Marked by The Rogue

Chapter 5 – The One Who Knew Me First

Thalia’s POV



The silence in this room feels different.

It isn’t just quiet.

It’s hollow.

Like a grave dressed in silk.

I sit up in the bed that isn’t mine, surrounded by unfamiliar walls and shadows that don’t belong to me. I don’t remember when I fell asleep—or if I ever did. My chest has been tight since the moment I woke up in this place. Since the moment I realized I could no longer feel him.

Alpha Raze.

My mate.

My best friend.

My everything.

I press a hand to the side of my neck, the mark Kaedin gave me still faintly warm beneath my skin. It isn’t welcome. It feels like a brand I never asked for—an echo of something that should’ve been beautiful but instead, came wrapped in blood and loss.

I hate it.

I hate him.

I hate that he took something so sacred without asking.

But more than anything, I hate that the world still spins without Raze in it.

I curl into myself, knees tucked to my chest, and bury my face into the pillow that doesn’t smell like pinewood and fire. It doesn’t smell like him.

Tears slip silently down my cheeks. I haven’t cried like this in days. Not like this—soft and broken and alone.

I miss him.

Gods, I miss him so much it physically hurts.

And just like that, the ache pulls me under again.

A memory.

A flash of warmth and light in the middle of this endless dark.

—

“Thalia, slow down!” Raze laughed, chasing after me as I ran barefoot through the forest, my hands full of wildflowers and mud. I was twelve, wild and loud, and always dragging him into some kind of trouble.

He was always behind me—taller, steadier, with that crooked grin and those eyes like thunderclouds. Two years older, infinitely more responsible, and already training to take his father’s place one day.

But to me, he was just Raze. My best friend. The boy who always found me when I snuck out at night. The one who taught me how to throw a punch and how to lie without getting caught.

The one who made me laugh when everything else felt too heavy.

I remember the day it changed.

I was fourteen. He was sixteen.

We were sitting by the lake after training, the air still warm from the summer sun. My hands were wrapped around a cup of cold juice, and he was picking at the leather wraps around his wrist like he always did when he was nervous.

“I think I want to court you,” he said suddenly, like it wasn’t the biggest bomb he’d ever dropped on me.

I stared at him, eyes wide, nearly choking on my drink.

“What?”

He smiled—soft, nervous, unsure in a way I’d never seen him before. “I’ve been thinking about it. You’re… important to me, Thalia. More than anyone else.”

“You treat me like a sister.”

“Maybe that was the problem,” he muttered, chuckling, rubbing the back of his neck. “Look, I’m not saying you have to say yes. I just… I want to try. And I want you to know I’m serious about you.”

I didn’t say yes right away. I didn’t know what to say.

But he waited.

He always waited.

And four years later, when I turned eighteen, I finally shifted—and the moment my paws hit the ground, the bond lit up like a flare in the night.

‘Mate’.

The word echoed through my head, sharp and sweet.

And when I looked at Raze, standing there across the clearing with that look in his eyes…

He already knew.

“You knew?” I asked him later, still breathless from the run, from the shift, from everything that had changed.

“I knew when I shifted two years ago,” he said, pulling me close, brushing his lips across my forehead. “But I wanted you to figure it out on your own. I wanted you to choose me—not because the bond told you to, but because you loved me. Because we both did.”

That was Raze.

Always gentle. Always thinking of me.

Even when it hurt him to wait.

I loved him before I even knew what the bond was. Before I knew what fated meant.

I would’ve chosen him a thousand times without it.

And now…

Now he’s gone.

And there’s a hollow place in me where his soul used to touch mine.

—

I open my eyes, the memory burning like a flame behind them. My breathing is ragged. My chest aches. And the bond—the one that snapped when he died—feels like a wound that will never heal.

I turn my head slowly, my gaze catching the faint glow of the new mark etched into my neck.

Kaedin’s.

I feel nothing but anger when I look at it.

He didn’t ask.

He didn’t give me time to breathe. To grieve.

He just took.

And yet…

A part of me—a very small, very bitter part—wonders if maybe he didn’t know how else to save me.

My wolf, Nyx, stirs in the back of my mind, her voice hoarse but clear.

‘He felt the bond too.’

I close my eyes.

I don't want to feel anything right now.

Not Kaedin.

Not the bond.

Not even my own shattered heart.

I just want to go back.

Back to when I was that girl with muddy feet and flowers in her hair.

Back to Raze.

Back to love that didn't come wrapped in war.