Savage Truths Chapter 9

Chapter NINE: The Morning After the Fall

I awoke to the gentle light of dawn filtering through the window of Kaelen’s lodge, and for one blissful, disoriented moment, there was only peace. The world was soft and warm. The solid, reassuring weight of Kaelen’s arm was draped over my waist, his breath a steady rhythm against my neck. The mate bond hummed contentedly in my chest, a low, warm thrum of connection that felt as natural as my own heartbeat. It was a feeling of wholeness, of rightness, so profound it brought tears to my eyes.

I lay perfectly still, memorizing the sensation. The scent of him on the sheets, the heat of his skin against mine. This was what I had been missing my entire life without even knowing it. This was the truth the bond had been trying to show me. For a few stolen hours, I had let myself believe it could be my reality.

Then, like the first, cold drop of rain before a storm, reality began to seep back in.

The silence of the room was broken by a faint, insistent buzzing. It was coming from the pile of my discarded clothes on the floor. My phone.

My heart, so full and content moments before, seized with a sudden, violent dread. Kaelen stirred beside me, his arm tightening around me in his sleep, a low, possessive sound rumbling in his chest. The bond swelled with a wave of pure, uncomplicated affection. It was a lie. A beautiful, devastating lie.

The buzzing stopped. Then, a moment later, it started again. More insistent this time. Sarah. It had to be Sarah. My editor. My tether to the world I had left behind. The world that was waiting for a story.

Carefully, agonizingly slowly, I extricated myself from Kaelen’s embrace. The loss of his touch was a physical ache, a coldness that seeped into my bones. The bond whimpered in protest. Stay,it seemed to whisper. This is where you belong.

But the buzzing was a siren’s call to duty, to disaster. I crept to my clothes and fumbled for the phone. The screen lit up, illuminating the dim room. MISSED CALL: SARAH (3). NEW TEXT MESSAGE.

My thumb trembled as I unlocked the phone.

Sarah: Eleanor. Status report. The deadline is tomorrow. I need copy. This silence is not reassuring. The higher-ups are asking questions. Don’t tell me you’ve gone native. Call me. Now.

The words were like shards of ice, piercing the fragile bubble of happiness I’d been clinging to. Gone native.The phrase was a slap in the face, so accurate it was cruel. I had. I had gone so utterly, completely native that I was lying naked in the bed of the subject of my expose.

I looked back at Kaelen, sleeping peacefully in the bed we had shared. His face in sleep was younger, the lines of command and worry smoothed away. He looked like just a man. The man I was destined for. The man I was contractually obligated to destroy.

The push and pull was an internal scream. My heart, my soul, my very DNA was tethered to him, screaming at me to get back in that bed, to lose myself in him, to let the rest of the world burn. This was the bond’s ultimate temptation: to abandon everything for this primal connection.

But my mind, my identity, the decades of building a career on integrity and truth-telling, fought back with a cold, sharp clarity. I had a responsibility. To my paper. To the public’s right to know. To the truth. Which truth?a desperate part of me cried. The complicated truth of a protector, or the simple, damning headline of a “monster”?

I felt sick. The warmth of his touch still on my skin felt like a brand of betrayal. The sweet, musky scent of our lovemaking now smelled like hypocrisy.

I dressed with clumsy, silent movements, my eyes never leaving Kaelen. Each piece of clothing felt like donning a suit of armor I no longer wanted. With one last, longing look at the man who had become my entire world in a single night, I slipped out of the lodge.

The morning air was crisp and clean, a stark contrast to the turmoil inside me. I walked back to my empty cabin, the ghost of his embrace still clinging to me. I opened my laptop. The blank document stared back at me, the cursor blinking mockingly.

I had to make a choice. The week was up. Kaelen had shown me his truth. Now I had to decide what to do with mine.

I had gotten the story of a lifetime. A story of love, and loyalty, and a secret world worth protecting. But it was a story nobody would ever publish. The story they wanted was the one I had come to find, the one that was now a lie.

I put my head in my hands, the weight of my decision crushing me. I had to call Sarah back. I had to give her something. But what could I say? That I’d fallen in love with my subject? That the monster was the hero?

The morning after the fall was infinitely colder than the night before. I was Eleanor Reed, journalist. And I had never been more lost.