Chapter 333: Letting Her Go

Kaden’s POV

​"We have to reject each other."

​The words left Rebecca’s lips, and inside me, everything stopped.

​I had known this was coming. From the moment she contacted me through the mind link and asked me to come to the Stone Pack estate, a part of me had suspected why she called. Weeks ago, I had made her a promise. I had sworn that once she was safe, if she still wanted to sever our bond, I would stand by her decision and give her the rejection she asked for.

​Still, knowing a blow is coming and actually feeling it land are two entirely different things.

​For several agonizing seconds, I couldn’t move or speak. I just stared at her tear-stained face while Titan became restless inside my mind.

​No! my wolf growled, his voice rising in a sharp, desperate panic that rattled my ribs. No, Kaden!

​Quiet down, Titan, I told him silently, trying to keep my own composure from breaking. Stay calm.

​No! Titan fought against me, thrashing against my internal control, refusing to accept what Rebecca was asking. We do not let her go!

​I closed my eyes briefly, fighting my own beast. Rebecca had already suffered far too much because of my anger, my blind grief, and my arrogance. I refused to make another decision for her simply because it was what I wanted.

​Looking at her sitting on the wooden bench, I thought back over everything she had just told me. Of all her words, the ones that had completely undone me were: I fell for you too.

​I had wanted to hear those words for so long. There were endless, quiet nights in my office where I would have given up everything I owned just to have Rebecca look at me and say she felt something for me. Now, she finally had. But she had confessed her heart only while saying goodbye.

​She had talked about how things might have been if we had met differently. For a fleeting moment, I let myself imagine it.

​I imagined walking into a room under normal circumstances and discovering she was my second-chance mate, without a single drop of blood or pain between us. I could have courted her properly. I could have brought her flowers, taken her out, and watched her fall in love with me without a single drop of fear in her eyes. We could have built the quiet, happy life she talked about.

​Our baby would still be alive.

​I swallowed back the bitter taste in my throat. There was no point in torturing myself with a life we were never given.

​I thought about her discovering the flogging too. I had never intended for her to find out about that. I wasn’t punishing my back every morning so she would feel sorry for me, nor was I trying to manipulate her into forgiving me. The simple truth was that every morning I woke up, the memory of our argument played in my head. I saw her falling down those stairs, saw the blood on the floor, and remembered the exact moment the healer told me our child was gone.

​Those memories followed me everywhere. The pain from the flogging had simply given me something else to feel, even if only for a little while.

​And maybe... maybe she was right. Maybe punishing myself wasn’t going to change anything. Maybe I really did need help. Someone I could talk to. A therapist who could help me deal with everything I had lost instead of waking up every morning and finding another way to punish myself for it.

​I finally found my voice. It came out low, rough, and barely above a whisper. "Is this truly what you want?"

​Rebecca struggled to answer through her tears, but after a moment, she looked at me and nodded. "Yes."

​I nodded, accepting her decision, but my wolf Titan did not.

​We lost Helen! Titan pleaded, his voice breaking. We lost Helen’s baby! We lost Rebecca’s baby! We cannot lose her too!

​This is different, Titan, I answered back gently, though my own heart was breaking. Nobody is taking her from us this time. We are letting her go because she asked us to. Because we love her.

​Silence settled over the garden again, heavy and thick with grief. Finally, Rebecca wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and looked at me.

​"You reject me first," she said softly.

​I immediately shook my head.

​She frowned slightly, confused by my refusal. "Why?"

​"Because if I reject you first, the physical pain will be far worse for you," I explained, my voice steady despite the ache in my chest. "The person who is rejected first bears the heaviest physical blow when the mate bond tears apart. Your body has already suffered too much, Rebecca. You lost our baby only two weeks ago. I will not put you through more pain."

​I looked at her firmly. "You reject me first."

​Rebecca’s eyes widened as she realized what I was asking. If she rejected me first, I would be the one forced to absorb the full, violent force of the severed bond.

​"No," she said, her voice wavering with hesitation. "Kaden, no. I don’t want to hurt you like that."

​"It doesn’t matter," I said softly.

​"It does matter!" she argued, her tone rising with worry. "Your body is already in a terrible state because of the flogging, and you haven’t been letting the healers treat you properly. Taking the worst of the rejection could collapse your strength entirely!"

​"I can handle it," I replied, refusing to back down. "I would rather take the pain a thousand times over than let you feel it."

​While Rebecca struggled with the decision, Titan became completely restless.

​Please, my wolf whispered.

​That single word stopped me cold. Titan was a prideful, fierce creature. He almost never begged for anything.

​Please, Kaden, do not do this, Titan pleaded quietly. Fight for her. Stand up and fight for our mate.

