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Blood in the Wilds: 24

Penulis: Bella-Anne
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-05-30 00:37:34

Lira (POV)

The trees here grow like they remember what came before. Crooked. Bone-thin. Covered in black lichen that flakes like rot when you brush past. Even the snow beneath them isn’t clean—stained with old ash, marbled with rust-colored melt lines like veins under skin.

Beneath the crust, old things waited. Splinters of bone, gnawed and half-fused to root systems. Burned fur strands embedded in frostbite. Someone had scratched spiral runes into a fallen trunk and left offerings—small teeth, twisted twine, the kind of things you left behind when you wanted the Wilds to remember your name. This wasn’t a place wolves passed through. It was a place they came to bleed.

We’d set up camp just below the ridgeline, tucked behind a sloped wedge of rock that blocked the worst of the wind. Kael said nothing when I collapsed onto the ground, knees aching, breath fogging. He just dropped his satchel and walked to the edge, staring down into the Hollow.

It was quiet.

Not the good kind of quiet.
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  • Bloodied Ashes   The Rise of Ruin: 13

    Lira (POV) I didn’t announce myself. I just stepped into the circle of warmth and sat across the flames from him. Not beside. Not touching. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t startle. Just looked up and met my eyes. No words. Just the fire cracking between us. His gaze dropped to my bare legs, the smudge of ash still on my coat, the bruises at my hips. His mouth parted—but nothing came. Not apology. Not hunger. Just silence. Whatever we’d become in the dark… it hadn’t followed us into the light. He passed me a flask of water. I didn’t drink. He didn’t press it. We just sat there, heat licking at our shins, while the sky above the Wilds refused to settle on a color. Half dusk. Half storm. I caught him watching me. Not with guilt. Not even regret. With endurance. Like he was bracing for whatever I became next. And I… I didn’t know how to tell him I wasn’t sure either. I wasn’t the girl who wanted him just because the tether told me to. But I wasn’t the one who didn’t want him, either

  • Bloodied Ashes   The Rise of Ruin: 12

    Lira (POV)I woke cold.Not shivering—hollow. Like something had been carved out of me during the night and carried off while I slept.My skin was slick with sweat that had already dried, tight in places, raw in others. My thighs ached. My spine throbbed. The spiral beneath my ribs didn’t pulse anymore… but it itched. Deep. Like it was watching from under the skin, waiting to be noticed.I reached out blindly beside me, fingers curling against the furs.Empty.The fire had gone out. The air in the cave hung damp and stale, as if it hadn’t dared to breathe while we—I didn’t finish the thought. I couldn’t. It stuck somewhere between throat and marrow, where his name still lingered like smoke.I sat up slowly. Every part of me protested. My legs trembled under the weight of memory. There were bruises on my hips, faint bite marks blooming across my chest, and scratches down my side that weren’t mine. Not marks of violence. Not this time.Just hunger. Desperation. Tether-deep need that ha

  • Bloodied Ashes   The Rise of Ruin: 11

    Kael (POV)The ridge broke open like a wound—jagged stone giving way to a sweeping hollow below, ringed in cliffs and silent trees. The wind came first.Not a breeze.Not weather.A sound.Low. Long. Not human. Not wolf. Something older—pressed from the lungs of things that no longer had flesh. It rolled through the broken teeth of the ridge like breath across bone. Cold climbed my spine.Lira froze.She stood near the cliff’s edge, hair whipping across her face, coat half-off her shoulders like it didn’t matter anymore. Her stance didn’t change. She didn’t flinch. But I saw it—the way her fingers curled tight. The way her throat tipped toward the sound.The howl came again.It wasn’t an echo.It wasn’t ours.And still—she answered.Not like a shifter calling pack.Not like a mate keening for bond.But like a thing left behind refusing to kneel.Her head tilted. Her mouth opened. And she howled—not high, not wild. Deep. Controlled. Ragged at the edges. A sound scraped from the spine o

  • Bloodied Ashes   The Rise of Ruin: 10

    Kael (POV)She didn’t look back.Not once. Not when she stepped into the snow barefoot. Not when the wind cut sideways through the trees. Not when my blood was still drying on her shoulder.I followed.There was nothing else to do. Nothing else that made sense. My body moved without command, boots crushing old ice, steps careful and close—but not close enough to touch her. She left no trail, not in the way mortals did. Just the ache of her heat still clinging to my skin, a pulse in the marrow that hadn’t quieted since the cave.Lira walked like the world owed her its silence. Spine straight, head high, hair knotted with sweat and shadow. Her coat hung open. The spiral mark beneath her ribs pulsed under the fabric, dark as ink and twice as loud.I should’ve said something.But my throat refused.I watched the sway of her shoulders, the slight limp from stone-bruised feet, the glint of dried blood on her collar. My mark. My sin. My choice.She didn’t speak. Didn’t slow.Just moved forwa

  • Bloodied Ashes   The Rise of Ruin: 9

    Lira (POV)The cave was too quiet.Not peaceful. Not safe. Just… quiet.The kind of silence that didn’t soothe—it hovered. Pressed tight against the ribs like memory instead of breath. Like something bent past breaking, but not quite shattered.I lay curled with my back to him, knees drawn close, spine tight with leftover tremors. The stone beneath me had cooled, but my skin still burned from touch. From memory. From tether-fed want that had nothing to do with fate and everything to do with fire.Kael didn’t move.I didn’t look.But I could hear him—steady, slow breaths somewhere behind me, each one too measured to be sleep.He was still awake. Still watching.Not me. The fire.A few coals remained. Not enough to warm, just enough to glow faintly—like dying eyes that refused to shut. Their light flickered across the walls, drawing long, shivering shadows that made the cave feel bigger than it was. Hollowed. Waiting.The bond didn’t stir.No pull. No surge. No magic recoil or spiral

  • Bloodied Ashes   The Rise of Ruin: 8

    Lira (POV)The tether snapped first.Not with sound—but with sensation. A single pulse of pressure that rolled through my spine like thunder without rain. A cracking silence before the collapse. One moment, Kael’s arms held me tight, locked around my ribs like chains meant to contain. The next—he wasn’t holding me.He was gripping me.And I——I was clawing.Fingers in his shirt. Nails dragging across the scar beneath his collarbone. My mouth found skin and bit before I knew it. Not to tease. Not to mark. To stop the ache.Kael moved like a dam finally giving way. His mouth crashed into mine—not gentle, not seeking. Tether-fed. Spiral-fed. Us. Our hunger wasn’t foreplay. It was a wound that needed teeth to clot.Fabric tore somewhere—maybe mine, maybe his. I didn’t care.There was no rhythm. No easing in. Just collision. The sound of breath catching on tongue, of bone grinding against rock. We didn’t find each other—we took.Kael’s breath growled against my throat as he shoved me back

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