A Y L A
I stared up at him, confused despite myself.
This was not the Alpha I remembered.
Raiden looked… broken. Not in the way warriors break after battle, not with proud wounds or fresh blood. This was deeper. His skin was too pale, stretched tight over sharp lines that hadn’t been there before.
His eyes…once cold and commanding…looked hollow, as though something vital had been drained out of them and never returned. Even from where I knelt, I could see faint markings along his collarbone and beneath the edge of his shirt, dark veins or sigils that pulsed faintly before fading again, like shadows retreating under light.
He was standing only because his ego will refuse to let him fall.
For a fleeting moment, pity crept in. Unwanted. Dangerous.
What happened to you? I wondered sile
