POV: Soraya
The full moon rises slow and swollen over the Ashra Fortress, a pale disc drowning the desert in silver fire. Even from my chamber window, I can feel the change in the air. Wolves across the palace stir restlessly. Growls echo faintly from the lower halls. The energy is sharp enough to scrape my skin.
I shouldn’t be out tonight. Wolves warned me. Vienne warned me. Even Kaide insisted I lock my door because the full moon amplifies instincts—especially for Alphas already teetering between control and ruin.
But my room feels too tight, too full of memories I’m trying to outrun.
So I walk.
The corridor is quiet, lit only by flickering oil lamps. I breathe slowly, trying to keep my heartbeat steady. But every step seems to pull something behind my ribs, tugging me toward a place I should not be.
A familiar presence.
No. I stop walking, forcing myself to turn around—
A shadow detaches from the wall.
Raevan stands framed in moonlight filtering through the latticework, bare-chested, breathing too fast, eyes glowing bright silver-blue like twin shards of ice. His tattoos flicker like burning script beneath his skin. His wolf is so close to the surface I can feel it, hot and hungry and barely chained.
“Go back to your room,” he rasps.
I swallow. “I was trying to.”
He flinches, jaw tightening as if restraining himself physically. “Soraya… I can smell you.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “That’s— that’s not my fault.”
“Everything is amplified tonight,” he says, voice shaking. “Everything I’ve been fighting. Everything I’ve been ignoring. And you’re here.” His hand clenches against the wall. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Then I’ll leave.”
I step back. He steps forward.
“Don’t,” he whispers.
My breath catches. “Raevan—”
His eyes lock onto mine, wild and tormented. “I’m losing control.”
The air vibrates. The bond—thin but still humming between us—is pulled taut like a bowstring. His wolf surges against its cage, shaking his entire frame. He drags a hand through his hair like a man trying to pull himself apart.
“Every time I try to stay away,” he growls, “you walk into the one place I can’t hide from.”
“I didn’t know—”
“You always know,” he says hoarsely. “Your wolf feels me even when your mind refuses to.”
The words strike too deep. “Raevan, please—just breathe.”
He laughs hollowly. “I haven’t been able to breathe since the night of the rut.”
My heart drops. “Don’t say that.”
He steps toward me, slow and shaking, as if every movement is a battle. “The bond pulls at me. You pull at me. And I’m too broken to push back tonight.”
“Raevan—”
He moves faster than I can react, caging me gently but firmly against the latticework wall. His hands don’t touch me, but they hover close, trembling with restraint.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispers.
I should.
I open my mouth. No sound comes out.
His forehead rests against the wall beside my head. He sucks in a breath that sounds like pain. “If you don’t tell me to stop, I won’t.”
The bond pulses like a heartbeat between us.
My voice trembles. “I don’t want you to stop.”
The last thread of his control snaps.
He crushes his mouth to mine.
Heat explodes through me—sharp, desperate, overwhelming. His hands find my waist, sliding under the edge of my tunic, pulling me against him like he’s starved. I gasp into him, fingers tangling in his hair, everything spiraling too fast. His lips trace fire down my throat. The world narrows to instinct, to hunger, to the way our bodies fit like they were carved from the same storm.
“Soraya,” he breathes against my skin, voice breaking. “I tried—I swear I tried—”
“I know,” I whisper, pulling him closer.
There is no thought. No logic. Only need, the full moon burning through our veins and the bond humming like a live wire.
His hands lift me; my legs wrap around him without thinking. He carries me—somehow—with a gentleness that contradicts the wild heat rolling off him. My back meets a soft pile of cushions in the shadowed alcove overlooking the moonlit dunes.
His forehead presses to mine. “Tell me you want this.”
I swallow hard. “I want this.”
His mouth returns to mine.
The world dissolves.
***
When it’s over—when breath finally returns and the moon shifts lower into the horizon—Raevan sits beside me, chest rising and falling like he ran a desert war.
His voice is raw. “I shouldn’t have touched you.”
Guilt cuts through the remaining haze. “We both let it happen.”
He shakes his head with a pained expression. “No. I dragged you into the fire. Again.”
My stomach twists. “Raevan—”
He stands abruptly, turning away as if looking at me burns him. “Get dressed. Please. Before I forget how to be anything but a wolf tonight.”
He leaves.
And I am left in the moonlight, shaking, knowing something inside me has broken open beyond repair.