Let Them Kneel (kaelani and Julian) novel Chapter 35

The highway cut through the dark like a blade, its empty stretch swallowing the glow of his headlights. Julian’s hands tightened around the steering wheel until the leather groaned beneath his grip. He should’ve stayed at the pack house. Should’ve gone to the gym, locked himself back in his office—anywhere but behind this wheel.

But he couldn’t shake the thought of her. Couldn’t shake the sound of her voice when she’d told him not to call her again.

He’d only meant to reach out once more—to ask her something simple, logical. About her parents. About whether she knew anything, remembered anything before the orphanage. The kind of question an Alpha might ask out of duty, curiosity. That’s what he told himself, anyway.

But when he tried to phone her again and the call failed—this call can not be completed—something in him snapped.

She blocked him.

And that landed hard like a challenge, like claws dragging down the inside of his chest. His wolf surged, snarling low, restless under his skin. The next thing he knew, he was gripping the wheel and flooring the gas, the borders of his territory shrinking behind him as the open road devoured the distance between them.

Now, as he sped through the night, the memory of her voice tangled with the hum of the engine—sharp, final, cutting straight through the armor he’d spent years building.

He told himself he only wanted answers. To tie off the loose ends. But deep down, he knew that was a lie.

Because no Alpha drives an hour and a half just to ask about the past.

He’d spotted her before she ever even knew he was there in her town.

Through the glass windows of the small-town bookstore, sunlight spilled across her like a spotlight. Her hair was down, the shortest layers falling in soft waves that brushed against her bare shoulders, gleaming like burnished chestnut every time she moved.

Her outfit shouldn’t have undone him the way it did. A fitted white off-the-shoulder top, a black skirt stopping mid-thigh, black Doc Martens that grounded her with a kind of quiet edge. A flannel tied around her waist pulled the whole look together—careless, confident, sexy without trying.

It reminded him of Pretty Woman. Except Kaelani wore it with a signature that was all her own—more class than flash, more poise than show. She was that same kind of impossible contradiction: sultry and innocent, soft and fierce.

Julian lingered near the back row, pretending to scan the spines of books he didn’t see. To anyone else, he was just another patron searching for a title. But his attention never left her. Not once. Every time she brushed her hair behind her ear or shifted her weight to one hip, his eyes followed.

He didn’t even realize he’d stopped breathing until she walked in his direction, and the faint scent of her drifted toward him—honey, cinnamon and something that didn’t belong to this world.

He followed her when she left the library, keeping a careful distance.

She moved through town like she belonged to it—familiar, unhurried, completely unaware of the way his world tilted around her every step. Her hair caught the dying light, every shift of her body syncing to the rhythm of the fading day.

He told himself he was only making sure she got home safe. That it was instinct, nothing more. But instinct didn’t make a man’s pulse kick like this. It didn’t make his palms itch to touch, to feel, to know.

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