Keira POV
“Don't grit your teeth like that if you don't plan to grind them to dust,” the healer scolded me.
I bit back the retort that I already had on my lips. The man was a low-grade healer so the procedure was only a little better than surgery. It'd been an hour already, and the stab wound still hadn't closed completely. I could feel my skin knitting by the second, but did it have to take so long? He muttered another spell, and the pain flared again.
He sucked his teeth. “I've seen your type before, you know? It's in your eyes. You fight like you have nothing to lose, like you expect every fight to be your last. You'll rather take your opponent down and kill yourself in the process, then ensure you both make it back home.” He shook his head sadly, a rueful smile on his face. “Well, at least they pay me enough to stitch you back up so you can go kill yourselves. N
Kai POVI sat behind the mahogany table in my office. Sunlight spilled in through the adjacent window, falling in pockets over the floor and the reports I was reading. Supply report. Recruitment report. Casualty report. I've always known that I'd have to become the alpha some day. I was the oldest, and that meant responsibility. It meant being a leader that everyone could trust to put the pack's interest over his own like… like my father did. Thinking about my father broke my heart. That was still a fresh wound, too raw to prod or touch. What made it worse were my feelings. Every one of them was treasonous. As I sat there, details of the pack's misfortunes in front of me, I wasn't thinking about the pack. I was thinking about Keira. Thinking about her hurt, too, but the pain was different. I had a vague feeling that she was still alive, but in pain and far away. I'd never had a mate before, so I wasn't used to my admittedly new senses. He couldn't tell what direction she'd gone
Keira POV“Don't grit your teeth like that if you don't plan to grind them to dust,” the healer scolded me.I bit back the retort that I already had on my lips. The man was a low-grade healer so the procedure was only a little better than surgery. It'd been an hour already, and the stab wound still hadn't closed completely. I could feel my skin knitting by the second, but did it have to take so long? He muttered another spell, and the pain flared again.He sucked his teeth. “I've seen your type before, you know? It's in your eyes. You fight like you have nothing to lose, like you expect every fight to be your last. You'll rather take your opponent down and kill yourself in the process, then ensure you both make it back home.” He shook his head sadly, a rueful smile on his face. “Well, at least they pay me enough to stitch you back up so you can go kill yourselves. N
Keira POVI spat out mud. It landed with a bloody splat on next to my feet. I felt inside my mouth with my fingers. No broken teeth. Good so far. I turned to face the girl, holding my sword in a sweaty fist. The girl was almost twice my size. Her straw-coloured hair was cut like a boy's, and her eyes were a watery blue. She could have been handsome, save for the ugly scar that ran across her jaw, terminating at the base of her neck. Sara — that was her name — gave me a bloody grin. I didn't rise to the taunt. We slowly circled around each other. Our trainers and other recruits watched us, and I could hear the jeers as if they were distant. “Give it up, girl,” Sara said. “You don't belong here. Give up. I'll go easy on you.”I remembered the last person that Sara fought. She'd left the girl broken and helpless, bleeding in the center of the arena. “Not a chance.”Sara attackedI met her strike with my own blade, the impact vibrating up my arm and stinging my shoulders. I gritted my
POV: DaxThe castle felt… weird without her.Too quiet. Too clean. Too full of people who didn’t know how to glare at me properly.“She used to scold me silently when I forgot to eat,” I muttered, slumping deeper into the library couch.Kai looked up from the map he was studying like it held the secrets of the universe. His brows arched. “What?”“Nothing,” I grumbled, flipping a book open just for something to do. “Just thinking.”“Loudly,” Riven said from the hearth, where he was stretched across the arm of a chair like a lazy cat.“Better than pretending to read,” I shot back.“At least he’s not brooding in the rain again,” Riven said to Kai, smirking.“That was one time,&rd
POV: DaxIt was over.That’s what everyone kept saying.The war was done. The battlefield quiet. The screams gone. But none of it felt like peace.I stood near the crater where it all ended, wind biting through my torn sleeves. Smoke drifted up from the scorched ground, curling like ghosts over the broken earth. Somewhere under it all, her scent had vanished. No blood. No body. No trace.Keira was gone.I didn’t know if that meant she was dead. I couldn’t let myself believe that. But she wasn’t here. I’d seen the blast. I’d watched the light take her. I was screaming her name, running toward her with everything I had left. But it wasn’t enough.I didn’t reach her in time.And that wasn’t the only life lost.My father—our father—had fallen hours before Keira vanished. Our Alpha. Our anchor. The one we all thought would never fall. He died leading the charge, sword drawn, fury in his eyes. I didn’t even get to hold his hand before he hit the ground. He bled out alone in the mud, and I w
POV: KeiraThat evening, everything felt different.Not better. Just clearer.I sat on a low rock near the stream that ran along the edge of camp. Moss covered the stone, and my boots were in the freezing water.The cold helped a little. My feet were sore. My ribs and arms were still bruised, but the fever I’d been fighting for days had finally broken earlier. I still felt tired, but my mind was sharper now—like a knife pulled out of the fire and left to cool.Nylo lay stretched out across my lap, warm and soft like a scarf. His eyes were half-closed, his tail twitching every now and then, like he could hear all the thoughts running through my head.Tia sat nearby, legs crossed, sharpening her blade. Her hand moved fast, almost angry. The metal made a scraping sound with every stroke. She hadn’t said a word all day, not since the drills ended and she collapsed against a post, staring at nothing.I didn’t blame her. This place was hard on everyone. It stripped you down and left you raw