POV: Soraya
By sunset, the fortress felt too loud. Too crowded. Too suffocating. Every whisper I passed in the halls scraped against my nerves like sandpaper. Every sideways look, every sharp inhale, every muttered moon-cursed girl made the shame in my chest throb harder.
I escaped to the training cliffs just outside the courtyard, where the wind was sharp and the dunes stretched endless beneath the fading sky. My heart still ached from the oasis garden—from Raevan’s kiss, from my own stupidity, from the cruel echo of wanting something I could never keep.
I sat on the stone ledge, hugging my knees, staring at the slope of gold and shadow rolling into the horizon.
Footsteps crunched softly behind me.
Only one wolf walked with that steady, quiet weight.
“Kaide,” I murmured without turning. “Please tell me you’re here to take me away from the world and bury me under a dune.”
He chuckled, low and warm. “Tempting. But I think Raevan would tear the dunes apart stone by stone.”
“That’s exactly why you should do it,” I muttered.
He walked around the ledge and sat beside me. Not too close. Not too far. Just close enough that I felt him there—solid, steady, unshaken by storms the way I never was.
“You disappeared after training,” he said softly. “I thought you should have someone beside you who isn’t planning a war or kissing you in gardens.”
My cheeks flamed. “Please don’t.”
“Soraya.” His voice gentled. “I’m not here to judge.”
I exhaled shakily. “Then why are you here?”
He looked at the horizon for a long moment, the sunset painting amber across his scarred knuckles. “Because you looked like you were breaking today.”
“I’m not breaking,” I lied.
He hummed dryly. “Then you’re bending in ways that make me uncomfortable.”
I rubbed my palms together. “Kaide… what am I doing here? Every second I live under this roof, something else falls apart. The elders fear me. The wolves glare at me. Azhara wants me dead. Zarek wants to claim me. And Raevan…”
My voice cracked. “Raevan keeps ruining me without even trying.”
Kaide didn’t answer immediately.
When he did, his voice was lower than before. “Soraya… none of this is your fault.”
“It feels like it.”
“You’re wrong,” he said firmly. “It’s theirs. Their fear. Their politics. Their obsession with control. It has nothing to do with you.”
My throat tightened. “Zarek wants me punished because he thinks he owns me. Azhara hates me because she thinks I’m stealing what belongs to her. And Raevan—”
“Raevan,” Kaide interrupted tightly, “is a fool.”
I blinked. “You… hate him now?”
“I don’t hate him.” Kaide sighed. “But I resent him. Deeply. Because he should protect you better. Because he should have told you the truth sooner. Because he keeps tearing at your heart without meaning to.” He paused. “And because somewhere, somehow, he forgot that being Alpha doesn’t give him the right to break people.”
His anger surprised me. Kaide rarely showed emotion unless forced. But right now, his jaw was clenched, his breath sharp, his shoulders tense.
“You’re too loyal to him to say that,” I whispered.
He finally looked at me—really looked. “I’m loyal to Ashra. And to what is right. Raevan can earn or lose my loyalty… same as anyone else.”
I stared down at my hands. “Then why are you loyal to me?”
His breath hitched—barely.
I noticed.
He looked away again, eyes scanning the dunes. “Because you’re… Soraya.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have right now.”
Silence stretched between us. The wind brushed across my face like a cold hand. My heart beat too loud, too fragile.
Finally, Kaide spoke again. Quiet. Honest.
“I see you as family.”
The words hit like a soft blow—comfort and ache all at once.
“You don’t have to protect me,” I whispered.
“I do,” he said immediately. “And I will. Even from Raevan. Even from Zarek. Even from the entire Ashra council if it comes to that.”
“Family,” I repeated, tasting the word. “The platonic kind or…?”
He froze.
The wind stopped moving.
My breath tangled in my throat as I waited—too afraid of the answer and too desperate not to hear it.
Kaide didn’t look at me.
He didn’t even blink.
He just stared at the horizon like the dunes could swallow the question whole.
“Kaide?” I whispered.
Slowly—painfully—he stood up.
He didn’t walk away.
He just stared down at me with an expression I couldn't read, like he was standing at the edge of a cliff and deciding whether to jump.
“Does it matter which kind?” he asked finally.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He inhaled sharply, shaken. “Then… I can’t answer.”
My heart twisted painfully. “Because you don’t know? Or because you won’t say?”
“Both,” he said. “And neither.”
That made no sense. None.
But his voice—his voice was full of things he couldn’t name.
I stood too.
We were only a breath apart now.
Kaide swallowed hard. “Soraya… you are not alone. Even if this entire empire turns against you, I won’t.” His voice dropped, rough with emotion he never showed. “That is the only truth I can give you right now.”
Something inside me broke then—not in pain, but in the soft ache of being seen.
I nodded, unable to speak.
Kaide stepped back before I could reach for him. “Rest tonight. Tomorrow, training continues.”
Then he turned and walked down the path without another word.
He didn’t look back. He didn’t need to—his silence said enough.