Reject me twice (Kira and Theron) novel Chapter 48

[Kira’s POV]

A rare evening. No council meetings, no intelligence reports, no emergencies. Just silence, and the click of the lock turning beneath my fingers, and Malik watching me from across the chamber with dark eyes that held a question he already knew the answer to.

“Do you know what today is?” I still asked, tilting my head, letting the firelight catch the loose fall of my hair over one shoulder.

His brow creased with exaggerated concentration. “Thursday?”

“Malik.”

“The northern tariff review deadline?”

“You’re impossible.” I stepped closer, close enough that my fingers found the collar of his shirt. “It’s been exactly one year since a certain former assassin pulled a bleeding, half-feral woman away from a border that was trying to kill her.”

“Ah.” His voice dropped, the teasing evaporating into something lower, rougher. “That woman. I vaguely recall her. Stubborn. Terrible survival instincts. Completely ruined my life.”

“Ruined it?” I breathed, tugging the collar until his forehead nearly touched mine.

“Destroyed it,” he murmured, and his hands were already on my waist, fingers pressing into the silk hard enough that I felt the heat of him through the fabric.

“Wrecked every plan I ever had. I was perfectly content being alone, and then this impossible woman slammed her bloody fists against a magical barrier and I thought—” His mouth grazed my jaw, my neck, the soft skin below my ear. “—I thought, I’m never going to recover from her.”

“Good,” I whispered, already breathless, already pulling him closer. “You’re not supposed to.”

“Come here,” I said softly. “The world can wait tonight.”

He crossed the room without hurry, and the absence of urgency was itself a luxury. Just time, vast and unhurried, stretching before us like an open road.

His hands found the clasps at my collar, unfastening them with a slowness that made my breath catch. His fingers traced the path the fabric revealed—the curve of my shoulder, the hollow of my throat—and his mouth followed, warm lips pressing against each newly exposed inch of skin with a reverence that made my eyes sting.

He knew my body now. Weeks of stolen nights had given him a map he’d memorized with the thoroughness he brought to everything—patient, precise, devastating.

My dress pooled at my feet, and he knelt with it—pressing his lips to my stomach, my hip, the inside of my thigh—and the sight of this powerful man on his knees before me made the tenderness in my chest expand until I thought it would crack my ribs.

I pulled him up and kissed him, then turned the attention on him. Peeled his shirt away and pressed my mouth to his scars, to the places I was still discovering. I dragged my nails down his back, and the groan that tore from him was raw and uncontrolled in a way the Commander would never allow anyone else to hear.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he breathed against my neck.

“Show me,” I whispered.

We fell onto the bed and there was nothing between us but skin and heat and the accumulated wanting of weeks spent carrying burdens too heavy for daylight.

I didn’t choose to fall in love with you. It just happened—like gravity, like breathing—and by the time I realized what was happening, it was already too late to protect myself from it.”

“You terrify me, Kira. Not the magic, not the crown, not the enemies—you. What you make me feel. How much I need you. The fact that if I lost you, there wouldn’t be enough left of me to bury. I’ve never been this vulnerable in my life, and I spent my whole life making sure I never would be. But here I am, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything—not the safety, not the control, not any of it. You’re worth every wall I lost.”

Tears slid down my cheeks. “Do you know what you gave me, Malik? Before you, I didn’t know what it felt like to be chosen. Not as a servant, not as an heir, not as a political asset—just chosen, for no reason other than someone looked at me and decided I was worth staying for.”

“You were always worth staying for.”

“You’re worth every wall I lost too,” I whispered against his pulse. “Every single one. And when this is over—when we’ve beaten the Order and silenced the council and outlasted every wolf who says we don’t belong together—I’m going to stand in front of the entire realm and tell them that the Silver Queen chose an omega, and it was the best decision she ever made.”

His arms tightened around me, and I felt his breath shudder against my hair.

We didn’t speak again. Just drifted together toward sleep, breathing in sync, dreaming of futures we were determined to build.

No matter what it cost to get there.