​We already fought for her, Titan, I answered silently, tears burning behind my eyes. And we did it in all the wrong ways. We controlled her. We locked her away. We forced her to stay and made every choice for her. If we truly love her now, we have to give her the one thing she is begging for. Even if it destroys us.

​Rebecca was crying heavily now. I could see her chest heaving as her own wolf fought the decision inside her.

​She looked at me one final time, her eyes searching mine for any sign of hesitation.

​I gave her a small, gentle nod, giving her the permission she seemed to need.

​Rebecca took a deep, shaky breath and closed her eyes. For several seconds, she said nothing. I watched her face tighten as she seemed to search deep inside herself, reaching for the bond that connected us.

​I felt the exact moment she found it. Something warm stirred inside my chest, and Titan immediately rose to his feet. Mate.

​Rebecca’s face twisted with pain, and a tear slipped from beneath her closed lashes. Still, she didn’t open her eyes. She seemed to hold on to the bond for another second, almost as though she was struggling to make herself break something her soul naturally wanted to keep.

​Then her lips parted. "I, Rebecca, reject you, Alpha Kaden, as my mate."

​Her eyes slowly opened, and the bond between us tightened painfully, almost as if it was waiting for my answer.

​I stared into her tear-filled eyes while Titan whimpered inside me, already knowing what I was about to do.

​I swallowed against the tightness in my throat and forced myself to speak.

​"I accept your rejection."

​The moment the words left my mouth, the bond snapped.

​A sudden, violent pain ripped through the center of my chest. It felt as though someone had driven an iron blade into my ribs and twisted it. The pain was so instant and crushing that my lungs seized, and I couldn’t remain sitting. I pitched forward, slipping off the bench and falling onto my knees on the grass.

​Titan let out a long, agonizing howl that echoed inside my skull.

​My whole body began to tremble violently. My fingers dug deep into the dirt and grass as the threads of our supernatural connection started tearing violently apart. I gasped for air, but my chest felt completely locked.

​"Kaden!"

​Rebecca panicked immediately. She dropped from the bench and knelt on the grass right beside me, completely forgetting her distance. She reached out, her trembling hands grabbing my arm and shoulder to hold me up.

​Sweat broke out across my pale skin, and my breath came in ragged, broken gasps. The physical toll of the rejection, combined with my infected back and weakened state, felt like it was crushing my heart into dust.

​Rebecca looked terrified as she saw me struggling to breathe. "Mother! Someone call a healer!" she cried out toward the house.

​"No," I choked out, grabbing her wrist with what little strength I had left. "No... I’m okay."

​"You’re not okay!" Tears spilled over her lashes as she looked at me. "Kaden, stop. We can stop this. We don’t have to finish it!"

​"No," I gritted out, forcing my eyes open to look at her. "If we stop now... you will still be tied to me."

​I forced myself to breathe through the agony. I looked at the woman kneeling in the dirt beside me.

​This was the woman I had once believed murdered my wife. The woman I had locked in a dark cell. The woman I had broken. The woman who had come back into my life as Ruby, whom I had fallen in love with all over again without even knowing who she really was. My second-chance mate. The mother of the child I would never get to hold.

​And now, she was asking me for one last thing.

​I forced my aching lungs to expand. I accepted her rejection inside my soul, letting the first half of the bond snap completely. Titan howled again, a sound of pure mourning, but I pushed through it.

​Now, it was my turn.

​Rebecca remained kneeling right in front of me, her hand still touching my arm, her face soaked with tears.

​I looked directly into her clear, beautiful eyes, memorizing every line of her face, and spoke the words that would end us forever.

​"I, Kaden, reject you, Rebecca, as my mate."

​Rebecca gasped instantly.

​A sharp gasp left her throat as the shockwave of the rejection hit her chest. She pulled her hands back, folding over slightly as her wolf cried out deep within her. For a few seconds, she struggled to find her breath, her eyes wide with pain.

​Then, her breathing slowly evened out.

​She straightened up, her hand still pressed over her heart. It hurt her—there was no doubt about that—but it was nowhere near the crushing, suffocating agony I was currently enduring on the ground.

​Slowly, the invisible thread that had tethered our souls together snapped.

​We both felt it instantly. That heavy, warm, electric connection that had existed between us for months simply vanished into thin air.

​Inside my mind, Titan became strangely, terrifyingly quiet. He didn’t roar. He didn’t fight. He simply curled up in the dark corners of my consciousness and wept.

​The world around us felt entirely different. Rebecca was sitting just inches away from me, but that intense, magnetic pull that constantly dragged my eyes and heart toward her was gone.