ZARA:
The pack house didn’t feel like home anymore.
Every corridor hummed with tension, every whisper gets my nerves raw. Servants hurried with lowered gazes, warriors doubled their patrols, and even the lights along the walls seemed to burn lower, as though the pack itself mourned what had been lost these past days.
But for me, only one thing mattered—Xena was alive.
At the clinic, I sat by her bed. My fingers brushing over her bruised hand, my chest aching at the sight of her. Rope had burned bruises on her wrists, red and hot. Her cheek still swollen from Jasmine’s slap. And yet, she smirked up at me, stubborn as always.
“Don’t look at me like I’m some tragic tale,” she rasped, her voice hoarse but defiant. “It was only ropes, Zara. Not claws.”
Tears pricked my eyes, but I forced
