"You know what the worst part is?" he asked quietly.
Ithilien narrowed her eyes, a faint crease appearing between her brows.
"I'm sure you're about to tell me."
Kidd did not look away from her. His gaze remained steady, almost unsettling in its intensity, as though he had finally placed the last piece of a puzzle that had been irritating him since the night before.
"You're still waiting for him."
For a brief moment the words simply existed between them, suspended in the quiet kitchen. Ithilien did not answer. Her expression did not crumble or flare with anger the way it had earlier. If anything, the opposite happened. Something inside her seemed to fold inward, the calm mask returning with quiet precision, sealing away whatever reaction might have escaped.
Kidd did not stay long enough to see whether she would respond.
He turned away abruptly, the movement sharper than he intended, and walked out of the kitchen before she could say anything at all. The faint scent of jasmine followed him into the hallway, clinging stubbornly to the air, and he found himself clenching his jaw as if the smell itself were a provocation.
Damn it...
The irritation that flared through him was not directed at her, not really. It burned hotter because he recognized its real source the moment it appeared - Himself.
He should have understood the situation sooner. The signs had been there from the beginning if he had bothered to look without letting instinct and curiosity cloud his judgment. The scent of another alpha lingering beneath her own. The way she reacted whenever the subject of bonds surfaced. The invisible tension that surrounded her, like a thread pulled taut between two distant points.
Waiting.
Still waiting.
Kidd exhaled slowly as he stepped into the dim living room, forcing the anger to settle into something colder and more controlled. Outside the wide window the drizzle had thickened into steady rain, the soft patter against the glass echoing faintly through the quiet house. He stopped there for a moment, looking out at the dark yard beyond the porch light, letting the familiar discipline of command settle over him like armor.
It was ridiculous.
Pathetic, even.
Whatever tragic loyalty Ithilien had chosen to chain herself to was none of his concern. If her alpha was alive somewhere and she had decided to spend her life lingering in the shadow of that bond, refusing to sever it even after he had clearly chosen another path, then that was her problem. Not his. He had no intention of becoming part of that kind of story.
Kidd dragged a hand slowly through his hair and leaned one shoulder against the wall, forcing his thoughts back into order. Fenrir. That was what mattered. Two young wolves with something dangerous in their blood, a virus no one fully understood, and a pack that relied on him to keep them alive long enough to figure it out.
That was the reality he lived in.
He straightened after a moment, rolling his shoulders as though shaking off the last lingering tension from the confrontation in the kitchen. The resolve forming in his chest was quiet but absolute.
Distance.
Professional distance, nothing more.
From this point forward he would treat her the same way he treated any outsider who stepped onto neutral ground: with basic courtesy, measured cooperation, and absolutely no personal involvement. Whatever sharp pull had drawn his attention to her before would be ignored, dismissed, buried beneath responsibilities that actually mattered.
If she wanted to live inside a story where broken bonds and distant alphas still held meaning, she was welcome to it. He had a pack to take care of and that responsibility left no room for distractions.
Behind him the kitchen remained quiet. He could still hear faint movement—water running, porcelain shifting against the rack, the small domestic sounds of someone pretending everything was perfectly ordinary.
Kidd did not turn back to look. There was nothing there worth seeing anyway.