POV: Raevan
There is a moment—quiet, small, almost unnoticeable—when grief stops feeling like drowning and instead becomes something sharper. Something with teeth.
That moment came to me three days after we found Soraya’s trail ending at the cliff.
Three days since my heart tore itself apart. Three days since I screamed into the dunes until my voice broke. Three days since I felt anything human. On the fourth day, something inside me hardened.
And the dread wolf took its place.
***
The Ashra fortress has grown silent around me. Doors shut faster when I walk past. Warriors straighten, but their eyes slip sideways, watching me the way prey watches a predator it knows it cannot outrun.
I used to know their names. Their strengths. Their families.
Now they are shapes. Shadows. Weapons I command.
My wolf stalks inside my ribcage, restless and hungry. It wants blood—not for battle, not for sport, but to fill the hollow space Soraya left behind. Grief has twisted into fury, and fury has nowhere to go.
So it spreads.
This morning, a warrior from the North Watchtower made a mistake during drills—just one misstep. His blade dipped too low, his stance sloppy. A minor error. One easily corrected.
But my temper snapped like brittle bone.
“Do it again,” I growled.
He did.
“Again.”
He trembled.
“AGAIN.”
He nearly collapsed trying, feet slipping in the sand.
Kaide had to physically drag me away before I shattered the boy’s arm.
Later, he cornered me in the main hall, jaw clenched in a rare show of defiance. “What the hell was that?”
“A training correction,” I said flatly.
“That wasn’t training.” Kaide grabbed my forearm. “That was cruelty.”
I shook him off with more force than necessary. “If he can’t survive one correction, he won’t survive raiders.”
“Surviving YOU is becoming the greater challenge!” Kaide snapped.
My wolf lunged at the insult. I stepped forward, shoulders squared, eyes glowing faintly. Kaide matched me, refusing to flinch.
“You’re grieving,” he said, voice low but steady. “I get it. But this—this rage? This isn’t you, Raevan.”
“Maybe this IS me,” I murmured, voice dangerously soft. “Maybe the version you want—the calm alpha, the patient leader—died at that cliff.”
Kaide’s face twisted in pain. “Don’t say that.”
I walked past him, refusing to answer.
Behind me, he whispered, “She wouldn’t want you like this.”
That sentence carved another crack into me.
But I didn’t stop.
***
By midday, I had thrown myself into border work again. Patrol rotations. Fortifications. Raiding parties. My commanders approached me hesitantly, unsure how close they dared to stand.
“The Iron Howlers moved south,” one of them reported. “Tracking patterns suggest they’re waiting for Zarek’s orders.”
“Then we’ll break their waiting,” I said. “Burn their camp to ash by nightfall.”
The warrior blanched. “Alpha, that violates the—”
“The treaty?” I growled. “The one THEY already breached by trying to abduct Soraya again?”
Silence.
My rage boiled.
“We attack,” I snarled. “Anyone who disagrees can step down from their post.”
No one stepped forward.
Cowards or loyal—I didn’t care which.
Kaide joined the conversation moments later, breath still uneven from searching the cliffs again. He didn’t say Soraya’s name. He didn’t need to. Her absence crushed the air between us.
“You’re starting a war,” he said quietly.
“Zarek started a war the day he marked her,” I said.
Kaide’s jaw clenched. “You can’t keep pretending she wants you to burn the desert.”
A flash of agony cut through me. “She’s dead.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I DO.”
My voice echoed across the courtyard. Wolves nearby froze. Even Kaide stilled, his expression turning from anger into grief.
My fists shook. I forced the words past the lump in my throat.
“If she survived, she would’ve come home.”
Kaide lowered his head. “Or she couldn’t.”
I hated the logic. I hated the truth. I hated the flicker of hope it sparked.
Hope was a poison far worse than grief.
I turned away. “Enough. Prepare the strike plans.”
Kaide didn’t move. “Raevan… Azhara is still pregnant. You haven’t checked on her once.”
The words felt like venom. I bared my teeth.
“If I see her,” I said, voice low and lethal, “I might hurt her. And the child did nothing wrong.”
Kaide inhaled sharply. “So you avoid her entirely?”
“I avoid what’s necessary to keep the heir alive,” I said coldly. “That is my responsibility as alpha.”
“And what about your responsibility as a man?” he asked gently.
I stilled. Responsibility. Man. Words that once meant something. Not anymore.
“Send the healers to her,” I said. “Send guards. But keep her away from me.”
Kaide swallowed. “She’s terrified of you.”
“She should be,” I whispered. “Everyone should be.”
***
By evening, I stood atop the western wall, staring out at the darkening dunes. Soldiers patrolled below, their armor clinking softly. When they saw me, their steps grew sharper, their movements faster.
Fear sharpened obedience.
Fear compensated for my unraveling.
Fear kept them alive.
But it did nothing for me.
I gripped the stone rail, breath shaking. The night wind brushed against my skin. It carried faint scents—smoke, incense from Soraya’s vigil, dried blood.
And something else.
Loneliness.
The fortress felt hollow without her presence. Without her sharp tongue, her stubborn defiance, her uncontrollable power that lit the halls like starlight.
“She wasn’t meant for us,” Kaide had said earlier. “She was meant for something bigger.”
I wanted to believe that. But the cliffside blood still stained my memory.
I closed my eyes.
Soraya laughing during training. Soraya slapping me. Soraya healing a child with trembling hands. Soraya whispering she hated me. Soraya collapsing into my arms after her first shift. Soraya looking at me with tears when she saw Azhara’s pregnancy was real.
A part of me died in each memory. A part that would not return. A part that made me human. When I opened my eyes, the desert felt colder.
And the dread wolf inside me finally stopped pacing.
He sat. He watched. He waited—for vengeance.