POV: Raevan
I wake with sand in my mouth and iron in my skull.
Not literally, but that’s how it feels. My head throbs, vision slow to focus. The room flickers into clarity—my private chamber, dawn light seeping around the shutters, the scent of incense lingering in the air.
And another scent. Azhara.
Panic hits before memory does.
I sit up too fast. Pain spikes behind my eyes. Sheets twist around my waist, my chest bare, skin marked by faint scratches. Beside me, half-covered in my cloak, Azhara reclines on one elbow, watching.
She smiles like she’s already won.
“Good morning,” she says.
Cold settles in my veins. “What did you do?”
She feigns offense. “Is that how you greet your betrothed after a very… committed night?”
Fragments slam into place—the banquet, the goblet, the corridor, seeing Soraya, touching—
My stomach lurches.
“You drugged me,” I snarl.
“‘Drugged’ is such an ugly word,” she replies calmly. “I gave you something to help you see what you really wanted.”
“I saw Soraya,” I hiss. “I thought I was touching her.”
Her eyes flash with something like hurt before steel covers it. “Of course you did. You see her everywhere. You think of her every second.” Her mouth tightens. “So I gave you a little push.”
I glare. “What did you put in my drink?”
She shrugs one bare shoulder. “An illusion draught. Harmless. Old Zehrael recipe. I diluted it.”
“Harmless?” My laugh is brutal. “You used magic on your king.”
“I used magic on my mate,” she snaps back. “Because he couldn’t see what was right in front of him.”
Silence crackles. My heart hammers.
“Mated,” I repeat slowly.
Azhara lifts her hand. Her wrist bears a faint, glowing mark—a mirrored crescent, matching the burn I suddenly feel over my own heart.
No.
No.
“Say it,” she murmurs. “You know what it means.”
The bond hums between us—faint, distant, but present. Not imagined. Not dreamed. Real.
Sealed.
My breath goes shallow.
“No,” I whisper. “No, we didn’t—”
“We did,” she says gently. “You marked me. I marked you. The bond is sealed. The elders felt it before dawn. The council is already whispering that Ashra is secure at last.”
I dig my fingers into my skull. The memory of the night is a fractured mirror—Soraya’s face, Soraya’s voice, Soraya’s hands—but now Azhara’s scent overlays everything.
“I didn’t choose this,” I say.
“You did,” she replies. “Not with your mind, maybe. But with your wolf. With your body.”
“Because you poisoned both,” I spit.
“I nudged,” she says. “The rest was you.”
I stand abruptly, dragging a robe around my shoulders, needing distance. The bond tugs faintly, irritated at the space between us. It’s a thin thread compared to what it should be, but it exists.
“You manipulated me,” I say. “You stole my choice.”
Her jaw tightens. “Like she stole mine.”
I freeze.
Azhara stands slowly, wrapping the cloak tighter, eyes burning. “Do you think I wanted this?” she demands. “To wed a man already half-bonded to some storm-tossed stray? To have the council measure every breath I draw beside you?”
“Azhara—”
“You think I don’t see the way you look at her?” she continues, voice shaking. “Like she’s the only real thing in this stone prison? I did what I had to do to secure my House. My people. Myself.”
“By trapping me,” I say.
“By reminding you of the oath we both inherited,” she counters. “We were promised before we knew what promise meant. Our houses bled for this alliance. I will not be discarded because your heart wandered toward a girl Darron tried to bury.”
I swallow. Guilt and anger war in my chest.
“The bond is sealed,” she says quietly. “It cannot be undone without death. You know that.”
I do.
Every story says the same: once wolves complete the mating bond, tearing it apart kills one or both. Even trying weakens an empire.
“Does she know?” Azhara asks, suddenly softer. “Soraya. Did she see?”
A chill runs through me. “I don’t know.”
“You should find out,” Azhara says. “Because if she did, you’ve already lost whatever fragile trust you had.”
Her words land with brutal accuracy.
I leave the chamber without another word.
***
The fortress is oddly quiet as I stalk through the corridors. Servants bow and flatten themselves against the walls. Some won’t meet my eyes. The bond at my chest hums like a bruise.
Soraya isn’t in the healing hall. Not in the training yard. Not in the inner courtyard where she sometimes watches the sunrise.
I find her on the south ramparts, staring out at the dunes. Wind whips her hair around her face. She doesn’t turn when I approach.
“Soraya.”
No answer.
I stop a few steps away, hands clenched at my sides. “We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing left to say,” she replies, voice rough.
“There is,” I insist. “Last night—”
“Last night,” she cuts in sharply, “I walked down a corridor because I heard your voice.” Her shoulders shake once. “I saw you. With her.”
My chest tightens. “I was drugged. Azhara put a potion in my wine. I thought—”
“You thought she was me,” Soraya finishes.
Silence.
She slowly turns.
Her eyes are rimmed red but dry. The hurt in them is worse than any tears.
“You didn’t stop,” she says quietly. “Whatever you thought, whoever you saw—it wasn’t enough to make you stop.”
I flinch. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“You were thinking enough to touch,” she says. “Enough to mark. Enough to bind yourself to her forever.”
“I didn’t know—”
“That doesn’t change what happened,” she whispers.
Wind howls around us.
“The bond is sealed,” I say, hating the words. “It can’t be undone without blood.”
“I know,” she replies. “I heard the elders celebrating.”
I want to reach for her. I don’t dare.
“Soraya—”
“No,” she says. “You don’t get to say my name like that anymore. You chose, Raevan. Maybe not with full control. Maybe not the way you wanted. But the bond chose for you.”
“That doesn’t change what I feel,” I say hoarsely.
She laughs—a broken, bitter sound. “That’s the worst part. If you didn’t feel anything, it would be easier to walk away.”
A gust of wind pulls at her cloak. She faces the desert again.
“Whatever we were,” she says softly, “whatever we might have been…it ends here.”
My throat burns. “Don’t say that.”
“I have to,” she whispers. “Because if I don’t, I’ll keep standing in places that were never meant for me.”
Her words slice through me.
And I know, in that moment, that I have lost something I never truly had.