Chapter 2

Raven only saw Draco’s body once after he died, he died of acute poisoning. Wolfsbane, that’s what took him from her.

A part of her died that day and the part that lives, lives on with him engrained deep into it. The sorrow she felt that day was indescribable and the pain, unexplainable.

The large tattoo of a black bird etched on his chest as he lay on the floor bare and cold that day made her heart ache the most.

It was shortly after her sixteenth birthday that Draco got the tattoo, right over his heart. The image of a Raven, the bird she was named after. He never admitted to anyone why he got the tattoo or what it meant but he didn’t really need to, it was clear for everyone to see—

He marked his heart with her name. What else could it mean?

She sighs and rolls out of her bed, her eyes red, heavy and burning. She reaches underneath her bed and pulls out a small box.

Inside it is a little cake with a small candle on top of it. She takes a lighter and flicks on the candle, a deep heavy breath of sadness and misery escaping her as she stares at the inscription of the cake.

‘Happy Birthday My Other Half.’

Her eyes shift to the flame burning on the candle and a lone tear peels from her eyes, wishing the heat from the flame could melt her pain away, albeit temporarily.

“On the first day I met you, on the second day I asked you to be mine, on the third day you agreed, on the fourth day we kissed and on the fifth day we made love, an experience so divine that on the sixth day, you came into the world to truly be mine because we— are a match…. made in heaven,” she mutters to herself, her voice shaky, fighting hard to keep herself from crying any further before blowing out the candle, her heart aching terribly.

Raven was born on the sixth day of the month and Draco wrote her that birthday poem as an ode to their love. It was a tradition that he never missed while he was alive on her birthdays, getting her a small cake and saying it to her and ever since his death, she has continued to do it on his behalf.

Hearing Draco call them a match made in heaven made Raven start to believe it, she began to anticipate as her eighteenth birthday drew near that it would be true and that they would turn out as mates.

Even when Draco tried to calm her that if otherwise happened, he would reject his eventual mate and choose her, it did nothing to help her.

She would obsess and play out multiple scenarios of what she would do when she got her wolf when she turned out to be Draco’s mate in her head, so much so that it became real to her and when it finally happened, nothing could explain her joy.

No words, no language, no expression— absolutely nothing.

Draco wasn’t even supposed to be around on the day she was to get her wolf. It was a meeting day for the council of Alphas and with his father dead, he normally would represent their pack but knowing how much that day meant to Raven, he delegated the responsibility, something completely unlike him because the only thing that rivalled his love for her was his duty to his people.

The night was nothing short of perfect.

Draco watched on with admiration and awe in his eyes as Raven went on all fours under the gaze of the full moon night. The process, like every first shift process was a painful one but he held her, encouraged her and guided her through it.

When Raven finally completed the transformation, her wolf did not give the howl signifying her birth like every other werewolf that has ever shifted, no— the first sound that left its mouth were the words they have both been dying to hear, ‘mate.’

Her phone pings and she hisses, taking a glance at the reason. A text from her mom.

[I’m really sorry about what your father did, honey. Draco’s remembrance ceremony this year is in a few days, if you won’t come for our sake, do it for him at least.]

Her heart clenches and she sighs, looking away from the phone and back at the picture.

How can she go for his remembrance ceremony when she didn’t even go to his funeral?

Draco wouldn’t want her there.

Afterall, that same day he died, a few hours before he was found dead, he rejected her as his fated mate.