Betrayed By One. Bound To Three

Selena.

I did not realize when Kael moved.

One moment I stood there, caught between them, my thoughts tangled and my breathing unsteady, and the next, he was in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze.

There was nothing soft in his expression.

Nothing gentle.

Only something that made my pulse quicken in a way I did not want to understand.

"You keep testing us," he said quietly, his voice low and measured, as though he had already reached a decision I was not part of. "You keep pushing, waiting to see how far you can go."

"I am not—"

The words barely left my lips before his hand came up, not rough, but firm enough to silence me as his fingers brushed lightly against my jaw, tilting my face upward.

"You are," he said. "And you know it."

My breath hitched as something in his tone settled deep in my chest, heavy and undeniable. I should have stepped back. I should have pushed him away. I should have held onto the anger that had carried me this far.

But I did not move.

I could not.

Because Lyra was no longer resisting.

She was leaning forward.

Reaching.

Wanting.

Kael’s gaze dropped briefly to my lips before returning to my eyes, and in that moment, something inside me tightened.

"You don’t hate us," he said.

It was not a question.

Before I could respond, his mouth was on mine.

The kiss was not gentle.

It was controlled, deliberate, and consuming in a way that stole the breath from my lungs before I could react. I stiffened instinctively, my hands coming up against his chest as I tried to push him back, but he did not move.

Not even slightly.

My resistance faltered almost as quickly as it began, not because I wanted it to, but because my body betrayed me again.

Because Lyra surged forward, meeting him instead of rejecting him.

I shook my head weakly, trying to pull away, but Kael only deepened the kiss, his grip tightening just enough to keep me there without hurting me.

"Stop," I tried to say, but the word broke against his mouth, barely more than a breath.

Behind me, I felt Ronan shift closer, his presence pressing in, steady and unyielding, while Edris remained at my side, his hand still at my waist, anchoring me between them.

I was surrounded.

Completely.

There was nowhere to go.

Nowhere to run.

And the worst part was that my body no longer wanted to.

My hands, which had been pushing against Kael, slowly loosened, my fingers curling slightly into his shirt instead as something inside me gave way again.

Not all at once.

But enough.

Enough that the resistance faded into something softer.

Something far more dangerous.

Kael seemed to feel it.

His movements slowed slightly, not in mercy, but in control, as though he wanted me to feel every second of it, every shift, every change.

"You see?" he murmured against my lips. "You don’t fight us. Not really."

I wanted to deny it.

I wanted to pull away and prove him wrong.

But I could not.

And that terrified me more than anything else.

Ronan’s hand brushed lightly against my arm, then lower, steady and grounding, and the contact sent a shiver through me that I could not suppress.

"Still trying to run?" he murmured near my ear.

I shook my head without thinking.

And I hated that I did.

Kael watched me closely, his expression unreadable, his fingers still resting lightly against my jaw as though he had all the time in the world to decide what to do with me.

Then something changed.

It was not sudden, not obvious, but I felt it all the same. The warmth in his touch did not disappear, but it shifted, tightening into something harder, something sharper, something that made a quiet unease begin to coil low in my chest.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," Ronan’s voice came from behind me, calm and measured, but stripped of whatever softness had been there before.

A faint frown pulled at my brows as I struggled to understand the shift, my breathing still uneven from the kiss, my pulse refusing to slow.

"What do you mean?" I asked, though the question felt fragile the moment it left me.

"Look at her," Edris said, and there was something in his tone that made my stomach turn, something that sounded dangerously close to disdain. "Standing there like she has never been denied a single thing in her life."

The words struck in a way I did not expect, sharp and disorienting, as though they carried a meaning I could not fully grasp.

Before I could respond, Kael’s voice followed, quieter this time, but no less cutting.

"Princess."

The word settled heavily between us, stripped of any warmth, any playfulness. It was not a title. It was a judgment.

I stiffened at once.

Kael’s hand fell away from my face, the absence of his touch abrupt enough to leave me momentarily unsteady, as though something I had not realized I was leaning into had suddenly been removed.

"You have been handled too gently," he said, his voice no longer carrying that quiet pull that had drawn me in moments ago.

What remained was something colder, something edged with a restraint that felt far more dangerous than any open anger.

My confusion deepened, unease spreading through me in slow, creeping waves.

"I do not know what you are talking about," I said, but my voice lacked the certainty I wanted it to have.

"You think being with us is something you can step into and out of whenever it suits you," Kael continued, his gaze fixed on me with an intensity that made it impossible to look away. "Like it bends to you. Like everything always has."

"That is not true," I said quickly, but the words felt thin even as I spoke them.

"I would be careful if I were you," Edris said sharply, his voice cutting through me before I could continue.

The force of it silenced me instantly, my lips parting before pressing together again as I forced myself into stillness.

"You do not get to speak," Ronan said quietly, though there was nothing gentle in the words. "Not when you do not even understand what you are."

My chest tightened.

"What I am?" I repeated, unable to stop the question from slipping out, even as a growing sense of dread settled over me.

Kael let out a slow breath, his expression darkening slightly, not with anger, but with something far more deliberate.

"That is exactly the problem," he said. "You do not know."

A flicker of unease moved through me, sharper now, more defined.

"You walk around like a spoiled princess," Edris continued, his gaze dragging over me in a way that made my skin prickle. "Like the world has always been yours to take."

"That is not who I am," I said, shaking my head, though the words felt increasingly fragile.

"You were raised on blood," Ronan said, his tone quieter now, but carrying a weight that pressed heavily against my chest. "On lies dressed up as something noble."

My heart stumbled at that, a cold disbelief rising almost instantly, colliding with something far more uncertain.

"You do not know anything about my family," I said, more firmly this time, though something beneath the words wavered despite me.

Kael’s eyes did not soften.

"We know enough."

Something in me tightened, fear beginning to creep in where certainty once lived.

"Do not speak about him like that," I said, the words coming faster now, driven by something dangerously close to panic. "You are wrong."

A shadow of something dark crossed Edris’s face, his jaw tightening as though he was holding something back.

"Wrong?" he repeated. "About a man who took pleasure in killing?"

The words hit me with such force that I felt myself go still, as though the air had been knocked from my lungs.

"No," I said at once, shaking my head, the denial immediate, instinctive. "That is not true."

"He made promises," Kael said, his voice steady, controlled, as though he was laying something out piece by piece. "Promises he never intended to keep."

"Your father killed our parents after making them believe they were his heroes," Edris said, his voice tightening further with each word. "After making them believe he was going to give them enough land to start their own pack. Tell me, what do you say to that?"

The room seemed to tilt.

My thoughts scattered, refusing to settle into anything solid.

"Stop," I whispered, but the word came out weak, almost swallowed by the weight of everything they were saying.

They did not stop.

"Silas did what should have been done long ago," Ronan continued, his voice calm, unshaken. "He took a throne your family never deserved."

The walls felt like they were closing in.

"You are lying," I said, but the words felt hollow now, as though they no longer carried the conviction I needed them to. "All of you... this is not true."

"It is, Princess," Kael said simply. "Your father was a monster."

There was no force behind it.

No raised voice.

Just certainty.

And somehow, that made it worse.