Page 74 of Fated Wolf's Redemption

Burned down and broken open. But she steps closer, like she knows I’m about to shut her out and she’s not letting it happen.

“You want me gone?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

I grab her wrist before I think better of it. She gasps, not in surprise—but in recognition. We both remember exactly what this feels like.

“Last time I touched you like this,” I say low, “you ran.”

“Last time you touched me like this,” she breathes, “you told me to go.”

I pull her in. Hard. Until our bodies are flush, and her scent is the only thing I can breathe. My hand finds the back of her neck, thumb grazing the spot where I once kissed her until she forgot her own name.

“I didn’t mean it.”

Her eyes soften for half a second—just long enough for the damage to be done. Then she’s shoving me back.

“Too late for apologies,” she snaps.

“Good.” I crowd her again. “I’m not here to offer one.”

“No. You’re here to play warrior in a territory that’s falling apart, while pretending it doesn’t kill you I walked out.”

“I let you go.”

“You pushed me.”

“Because you wouldn’t have stayed—Windriders don’t stay.”

She swallows, throat working. For a second, there’s silence. Just the hum of the old ward crystals and the quiet scrape of her boot across stone.

Then, soft and sharp: “Sophia stayed for Lucas. I would’ve stayed for you.”

I close the distance in one move and press her against the wall, arms braced on either side of her head. Her breath catches, and I feel her chest rise against mine.

“You want the truth, Kylie?” I whisper against her temple. “I never stopped thinking about you. Never stopped wanting you. You’ve been under my skin since the moment you drew your first blood ward in my training yard and told my second-in-command to go fuck himself.”

Her pulse stutters under my hand.

I trail my fingers down her side, slow and firm, and her lashes flutter.

“You talk like you don’t want me,” I murmur, “but you came here smelling like thunder. And you only smell like that when you’re ready to burn.”

Her head tilts back against the stone, lips parted. “And if I burn?”

“Then I make damn sure you burn for me.”

She fists my shirt and drags me down into her. The kiss is all bite and punishment—no give, no mercy. Just months and months of what if and why not and fuck you for not choosing me when it mattered.

But it’s her moan that does me in—low, desperate, unshielded.

I scoop her up, turn, and slam her down on the table like I’ve done this a hundred times in dreams I’ll never admit to. Her legs wrap around my waist. My hand finds the hem of her shirt. When I pull it up, she arches into me like she’s waited every night since that battle for this exact moment.

I kiss her neck. Hard.

"Say the word, and I'll stop," I whisper fiercely, my voice a fervent plea to whatever unseen forces rule this world, praying desperately that she won't utter it.

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