The bounce and excitement that had fueled Kendra’s steps all vanished at the sight of the image she was greeted with when she stepped foot in the courtyard.
Her supposed mate, if she could even call him that was kissing the Aiyisha woman!
A lot of emotions rushed through her in that moment, the most prominent one surprisingly being hurt.
You see, Kendra had had a bad feeling about the two of them ever since she stepped foot in the small town. There was some kind of—what could she even call it, chemistry? She had felt it, but she had tried not to think much of it, especially when she had been the one to push him into the situation in the first place, but now, it was all clear. Perhaps, she wasn’t as needed as she had initially thought herself to be, and honestly speaking, the whole revelation was a really humbling experience for the female Beta.
She wanted to shift, and attack the bitch for moving onto her mate like that, wanted to tear out her hair, and rip out her heart with her bare claws. Truly, she had no idea how she was able to still so strongly hold on to control so her wolf wouldn’t take over, especially when it was such a thin thread holding her restraint together. Kendra turned to leave quietly, not wanting to interrupt the couple and their apparent make out session. But unfortunately for her, fate wouldn’t have it that way, for no sooner had she turned back to leave than she bumped into one of the many flowerpots lined up on the courtyard, causing it to shatter to the ground in a large crash.
It had happened so fast.
So fast that for what seemed like an enormous amount of time, Killian found himself stuck trying to make sense of what was happening, to try to recollect how he had found himself in this position in the first place.
He tried to push her away when it finally registered, when the horror of all the liberties he had allowed her to take with him had finally clicked in his head, and for the first time ever, he actually did not even care if he hurt her in the process.
But the damage had already been done.
The sound of the something breaking twinned with the similar emotion he felt in his chest when he turned only to see Kendra standing there, a pained look in her eyes before she finally turned and fled.
Fuck, what had he done?
“What the hell, Aiyisha?” He boomed, standing up angrily, too far gone in his indignation to realise that his monstrous face had made no appearance this time. Perhaps, it had something to do with the nerve-shattering anger he was feeling, or at least something quite close to that.
“Killian, oh gods, I’m sorry… I have no idea what came over me, I promise you it’ll never happen again—”
“Yes.” He threw at her curtly, his eyes cold. Gone was the warmth of friendship he had felt for her, truly, his feelings were quite close to hatred, for Kendra and himself were already on tenterhooks as it was, and she had just made things even worse. “It’ll never happen again, for you apparently did not value this friendship that we had. And so from now onwards, stay away from me—”
“You can’t be serious, Killian.”
“Indeed I am, I would have immediately left town had it not been for my obligations to your pack and your father, but I can assure you that I will not hesitate to abandon even that should you get close to me ever again.” With those words, he turned around and left the blonde she-wolf all alone. He needed to go and find his mate after all. Hopefully, there was still something he could do to salvage the situation.
****
Kendra worked the horse to move faster, her heart hurting slightly as thoughts of Nightshade filled her head. She missed her horse, but she’d go and get him back from the tavern when all this was over. For now, she just wanted to be as far away from Dnakle as possible, she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t spent a full day in the place, yet she was leaving already. As she galloped away, she thought about how easy it had been for her to steal the horse and make her getaway. For such a heavily fortified palace, she had expected that such a feat be met at least with some kind of confrontation.
She had met the old Alpha right after Killian had stopped the guards from seizing her, and from the little she had observed of him, he was a little too ostentatious and misogynistic for her liking. Oh, she had seen how he had looked at her, how he had turned up his nose in disgust when Killian had made the formal introductions. She had seen how he had looked at her as though he did not think her capable of handling such a position as Beta of a pack, and she had been praying to the heavens that he would just open his mouth and say something crass so she would just unleash on him the fury of her tongue, but luckily for him, he had chosen to remain silent, though his gaze had said everything he hadn’t. Kendra hadn’t minded though, for she dealt with those on a daily basis, you could almost say she was immune to them. But then again, there was also the fact that she always had Killian to offer words of consolation whenever it sometimes became too much.
Killian.
She had told herself that she wasn’t going to think about him, but she had allowed her thoughts to stray to him again, and now, all the emotions she had been trying to suppress were back with a vengeance, only that now, instead of hurt, anger was what was most prominent.
By now, it was almost midnight. Kendra pressed against the horse harder, willing it to go faster and get to the town’s outskirts quickly, for she didn’t think she could bear the thought of being in this darned town any minute longer, but when they did finally make it there, she saw a huge crowd gathered, with lots of guards trying to control the quickly agitating mob.
