Chapter 34 Kage
KAGE
The words hang in the air like blood on snow.
Natalie is mine.
She didn’t deny it. Couldn’t. I saw it break her. The way her shoulders caved in like she’d been holding the weight of the whole godsdamned universe on her back and finally gave up trying.
We sit at the table in the candlelight, the food cold and untouched, the silence louder than a battlefield. Bella’s crying quietly, not the dramatic kind—no wails, no shaking—just quiet, steady drops sliding down her cheeks like her body gave up on holding them in.
I don’t speak.
Not because I don’t have words. But because I don’t trust what they’ll sound like. I’m not angry. Not really. And that confuses me. Because I should be. I should want to scream, punch walls, tear something apart.
But all I feel is hollow.
And this sharp, gnawing ache in my chest like I’ve been opened up and something important’s finally starting to grow back.
She looks at me through wet lashes. “You want to know everything?”
I nod once.
So she tells me.
How she found out she was pregnant weeks after the last mission.
How she tried to reach me and the Alliance stonewalled her.
How the medics lied, said I’d been vaporized in the collapse.
How they discharged her early and quietly, like they wanted to make her disappear before anyone asked too many questions.
How she gave birth alone.
How she hid Natalie’s genome marker. Falsified medical records. Moved cities three times in four years because she was afraid someone would notice. That someone from the Alliance—or worse—would take her.
“She’s… she’s all I had,” Bella says, voice cracking. “And every night I thought someone might knock on my door and take her. I couldn’t sleep. I stopped dreaming. I didn’t know how to keep her and breathe at the same time.”
My throat feels like it’s full of barbed wire.
“You shouldn’t have had to do this alone.”
She flinches.
I stand and walk to her slowly, kneel beside her chair. “You should’ve told me. Yes. But I get it. I do. You were scared. You were surviving. You did everything you could to protect her. And that means you protected me, too. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”
She cups my cheek with her metal hand. The metal’s warm. Human-warm.
“Kage,” she whispers. “I wanted to tell you. I swear I did.”
“I know.”
And I do.
I take her hand and kiss the metal knuckles. She trembles.
Natalie’s door creaks open somewhere down the hall. We both freeze.
“Mama?” she calls sleepily.
Bella gets up, smooths her hair, and pads down the hallway. I hear murmurs. A lullaby. A little laugh.
Then silence.
She comes back minutes later, eyes puffy, mouth soft. She walks past me, into her bedroom, but doesn’t close the door.
Just leaves it open.
Invitation.
The room is dim. Moonlight slants through the curtains in pale ribbons. Her bed’s not made—sheets twisted like a storm rolled through.
She sits on the edge, back to me.
“You can stay,” she says.
My chest thuds. “Are you sure?”
She nods.
I cross the room, slow. Sit beside her. Not touching. Not yet.
We sit like that for a long time. Breathing. Existing.
She speaks first. “Do you hate me?”
It’s a whisper. A fracture.
I turn toward her. Touch her chin, guide her face to mine.
“I love you.”
Her breath shudders out. Her lips part like she’s about to argue, but I kiss her before she can.
It’s not the kind of kiss that burns.
It heals.
Deep and aching. The kind of kiss that says, I found you in the dark and I’m not letting go.
We undress without words.
This time’s not like before.
It’s not frantic. Not desperate.
It’s reverent.
We move slow. Learn each other again. Her hands trail down the ridges of my back, not flinching from the scars. My claws trace her spine like a map I used to know by heart and am finally remembering.
She gasps when I sink into her. Not from pain. From relief.
We don’t talk.
Two broken things making something whole.
Later, she sleeps with her head on my chest, fingers tangled in mine.
Her breath ghosts over my skin in soft waves. I stroke her hair, slow and steady, trying not to think too loud. Trying not to wake the ache that’s curled up under my ribs.
Because I’m happy.
And it terrifies me.
I have a daughter.
A mate. A home.
I’m not built for this. I’m built for war. For running. For clawing my way through fire and coming out the other side burned but breathing.
But now… I want this.
And that hope?
That hope is dangerous.
Because nothing this good ever lasts.