POV: Raevan
I’ve searched the palace for hours.
Hours of dodging elders, avoiding Azhara’s hysterics, ignoring guards who keep whispering about Soraya as if she’s a comet fallen through the roof.
Every hall smells like her. Not faintly. Not like memory. Like now. Moonlight and cool desert wind.
Alive. Here. Breathing the same air as me.
When I finally catch sight of her slipping through one of the side corridors, something inside me snaps loose. My body moves before thought. Before restraint. Before reason.
“Soraya.”
She freezes.
Not slowly—violently, like the sound of my voice hit her like a spear.
She turns around, and for the first time in a year I look straight into those blue Zehrael eyes without the haze of grief or hallucination. They’re sharper now. Older. Stronger.
Beautiful.
But the second she sees me—really sees me—her expression hardens into something cold and furious.
Good.
Anger means she still feels.
“Raevan,” she says tightly. “I’m busy.”
“You’ll make time.”
Her jaw tightens. “I’m not under your command.”
My wolf lunges at her words, hackles raised. “You never were under my command. You were—”
“Don’t say it.”
Her voice slices like a whip.
“Don’t you dare say what I think you’re about to.”
I grit my teeth. “Then stay. Talk. Don’t run from me.”
“I’m not running,” she snaps. “I’m leaving.”
She turns to walk away. I catch her wrist. Not hard, just enough. Her breath stutters. Mine stops entirely.
There it is—the spark. The heat that never died.
The bond neither time nor distance managed to rot.
She rips her wrist away like my touch burns. “Don’t touch me.”
My voice drops to a dangerous growl. “I thought you were dead.”
Silence. Sharp. Vicious.
Her eyes tremble once before she masks it again.
“And I thought you were supposed to care,” she says, voice cold steel. “You mourned me for a few weeks and then married Azhara. You had a child with her.”
A child I never wanted. A marriage I never accepted.
Anger rips up my spine. “You think I ‘got over’ you?”
“You did,” she spits. “You moved on. Quickly.”
The accusation hits harder than any blade. “You disappeared,” I snarl. “You left nothing. No trace. No message. You let me believe you were dead—for a year.”
Her breath shakes, but she doesn’t back down. “I didn’t ‘let’ you do anything. I nearly died. Zehrael saved me. They protected me. They gave me a home.”
“Then you married him?”
The words feel poisonous in my mouth.
“Baltimus? You married him?”
“It was for safety.”
“Safety?” I bark. “You’re a Zehrael wolf. You don’t need protection from anyone.”
“It was the right decision,” she says firmly.
Flatly. Like she rehearsed it. But her pulse—the small flicker in her throat—tells another story.
I take a slow step toward her.
“Why didn’t you come back?” I ask.
Not shouting now. Just raw.
Exposed.
“I searched the dunes until blood soaked my paws. I tore apart raiders. I destroyed every trace Zarek left. I went mad, Soraya. I—”
“And still,” she interrupts, “you married her.”
My voice breaks. “I didn’t choose it. They forced—”
“They forced nothing,” she says quietly.
“You could’ve refused. You’ve defied the elders before.”
I choke on silence.
She’s right.
I could have fought harder. I could have ripped myself free of Azhara’s manipulations. I could have claimed my truth.
But I didn’t.
Because I thought Soraya was gone. Beyond rescue. Beyond breath. Beyond my reach.
“You let me go,” I whisper, hating the way my voice trembles.
‘And you replaced me.”
I take another step. She takes none.
The air electrifies between us.
“No one,” I growl, “could ever replace you.”
Her lips tremble—but she lifts her chin higher. “Then why are you with her?”
“I’m not,” I bite out. “Not truly. Not in any way that matters. The marriage is ash. The bond is poison. I never touched her after that night—”
Her face contorts. “The night she drugged you.”
Shame burns down my spine. “Yes.”
She shakes her head, backing a single step away. “I can’t do this.”
I reach for her hand again—she lets me catch it this time—but only because she’s too stunned from her own anger to pull away.
“You belong with me,” I say quietly.
Dangerously.
Truthfully.
Her breath breaks. “I belong to no one.”
My thumb traces the edge of her palm—the way I used to—and her wolf flickers beneath her skin, answering mine instinctively.
“You’re mine,” I whisper.
Not a command. A memory. A wound. A truth we both feel and both hate.
Her voice comes out strangled. “Stop.”
“I can’t.”
Her eyes glisten. “You should’ve thought of that before marrying her.”
Before I can answer—A voice booms from the corridor:
“Enough.”
Baltimus steps into view with the quiet authority of a stone collapsing a canyon. His eyes are calm—but his shoulders are rigid, ad his jaw locked hard enough to crack teeth.
Soraya jerks her hand out of mine as if struck.
Baltimus doesn’t look at me first. He looks at her. Gentle. Steady.
“Come,” he says. “The council wants a word before the feast resumes.”
She hesitates.
Then she moves toward him. Baltimus places a protective hand at her back—not possessive, not jealous, but grounding.
Guarding.
My wolf howls inside my chest, ripping at my ribs.
Baltimus turns his head slightly, eyes meeting mine for one sharp moment—a warning, a challenge, a promise.
“She is not yours to tear apart,” he says quietly.
He leads Soraya away.
She doesn’t look back.
My hand stays open in the air where hers used to be—empty, cold, shaking. And for the first time in a year, the dread wolf inside me finally understands what it means to lose her.