Breed Me Cursed Alpha (Lyra and Ronan) novel Chapter 44

Chapter 44

Lyra

“What’s wrong?”

The question leaves me before I can stop it. Instincts taking over.

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I push myself up on the bed, sheets slipping away, my heart already racing because I feel it again-that sharp shift in the bond, the way it tightens and goes wrong. Ronan is standing a few steps away, back to me, shoulders locked, breath measured.

“Ronan,” I say again, quieter now.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand, moving toward him without thinking. This is what I do. When something breaks, I reach for it. When he goes still like this, it’s never nothing. Cain has been restless all day. I’ve felt the echo of it in my bones. The pressure. The warning.

“Is it him?” I ask, fear threading through my voice. “Is Cain—”

I reach out, fingers lifting, wanting to ground him. To anchor him. To remind him where he is.

“Don’t.”

The word cuts through me.

I stop breathing when he says it.

Not shouted. Not angry. Just… final. Like a door slammed shut from the innside.

I don’t understand yet.

I only know something has gone very wrong.

I’m already halfway to him, hands lifted, instinct carrying me forward because that’s what you do when the person you love goes rigid with something sharp and dangerous inside them. You close the distance. You remind them they’re not alone.

But he says it again, quieter this time, and somehow worse.

“Don’t, Lyra.”

So I don’t.

I freeze where I am, arms hovering uselessly in the air, the space between us suddenly vast and hostile. He won’t look at me. His shoulders are tight, back still turned, breath too controlled. Like he’s holding something

back with his teeth.

The silence swells. It presses against my ears.

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Chapter 44

“Get dressed,” he says.

:

The words land wrong. Cold. A simple command, not care.

My chest aches. “Ronan-”

“Get. Dressed.”

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There’s no anger in it. That’s the part that hurts most. He sounds calm. Distant. Like he’s already stepped away from whatever just happened between us and I’m the only one still standing in the wreckage.

I swallow and nod because my throat won’t cooperate. I turn away, hands shaking as I reach for my clothes. Every movement feels clumsy. Exposed. Like I’m putting armor back on piece by piece while pretending I don’t feel skinned alive.

He doesn’t wait.

The door slams so hard the walls shudder. Stone groans. Somewhere down the hall, something crashes to the floor.

I flinch.

Then I’m alone.

I sit on the edge of the bed for a long time, staring at nothing, replaying everything in my head until it blurs. The heat of him. The way he pulled back. The word don’t echoing like a bruise.

I tell myself not to cry.

I fail.

It’s quiet, ugly crying. The kind where you press your knuckles to your mouth so no one hears you break. I curl in on myself and let it take me, because there’s nothing else left to hold onto.

Eventually, exhaustion drags me under.

Sleep comes heavy and dreamless.

Morning arrives without ceremony.

I wake to the soft sound of movement and for one wild second I think last night was a dream. That I imagined it. That I imagined the way he shut me out.

Then I see him.

Ronan stands near the window, hair damp from the shower, loose shirt clinging to his shoulders, Sunlight cuts across him like it belongs there. He turns when he senses me awake and smiles.

Actually smiles.

And dear Gods does he look handsome.

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Chapter 44

“Good morning,” he says easily. Like the world didn’t crack open between us a few hours ago.

My heart stutters.

“Morning,” I manage.

Just that. One word. It feels safer.

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I push myself out of bed and head for the bathroom because if I stay still I might scream. I get two steps before he’s there, blocking my path, faster than thought.

“You’re mad at me,” he says.

Not a question. A statement. Calm. Infuriatingly calm.

I try to step around him. He mirrors me.

“Lyra.”

I look at the wall over his shoulder. “I need the bathroom.”

“You’re angry,” he repeats.

My jaw tightens. I say nothing.

He studies me like this is fascinating. Like he’s cataloguing reactions instead of dealing with the fact that he shattered me last night and woke up smiling about it.

“That silence,” he continues mildly, “is very loud.”

I laugh, short and sharp. “You’re very observant.”

There it is. The smallest curve of his mouth. A smile that shouldn’t be allowed right now.

That does it.

Heat floods my chest, bright and reckless. “Why are you smiling?”

“Because,” he says, glancing down, “your hands are clenched.”

I look.

My fingers are curled into fists so tight my knuckles have gone white.

He chuckles. Actually chuckles. “Gods, Lyra. You want to punch me.”

Something snaps.

I don’t think. I don’t plan. I just swing.

My fist connects with his chest, solid and real, the impact jarring up my arm. It doesn’t hurt him. Of course it

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Chapter 44

:

doesn’t. But the sound of it landing is deeply satisfying.

I try to move past him again.

He catches my wrist instantly.

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His grip is firm, not painful, but unyielding. He pulls me back, momentum carrying me straight into him, and before I can say a word his mouth is on mine.

It’s not gentle.

It’s desperate. Fractured. Apology and hunger tangled together so tight I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes against my lips.

The words are raw. Stripped bare.

Then he pulls away just as suddenly, forehead pressed to mine, breath uneven.

I stand there shaking, heart racing, anger and relief and hurt colliding in my chest.

“You don’t get to do that,” I whisper. “You don’t get to shut me out and then act like everything’s fine.”

His grip loosens but he doesn’t let go. “I know.”

“Then why did you?” My voice cracks despite my best effort. “Why did you push me away like I was something you regretted touching?”

He closes his eyes.

That scares me more than the shouting would have.

“I didn’t push you away because I didn’t want you,” he says quietly. “I pushed you away because I wanted you

too much.”

I laugh again, wet and broken. “That doesn’t make this better.”

“I know,” he repeats.

Silence stretches between us, thick with everything unsaid. His thumb brushes my wrist, grounding, familiar. It shouldn’t comfort me. It does anyway.

“I don’t know how to be gentle with this,” he admits. “And I refuse to hurt you.”

My chest aches. “You already did.”

He nods once, accepting it. “I know.”

We stand there like that, tangled and unresolved, neither of us willing to be the first to step back, and I realize with a strange, steady certainty that whatever just shifted between us isn’t going to settle easily.