POV: Soraya
The world outside Zehrael has been whispering for months. Uneasy, simmering, ready to snap.
At first I ignored the rumors drifting in through traders and wandering omegas. Tales of Ashra tightening its borders. News of Saren forming alliances with lesser desert clans. Reports of wolves vanishing from caravans, never returning. I told myself these problems belonged to other people—other empires, other battles, other wolves. Not me. Not anymore.
But the whispers kept returning. Growing. Sharpening. Forming a shape I no longer had the luxury of ignoring.
Soraya Zehrael might have found safety here, but the rest of the desert had not. And Zehrael neutrality was becoming harder to maintain the longer the tension built across the sands.
This morning, the truth arrived in the form of a trembling messenger.
Heira led him into the council room, where Baltimus and I stood reviewing new scrolls about Zehrael border protections. The messenger could barely bow, his chest heaving with exhaustion.
“I bring word from the East,” he gasped. “Ashra has mobilized fully. Saren calls for support from their vassal tribes. War gathers on every horizon.”
The room went silent. Too silent. The kind of silence that comes before a storm breaks something open.
Baltimus dismissed the council with a single gesture, then turned toward me.
“You knew this might happen,” he said softly.
“I didn’t want it to,” I whispered.
Fear was a creature in my chest now—hot, coiled, restless. Not fear for myself. I survived worse than war. I survived Zarek, Saren, Ashra’s cruelty, and the desert trying to swallow me whole. I could survive all that again.
But the thought of Zehrael being dragged into someone else’s conflict…
My stomach tightened.
“We cannot hide forever,” Baltimus said. “If Ashra and Saren clash without us, the desert will bleed in ways we cannot repair. And eventually, they will come to our gates.”
He was right. He always is. Zehrael might be powerful, but we aren’t a kingdom built to stand alone against empires. And if Ashra truly becomes a tyrant—as the rumors say Raevan has turned into—then leaving our people exposed would be suicide.
“Baltimus,” I whispered, pressing my palms onto the carved table for balance. “If Ashra goes to war, Saren will use me. Zarek will use me. He’s been searching for a way to gain leverage ever since I escaped him. Now he has a reason.”
Baltimus’s eyes narrowed. “He no longer deserves to say your name.”
“No,” I said quietly. “But he will anyway.”
Zarek’s influence still slithered across the desert. His spies drifted between caravans, his merchants hid poison beneath their politeness, his wolves looked for weaknesses like vultures scanning the sky. And with the desert preparing for war, every leader would seek an advantage.
Zehrael was an advantage.
I was.
My power. My wolf. My heritage.
“I won’t be used again,” I said, voice trembling.
“You won’t,” Baltimus answered immediately, stepping beside me, close enough that his presence steadied my bones. “You are not a tool. You are not a prize. And you are not alone.”
His certainty rooted something inside me.
For a year, I hid from the world. For a year, I learned to breathe and fight and lead. For a year, I told myself the past could stay buried beneath blue sand.
But the desert doesn’t forget. And neither do I.
My past is alive—dangerous and violent and hungry. And if I don’t face it, it will devour the people who sheltered me.
“I need to see what’s happening,” I said finally. “With my own eyes. Not through rumors. Not through frightened traders.”
Baltimus crossed his arms, the leader in him rising. “You want to leave the land. Now.”
“Yes.”
His jaw flexed. “It’s dangerous.”
“I’ve survived worse.”
“That is not the point.” His voice lowered. “If Ashra sees you—”
“They won’t,” I interrupted. “Not yet. And even if they did… whatever they think Soraya Zehrael is, they have no idea who I am now.”
Baltimus considered this. He wasn’t afraid for himself. He was afraid for me.
“We travel together,” he said at last. “No guards. No warriors. If we bring a Zehrael escort, the entire desert will panic. Two travelers can slip past borders quietly.”
Relief spilled through me—cold and warm all at once. “Thank you.”
He shook his head. “I’m not doing this for diplomacy.” His eyes softened. “I’m doing this because you asked.”
And maybe that was why I could trust him completely.
His loyalty wasn’t born of conquest or jealousy or desire. It was choice. Quiet, unwavering choice.
We leave at dawn.
The settlement rises early to see us off—warriors lining the ledges, elders murmuring protective chants, children waving small silver ribbons that ripple like moonlight in the wind.
Heira presses a bundle of herbs into my palms. “For control,” she says. “And for calm.”
Lysa hugs me so tightly she nearly cracks my ribs. “Bring stories back. Good ones.”
“I will,” I promise.
And finally, Baltimus steps beside me, dressed in desert-traveler’s garb, a plain cloak over his shoulders, his Alpha presence hidden beneath subtle runes.
“You ready?” he asks.
Am I?
I look out to the horizon—the endless dunes, the wind whipping across them like a warning, the sky burning gold and red.
My heart pounds, paces inside me. My past rises like a shadow stretching long across the sand.
“Yes,” I say. “It’s time.”
Baltimus nods, and together two Zehrael leaders step beyond the protection of their glowing sands.
As the land fades behind us, one truth rises clear as a moonlit howl: The past will not stay buried. And neither will I.