Reject me twice (Kira and Theron) novel Chapter 52

The corridor to Damon’s chambers had never felt this long.

I walked it with my hand pressed against my stomach—a habit I’d already developed in the two days since the healers confirmed what my body already knew. Malik knew.

The healers knew. But none of them were Damon, and Damon was the one whose reaction I couldn’t predict.

I was halfway to his door when Elara nearly collided with me.

She came around the corner with flushed cheeks, slightly disheveled hair, and the ghost of a smile she hadn’t quite finished wearing. She stopped when she saw me, composure reassembling itself with admirable speed. “Your Majesty.”

“Elara.” I couldn’t help the knowing edge that crept into my voice. “You look… thoroughly reviewed.”

Her flush deepened by exactly one shade. “We were—the territorial correspondence required—” She cleared her throat. “I was just leaving, Your Majesty.”

“Elara,” I said warmly, watching her walk away with the measured stride of a woman desperately trying not to look like she was fleeing.

She murmured her respects, and something about reviewing documents in the morning, and walked away down the corridor with the measured stride of a woman desperately trying not to look like she was fleeing.

I watched her go with a warmth spreading through my chest that had nothing to do with the pregnancy and everything to do with the flustered, giggling, pink-cheeked reality of a woman who’d just spent time with my brother and emerged looking like that.

Elara Thornwood—practical, composed, constitutionally incapable of performance—had been giggling.

In my brother’s chambers. With disheveled hair and flushed cheeks and a smile she couldn’t suppress.

Something was changing behind Damon’s walls. And I could feel it the moment I stepped through his door.

The twin bond flooded with his emotions before I’d crossed the threshold—happiness, unfamiliar and tentative, rising through the connection like warmth from a fire he’d only just allowed himself to sit near.

Not full, not yet. Not the blazing certainty of a man who’d surrendered to joy. But there was light in it, and beneath the light, something I hadn’t felt from him in all the months since we’d found each other—a fragile, trembling thread of trust.

Not complete, not unguarded, but present. Real. Directed at the woman who’d just walked past me with flushed cheeks and a smile she couldn’t contain.

Damon stood by the window, and his face when he turned to greet me was softer than I’d seen it in weeks.

The sharp edges of his usual guarded expression had been smoothed by whatever had happened with Elara, and for a moment he looked younger, lighter, more like the brother I’d imagined having during all those years when I hadn’t known he existed.

“You look different,” I said, settling into the chair by his fire with what I hoped was casual ease. “Something’s changed.”

The softness vanished, replaced by the reflexive defensiveness I knew too well.

“Nothing’s changed. Elara and I were reviewing territorial correspondence and the conversation was—”

He stopped, apparently deciding that whatever adjective he’d been reaching for would incriminate him further. “We were working.”

“Of course you were,” I said, and let it sit there between us without pushing.

He wasn’t ready to name what was happening with Elara—might not even have the vocabulary for it yet, given how thoroughly Seraphine had poisoned his understanding of intimacy.

The last thing he needed was his sister prying the doors open before he’d figured out how to unlock them himself.

He studied me with narrowed eyes, recognizing the deliberate retreat, and the twin bond hummed with his gratitude—unspoken, barely acknowledged, but warm.

I gave him the silence, let him resettle, and watched the tension in his shoulders gradually release as he realized I wasn’t going to interrogate him about the woman who’d left his chambers glowing.

He raises his chin as he continues. “The lords they wanted to match you with—the noble sons with their ancient bloodlines and their political advantages—most of them are nothing but corruption dressed in ceremony.” I smiled gratefully as he continued.

“Malik earned everything he has, and he earned your love, and I would rather my sister chose a man of genuine worth over a man of inherited title every single day.”

His hand found mine, and the twin bond deepened between our clasped fingers—wider, warmer,

“You’re my sister. My twin. The other half of everything I am. I will always stand beside you, Kira. Whatever you choose, whoever you love, whatever the council thinks about propriety and bloodlines and the way things are supposed to be done. You have me. Always.”

The tears came before I could stop them, and I didn’t try. I let them fall, let the relief and the love and the overwhelming gratitude pour through the bond until Damon could feel exactly what his words meant to me.

He squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back, and for a moment we were just two people who’d survived the worst the world could throw at them and somehow come out the other side with enough love left to build a future.

“The council won’t be as gracious,” I said, wiping my cheeks with my free hand.

Damon’s expression hardened into something that looked remarkably like the Dark King the court had learned to respect.

“The council will accept what we tell them to accept. And we’ll tell them together.” He stood, pulling me gently to my feet, and the twin bond hummed between us—steady, fierce, unbreakable. “Ready?”

I pressed my hand to my stomach, felt the magic pulse warm beneath my palm, and nodded.

Together. The way it was always supposed to be.