
“I wanted to give it to you the right way,” he continues. “Planned it a hundred times in my head. Dinner at that Italian place you love. Or back at our spot by the creek. Somewhere beautiful and meaningful where I could tell you everything I feel and ask you properly to be mine forever.”
He looks up at me, and the pain in his eyes is unbearable.
“But there’s no time left for perfect moments. No guarantee past tomorrow. So, I’m giving it to you now, here, like this. Because if something happens to me, I need you to have it. I need you to know that for ten years, through absolute hell, you were the reason I kept breathing.”
I’m sobbing now, clutching the ring so tightly, the bent edges bite into my palm.
Kain leans forward and presses his lips to my hand—the one holding the ring—in a kiss so gentle, it shatters me.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” he says against my skin. “I’m not asking you to wear it or accept it or do anything with it. I just need you to have it. To know that what I felt for you—what I still feel—was never a lie. Never part of the mission. Never anything but real.”
I can’t hold back anymore. A sound tears from my throat—half sob, half keen—and I reach up with my free hand to caress his cheek.
“You absolute idiot,” I choke out. “You frustrating, beautiful idiot.”
He closes his eyes, leaning into my touch like a man starved for it.
“I don’t know how to forgive you yet,” I whisper to Kain. “I don’t know if I’ll ever figure out how to reconcile loving you with what you did. But this—” I open my palm and stare at the ring through my tears. “This breaks my heart in a way nothing else has.”
“I’m sorry,” he breathes.
“Don’t.” I shake my head. “Don’t apologize for surviving. Don’t apologize for holding on to hope. Don’t apologize for being the boy who loved me enough to keep this ring through ten years of torture.”
Our foreheads touch. We’re both crying now, silent tears that speak louder than words.
“I didn’t mention it to pressure you,” he finally says. “But as we face the uncertainty of tomorrow, I wanted you to have it. Whatever happens, whatever you decide about us, it’s yours. It has always been yours.”
He pulls back and stands, and I watch through blurred vision as he reaches for his clothes.
“I received instructions from Rick while you slept,” he says, turning businesslike even as he wipes his eyes. “I need to fall into position to deceive them. Make it look like I’m still loyal, still following orders.”
He pulls on his clothes, and I see the change in his posture. My stomach tightens at the sight. When he moves to the door, he pauses with his back still turned to me, like he doesn’t want to leave.
“Kain—”
“I’ll see you after,” he says, and it sounds like a promise he’s not sure he can keep. “Stay safe. Listen to Darius. Don’t do anything stupid.”
The next thing I know, he’s gone. I hear the apartment door click shut behind him with a finality that leaves me stunned.
I sit there in the rumpled sheets, still clutching the ring, tears streaming down my face. The bent gold catches the morning light, throwing fractured reflections across my palm.
Ten years. He held onto this for ten years. Held onto it through torture and conditioning and everything they did to break him.
I bring it to my lips and kiss it, tasting salt and metal and the ghost of every time he must have touched it while thinking of me.
“Moon Goddess,” I whisper to the empty room. “Please, please keep him safe. Keep all of us safe. And if we survive this, if we make it through tomorrow, I swear I’ll find a way to forgive him. I’ll try. Just…please don’t take him from me again.”
The ring is warm in my hand as I close my fingers around it.
For now, this is all I have. Hope. Fear. Love. And this promise from a boy who became a man in hell but never forgot me.
I sit here in my bed for a long time after he leaves, still clutching the ring. The apartment feels too quiet without him. Too empty.
Beyond these walls, I can hear my neighbors—someone’s TV playing too loud, a couple laughing as they pass by in the hallway, the distant sound of traffic. The world is still turning. Still moving forward as if nothing has changed.
But everything has changed.
Work feels surreal.
I go through the motions of my morning routine—shower, coffee, drive to headquarters—with the ring burning a hole in my pocket. I couldn’t bring myself to leave it at home. Couldn’t bear to let it out of my sight.
The office is buzzing with anxiety and uncertainty when I arrive. People cluster in small groups, speaking in low voices. Very different from the usual morning energy.
Sienna finds me at my desk before I’ve even logged on to my computer.
“Did you hear?” she asks, her voice pitched low.
“Hear what?”
“Darius called an emergency meeting. Everyone’s required to attend in fifteen minutes.”
My stomach drops. “Everyone?”
“Every single person in the building.”
We file into Conference Room B—the huge one that is usually reserved for pack-wide announcements. It’s standing room only by the time Darius arrives, Ethan at his side.
Kain isn’t with them. I scan the crowd but don’t see him anywhere.
Darius doesn’t waste time with pleasantries.
“I’ll keep this brief,” he says, his alpha voice carrying easily over the murmurs.
“Due to security concerns I cannot fully disclose, I’m implementing a temporary lockdown protocol.
All employees are to complete their current projects and leave headquarters by three o’clock this afternoon.
Tomorrow, this building will be closed. No one comes to work. No exceptions.”
The room erupts in shocked whispers.
“I understand this is unusual,” Darius continues, his tone severe. “But I need everyone to trust me and follow these instructions exactly. Complete your work, go home, stay there. Further updates will be sent via the pack emergency system.”
“Is the pack in danger?” someone calls out.
Darius’s expression doesn’t change. “The pack is being protected. That’s all you need to know.”
He takes no other questions. The meeting ends, and we’re all herded back to our desks with orders to prioritize and wrap up.
The hours crawl by in a haze of forced productivity. I respond to emails I barely read. File reports that don’t matter. Watch the clock tick toward 3:00 p.m. like it’s a countdown to doomsday.
My phone buzzes at 2:47 with a text from Violet.
You’re staying with me tomorrow. Darius’s orders. Pack an overnight bag. A car will pick you up at 8 a.m.
I stare at the message, my throat tight.
It’s really happening. Tomorrow. The Covenant is coming tomorrow.
At exactly three o’clock, I gather my things and head to the parking lot with everyone else. The atmosphere is subdued. Worried. People are scared even if they don’t know why.
As I drive home, I notice them.
Pack warriors. Dozens of them. Stationed on street corners, outside apartment buildings, near the territorial borders.
All dressed in civilian clothes—jeans, hoodies, casual jackets.
But I see the way they stand. The way their hands hang loose at their sides.
The way they scan their surroundings, ready to shift at a moment’s notice.
The entire pack is preparing for war, and we’re pretending it’s just another day.
I park in my building’s lot and see two warriors leaning against the entrance, talking as if they’re just friends hanging out. One of them nods at me as I pass.
Protection. Or witnesses. Maybe both.
Inside my apartment, I set my bag down and pull the ring from my pocket. It may be small and battered, but it’s precious to me. I slip the ring onto my right hand. It’s not quite round and doesn’t fit the way it’s supposed to, but I don’t care. I just need it close. Need to feel it on my skin.
I need to feel the promise of it.