Chapter 119 Kaelen’s fear 2

Chapter 119: Chapter 119 Kaelen’s fear 2

Talia’s POV

Wolves stepped aside as we passed.

They bowed their heads and pressed themselves against the walls, and they watched us with wide eyes.

I wondered what they saw. The Alpha carrying his bloody, bandaged Luna through the halls. Or the Luna who had fought three rogues and had won.

I wondered if they would ever look at me the same way again.

Some of them had been at the bonding ceremony in Cresswood. They had seen Celeste scream and Vivienne argue and Kaelen declare me his Luna whether anyone liked it or not. Back then, they had looked at me with pity, and some of them had looked at me with disgust.

But today, they looked at me differently.

Today, they looked at me like I was someone.

I did not know how to feel about that. I had spent fifteen years being invisible, being nothing. But being looked at like this, like I mattered, like I was strong, felt strange and heavy and warm all at the same time.

Kaelen kicked open the door to our room and carried me inside. He walked to the bed and set me down gently, like I was made of glass, or like I would break if he moved too fast.

Then he turned away from me.

He walked to the bathroom and came back with a bowl of water and a cloth. He set the bowl on the bedside table and dipped the cloth in the water.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Cleaning your wounds," he said.

"The healers already..." I tried to explain.

"I do not care what the healers did." He cut me off, and his voice was tight. "I am doing it again."

He sat on the edge of the bed and began wiping the blood from my arm. His movements were gentle, and careful, but his hands were still shaking.

I watched him work.

He cleaned the scratches on my arm, the cut on my shoulder, and the wound on my back where the rogue’s claws had raked across my skin. He did not ask me where it hurt, he just found every wound and cleaned it, one by one, in silence.

The water in the bowl turned pink, then red. Kaelen dipped the cloth again and again, wringing it out until the blood ran clear. His hands never stopped shaking, but he did not stop working. He cleaned every scratch, every cut, and every bruise, and he found wounds I did not even know I had.

There was a shallow cut on my ribs, a light gash on my knee, and a deep scratch on the back of my hand that I must have gotten from the dagger when the rogue knocked it away.

He cleaned them all, and still, he did not speak.

The silence was heavier than any words. I could feel everything he was not saying pressing down on the air between us.

From the guilt, to the fear, and to the anger at himself for not being there, I could feel all of it. He blamed himself, even though there was nothing he could have done, and even though he did not know, he still blamed himself, because that was who Kaelen was.

He carried the weight of everyone on his shoulders. Including me.

The guilt was written boldly all over his face.

"Kaelen," I said.

He did not look up.

"Kaelen, look at me," I said again.

He stopped moving. His hands hovered over my arm, and the cloth dripped water onto the bed.

Then he looked up, and I saw that his gray eyes were wet.

"I am here," I said. "I am not going anywhere."

He stared at me for a long moment. His jaw was tight, and his throat moved as he swallowed.

"You almost died," he said.

"But I did not," I replied.

He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine. I could feel his breath on my lips, warm and unsteady.

"Promise me," he said. "Promise me you will not do something like that again."

I was quiet for a moment.

I thought about Finn’s face, pale and terrified, looking at me like I was his only hope. I thought about the screaming I heard from the forest, and how I could not have walked away even if I wanted to.

"I cannot promise that," I said.

His jaw tightened, and I saw the war happening behind his eyes. The Alpha in him wanted to order me to stay safe, and the mate in him wanted to lock me in this room and never let me leave. But the man who knew me, who had seen me stand my ground and refuse to break, knew that neither of those things would work.

Because he knew me better than that, and he knew that if I heard someone scream again, I would run toward it, every single time.

Kaelen pulled back and looked at me.

"If someone needs help, I will help them," I said again. "That is who I am."

His jaw tightened, and his hands clenched into fists on his knees.

"I know," he said.

He looked down at the blood on the cloth, at the water in the bowl, and at the bandages on my arm.

"That is why I am terrified every single day.”