Chapter 3 - The Clockwork Agony
At 1:45 AM, the storm outside reached its crescendo, battering the cliffside fortress with sheets of freezing rain and howling Pacific gales.
I was sitting in a stiff leather armchair in the corner of the suite, reading a legal brief I had brought with me, when the first sound came. It wasn't a roar. It was a low, strangled gasp from across the room.
I looked up.
Kane was on his knees beside the king-sized bed, his hands clawing at the thick wool rug, his head thrown back as a violent shiver racked his massive frame. The golden light in his eyes flared uncontrollably, casting eerie, flickering shadows across the dark walls.
“Kane?” I dropped the papers and stood up immediately.
“Stay back,” he growled, his voice distorted, half-human and half-animal, dripping with raw agony. “Get away from me—the barrier’s breaking—I can’t control—!”
I didn’t listen. I crossed the room in three swift strides and dropped to my knees beside him on the cold floor.
The heat radiating off him was blistering, like opening the door of a blast furnace. The silver compound he had been injected with years ago during an assassination attempt by a rogue faction had permanently fused with his neural pathways, creating a permanent, agonizing war between his wolf’s primal instincts and his human mind. Every month, during the lunar cycle, the barrier frayed, plunging him into a living hell of sensory overload and phantom pain.
“What do you need?” I asked, grabbing his shaking shoulders. My fingers sank into the damp cotton of his shirt.
“Nothing—just press the damn button!” he roared, squeezing his eyes shut as a fresh wave of agony hit him, his fists punching a dent into the hardwood floor. “Press the button, Harper! Before I tear you apart!”
“No.”
I reached out and grabbed his face, forcing him to look at me, my hands framing his stubbled jaw despite the blistering heat of his skin.
“Look at me, Kane,” I commanded, channeling every ounce of authority I had used to wrangle my drunk, desperate father out of boardrooms at midnight. “Look at my eyes. I’m not going anywhere.”
He opened his eyes, the irises glowing a terrifying, feral gold, staring at me with a mixture of rage and desperate, clawing vulnerability.
“You don't understand,” he choked out, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. “It feels like my skin is being peeled off. Every nerve is on fire. My wolf wants to destroy everything in this room—starting with you.”
“Then destroy it,” I said softly, sliding my hands down to grip his massive, trembling wrists, anchoring him to the physical world. “Take it out on me. Shout. Scream. But you are not going to sit here and suffer alone just because you think you have to be the monster everyone expects you to be.”
A low, vibrating growl built in the back of his throat, rumbling through his chest and vibrating straight into my palms. For a terrifying second, I thought he was going to lose control, that the beast would take over and throw me across the room.
Instead, with a sudden, collapsing motion, Kane slumped forward, burying his face in the crook of my neck.
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His heavy arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me against his burning chest with a desperate, crushing grip. He didn't bite. He didn't crush me. He just held on like a drowning man clutching a piece of driftwood in the middle of a hurricane.
And as the storm raged outside the cliffside fortress, the Alpha King of the Northwest wept silent, burning tears against my shoulder, holding on through the darkest hours of the night.