“Let us through, we want to leave while there is still time.”
“You can’t keep us here!”
“We should be the ones to decide if we want to risk our lives in that manner, not you.”
Kendra heard them all, but she had no idea what they were talking about, nor what was going on, and so she dismounted her horse and got close, trying to see what was going on.
“What is happening, can’t we use the borders?” She asked one man. “The Curers have seized Yorkshire, and Alpha Joffrey has had the town placed on lockdown because of that. The war is getting closer than we think.”
This couldn’t be happening.
Dnakle was one of those towns that happened to be blessed with just two ways in and out, for the northern part was barricaded by mountains so steep that they were impossible to explore, and at the west, they had forests so thick that it was practically impenetrable. The southern and eastern ends were the only navigable places, and now that the eastern side had been placed on lockdown, the only way out was through the ocean, and Kendra wasn’t ready to go through that just yet. Being fortified by nature did have its bad sides after all.
But there had to be a way she could get out of this place.
Pushing through the angry crowd, the female Beta inched closer to the guards, trying to come up with a way to get them to see eye to eye with her and let her pass through.
They listened to her, which was quite some progress, for they had pretty much been ignoring the rest of the crowd… it must have surely had something to do with the fact that they knew who she was now but then they were pretty adamant;
No one was slipping past the gates on their watch.
Not even a powerful Beta of another pack.
She understood them, they were obeying orders, and at that point, nothing she was going to say in that moment was going to convince them to make her pass through, for once she did, the crowd would be pretty much unstoppable, and so when one of the guards said, “Sorry ma’am, but we really cannot let you through, she went back to her horse with a disappointed nod, only that this time her horse was not alone.
Killian stood there, waiting.
The female Beta had half a mind to actually walk away… to turn back, go anywhere else apart from back to her horse, but then she chased the thought out of her head as soon as it came.
She wasn’t the one who had kissed someone else.
She didn’t need to cut her plans short on his account. And so she slowly approached him, taking careful measures to ensure that she had a blank look on her face… pretending like there was no one in her path. Her wolf howled in delight at being so close to her mate once more, and her heart rejoiced at the look of irritation that graced his handsome features when he noticed that she was paying him no mind.
Good.
He deserved that and so much more.
“Kendra.”
She ignored him. What she needed to do was think. Think of ways to get out of this blasted place. She hadn’t completely given up yet. She was going to do it one way or another, curfews and injunctions be damned.
“Talk to me, Kendra… dammit.” Killian’s anger was almost threatening to consume him, and you know the funny part? It wasn’t even her he was angry with. He was angry with himself, for letting things get this far. He should have seen it coming the first time Aiyisha had sneaked into his room, but his need for some form of companionship had caused him to hope that they could put that past them.
He was reaping the harvest of that foolish mistake now.
He couldn’t even blame Kendra for being so curt with him— for being so indifferent. But he just wished that he’d get some sort of reaction at least, a display of anger… a-a slap, insults, anything!
“Just say something, Kendra. Let’s talk about this,” He pleaded, his voice a mere whisper over the loud brouhaha of the crowd, but she heard him. How could she not, when he had her full attention? When all she could see was him and no one else?
Why was it that there was always something keeping them apart?
Why couldn’t their love story be a simpler one?
This time, she allowed him a glimpse of how vulnerable she had become, a stray tear sliding down her face in that slight moment. And then just like that, it quickly passed, and she angrily wiped it off. “What do you want me to do, Killian? What do you want me to say?” She threw at him, her voice void of any emotion.
“You kissed her, Killian—”
“She threw herself at me, I had no idea that was going to happen—”
“Stand there and tell me to my face that you never saw a sign— never saw anything that hinted that she wanted to be more than friends with you.” She threw at him, daring him to counter her accusation, but all she got was a hard swallow and a stiff clenching of jaws. His actions confirmed everything. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” She threw his words back at him mockingly. “See, the last thing I want right now, is to be here, in this town, with you, with her. But I have no choice, and so I’ll stay. I’ll leave as soon as the lockdown’s over, so you can carry on with your life as you were doing before I got here.”
“Kendra, please don’t do this, let’s talk.” He grabbed her arm, but she stared at it emotionlessly. “I really don’t think there’s anything left to say though.” She replied, pulling her arm out of his grasp. She turned to leave, but then thought better of it and turned back, Killian’s eyes lighting up for a bit at the action, but all he got instead was, “I just have one request though, fucking stay away from me.” With those words, she mounted her horse and rode off, leaving him in a cloud of dust and disbelief.