Chapter 2

Zara’s POV

They buried me, but I crawled. The night I rose from the dead, the moon watched silently; it didn't scream or mourn; it only glowed more, as if it knew something broken had survived and something dangerous was coming.

I saw a mansion glowing in the distance behind the shadows. I stumbled and bled as I crawled, as I kept on moving. My body was torn, leaving a blood trail. My gown, once silk and soft, was ripped in places I didn’t remember being touched.

The cold wind kissed my skin, but it was the rage burning in my chest that kept me going towards the light. I didn’t know who lived there, it looked like the kind of place where monsters drank wine from crystal goblets and if I died again, at least it wouldn’t be at Ethan’s hands.

I crawled towards the gate in the shadows. I couldn’t lift my head, but I felt a presence, towering and animalistic. The hairs on my arms stood like he’d touched me without laying a finger.

“Who the fuck is that? A deep voice muttered. Another answered, colder and sharper, more like steel sliding from its sheath.

“Take her to my bed.

Then darkness.

 ****

I could feel that my wrists were wrapped in gauze. Tubes ran into my arms. Something beeped steadily near my head. I wasn't dead, but I wasn’t alive either. I was suspended somewhere between mercy and madness.

“She moved.” I could hear a woman’s voice, gentle and curious.

“She twitched again last night. That’s the third time this week,” she whispered.

“She shouldn’t be alive,” another voice muttered back. “Not after what they did to her. The doctors were sure she wouldn’t survive.”

I stayed still, my breathing shallow and my ears wide open. “When will he come to see her?” The first voice asked.

“He’s waiting,” the second replied. “But he said the moment she wakes, he wants to be told.” 

“Alpha Rael doesn’t like surprises.”

That name, Rael, echoed in my chest like a match struck too close to gasoline. I finally had a name for the man whose bed I’d been brought to like a broken offering.

The door shut softly. I cracked one eye open. The woman, maid, or nurse, I wasn’t sure, sat beside me, replacing a damp cloth on my forehead. Her tag name read Olivia. She was young with chestnut hair and a kindness she tried to hide behind protocol.

When our eyes met, she gasped and stumbled to her feet.

“You’re awake,” she whispered, eyes wide. “You’re...oh my god.”

I tried to sit up, but I winced due to the pain.

“Don’t move,” she said quickly. “You’ve… you’ve been in a coma. For three months.”

Three months. My breath caught.

“Machines kept you stable. You wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t speak. We thought…” she trailed off.

I swallowed. “Where… am I?”

Her gaze darted to the closed door. “You’re safe. That’s what matters.”

“No,” I croaked. “That’s not enough.”

She sighed, hesitating. “This place is a guarded territory,” she said. “You crossed into a city not meant for outsiders.”

I blinked slowly. “A city?”

She nodded. “Hidden, guarded, and governed by one man.”

“Rael,” I murmured, the name foreign on my tongue.

She stiffened. “You shouldn’t say his name lightly.”

I didn’t understand the fear in her eyes, but I understood power when I felt it.

Later that night, I was alone in the soft shadows of the room, and I stared at the ceiling. My body was healing, but something inside me wasn’t. The betrayal lived in my bones now. the pain was stitched to my skin. They had tried to end me, but I was still here.

The door opened, interrupting my thoughts. A tall, domineering man entered dressed in a black shirt that clung to his shoulders. His black hair was styled back, and his golden eyes found mine immediately.

He looked like sin carved from shadow, a god too cruel to worship, and he was staring at me like I was the one intruding.

“Well,” he said, his voice deep and smooth like whiskey. “The corpse finally sits up.”

“You need to work on your bedside manners,” I shot back.

A smirk tugged at one corner of his mouth. It didn’t belong on a man who saved lives. It belonged to someone who broke them.

“Didn’t think you’d wake up with so much attitude,” he said, stepping closer.

I didn’t shrink back. I held his gaze. “Didn’t think I’d be kidnapped either, yet here we are.”

He studied me, arms folded across his chest. “You weren’t kidnapped. You crossed my territory. You collapsed at my gates. My men saved you.”

“And dumped me in your bed?”

“Would you prefer the grave you climbed out of?” His voice dropped, colder.

I flinched. Rael noticed for a second, his jaw tensed like he regretted it, then he turned away like he didn’t.

“You have a name?”

“Zara Monroe,” I answered stiffly. “Not that you care.”

“I don’t,” he said simply. “But I like to know the names of things I own.”

My lips parted. “Excuse me?”

“You’re in my city. In my house. In my bed.” He looked at me again, his voice like a growl. “Until I say otherwise… You belong to me.”

Arrogant bastard. I sat up and felt the pain again but I didn’t stop. “Let me make something clear, I might be weak right now, but I don’t belong to anyone, not anymore.”

He stared at me for a beat too long, then he smirked.

“You’ve got fire,” he murmured. “We’ll see how long it burns.”

“I want to leave.”

He didn’t respond.

"Open that damn gate and let me go.”

Rael’s eyes sharpened. His whole energy shifted.

“You want to leave?” he asked, stepping forward. “Go where, Zara? Back to the people who buried you alive?”

Silence.

“Back to the man who choked you? The sister who watched? The best friend who laughed?”

My throat tightened. My nails dug into the sheets.

“You don’t understand...” I stared at him, confusion turning to suspicion. “How do you even know all that?”

He tilted his head slightly. Amused.

“I know everything that happens near my borders,” he said. “Especially when someone crawls out of a grave screaming.”

That cold heat settled in my gut again.

I swallowed. “And you… what? Just happened to find me?”

Rael’s smirk returned dark and cutting. “Let’s just say… I was watching.”

“You watched and did nothing?” I hissed.

His expression darkened. “I wanted to see what you were made of.”

“And what did you find?” I spat.

"Nothing that interesting," he said softly.

I inhaled sharply. “You still don’t understand. I’m not staying here.”

Rael’s voice dropped lethally. “You can’t go back.”

“Why not?”

Rael took a final step toward me, leaned in close, and whispered. “Because to the world you are dead.”