THE HYBRID QUEEN AWAKENING

Ashes and Oaths

Zara’s POV

Athdal Haven, home of wolves

They had already started Kain’s burial and nobody asked me if I was ready for it. The air smelled sharp with pine and crushed sage, and I hate both smells now because they will always remind me of this moment.

His blood was still under my fingernails, dried in the little lines, and I would not wash it off because cleaning him away felt like telling a lie. I kept telling myself not to look at my hands. I looked anyway. I could not stop seeing his eyes when they ripped his heart out, and that picture wakes me up every damn night before my brain remembers that it really happened.

They laid him on the stone. The burial slab sat right in the middle of the clearing, cut from old rock, and we call it the Breath Stone because it is where the living give a dead wolf’s last breath back to the earth.

Today it did not feel like a stone, it felt like a place where they sacrifice people. White cloth wrapped him, neat and horrible, hiding where his chest had been torn open, and only his face was showing. Too still, too calm, and god, I wanted to wake up and find out this was all a bad dream.

“Zara.” Rhida’s voice touched my shoulder, soft like she thought I would break apart. I didn't turn to look at her.

“If I look away,” I said, with my eyes still locked on Kain’s face, “he’ll disappear.”

“He’s already gone, child.” That should have broken me, but it did not. I was already empty as f**k inside.

The pack made a big circle around the stone. Hundreds of us. Nobody moved or whispered. Even the little kids stood with their heads down, and it's wrong that they had to learn about death this young.

Grief has weight to it. It makes your body do stupid things like stand there hoping the universe will change its mind. The elders walked up first. Seven of them, wearing ash-grey cloaks, and each one was holding a small clay bowl. Hot embers glowed inside, red and angry.

The first elder touched ash to Kain’s forehead. “From fire, you came.”

The second pressed it to his chest. “To fire, you return.”

The third put a piece of wolf bone over his heart. “Your strength is not lost.”

The fourth scattered crushed wolfsbane at his feet. “Your enemies will remember your name.”

A wave went through the crowd at that, because you do not put wolfsbane on our dead. “Wolfsbane at a burial,” someone whispered behind me. “That’s not how we do it.”

My father stepped up last. The circle felt tighter, even though no one moved. He did not look at me. He looked at Kain. At the boy he chose. At the future he planned. Gone, and I was the one who let it happen.

His hand hovered over Kain’s chest, then he pressed his palm down hard. “You were my son,” he said, and his voice was rough around the edges. “Not by blood. By choice.” Those words hit my chest like rocks. “I gave you my daughter.” His voice cracked one time. “And I will get revenge for you.”

My wolf lifted her head inside me. She was listening, because revenge is a language she understands.

“Zara.” I turned this time. Rhida held out a small bowl. Fine grey ash was inside.

My legs moved forward. My hands did not want to. They were shaking, and I hate that they were shaking. I took the bowl and walked to the stone and looked down at him.

“Kain.” My voice barely came out. “I was supposed to save you.” I stopped talking. Tears fell hot down my cheeks. “I almost did,” I whispered. “I swear I felt his life coming back.”

My throat was burning. “I don’t know how to live through this without you.”

I waited for something to happen, for him to answer me. But he was not in there anymore.

My fingers squeezed the bowl. Ash spilled over the edge. “I hate them,” I said, louder, and my voice did not sound like mine. “I hate them for taking you.” I clenched my jaw hard.

Something inside my chest broke. “I hate myself more.”

I lifted my hand and let the ash fall. It landed on the white cloth, and it felt wrong to do.

“Release him,” the elder called out across the clearing. “Release him to the earth.”

I did not move.

“Zara.” My father said it like an order. “Release him.”

My heart hurt so much that I thought it would stop beating, and part of me wanted it to stop. I was not ready. “No,” I screamed, and my voice broke apart. “I won’t,” I said, louder, because being quiet never works for me. “I won’t let him go like this.”

My father’s eyes snapped to mine. He was studying me, and I did not care. “Zara...”

“They took him,” I cut in, and my voice was shaking. “They came into our land, into our home, and they...” My breath caught in my throat. I could not say the words. I did not have the strength to say them out loud.

“They don’t get to walk away from this,” I forced out, and my wolf pushed with me. “They don’t get to keep living after this.”

“Enough,” my father’s voice cut through the air. “Stand down.”

“Not until they’re dead.” I said it before I could think about it, and I meant every word.

It was quiet for a while. He just looked at me, studying me again.

“Zara,” Rhida whispered, stepping closer like she could pull me back from the edge I was on. “This isn’t you.”

“No,” I said, and for the first time since the forest, I meant it with my whole body. “It isn’t.”

Something lit up inside me, mean and hot, and it felt better than the sadness. “I will find them,” I said, quietly because I did not need to yell to mean it. “And I will make them suffer for this.”

Then the fires in the bowls moved. The flames bent sideways, and a smell hit the air that made my stomach drop. Wolfsbane. My head snapped up, because that smell does not belong here, only in the lab.

Other people smelled it too. People started whispering. The air felt tight, and my wolf went quiet in the way she does right before a fight.

“Something’s wrong,” Zero said, already moving.

“Guards!” my father yelled.

But it was too late. The vampires attacked like shadows. They were very fast and made no sound. Bones broke, and the pack started changing, fur and fangs and growls ripping out of their throats.

I did not change, not yet. I was looking for the one who was carrying wolfsbane in all that mess, because he was here somewhere. The sound of bones breaking and skin tearing filled the clearing, and it should have scared me, but it didn't.

My wolf pushed forward, trying to take over me. Before she could, a hand covered my mouth. I jerked back, with my claws out and my teeth showing, but the grip was so strong that it squeezed the air out of my lungs.

“Easy,” a voice said quietly against my ear. My heart missed a beat, because I knew that voice. I twisted around, fighting back, and something sharp poked my neck. It burned, and my strength left my body fast.

Everything got blurry. The circle around me broke into chaos, and I could not focus on any of it.

“Zara!” My father’s voice broke through the noise, but it sounded far away.

I reached out for him. My body would not listen to me, because whatever was in my neck was winning.

I saw dark eyes. A shape that I knew, even though my vision was blurry. It was him, the vampire with the tattoo, and my wolf knew him too.

My vision went black and my legs stopped working. The last thing I felt was strong arms lifting me up. Not to save me. To take me.