Marked by The Rogue

Chapter 3 – The Voice Within

Thalia’s POV

The room was cloaked in shadows when I awoke, my breaths shallow, my chest heaving like I’d been running for miles. Moonlight spilled through the tall windows, casting long silvery streaks across the floor. My sheets were damp with sweat, tangled around my legs like the remnants of a battle I couldn’t win.

The nightmare still clung to me.

It had been the same one. Again.

Raze.

Blood on his lips. His lifeless eyes staring up at me.

My hands soaked in crimson.

No matter how much time passed, I couldn’t escape it. The memory refused to fade. My dreams dragged me back to that moment over and over again—his final breath, the helplessness, the horror.

I sat up abruptly, pressing a hand to my chest. My heart thundered against my ribs, and a cold sweat trailed down my spine. I reached for the glass of water on the bedside table with trembling fingers, but I didn’t drink. My hand stilled halfway, and then drifted instead toward my neck.

The skin there tingled. Always. Every damn night.

My fingertips brushed against the mark Kaedin had left—the crescent-moon brand that now lay seared into my skin just above my collarbone.

I hated it.

I hated the way it pulsed when he was near, the way it reminded me that I belonged to someone else now.

That I was no longer Raze’s.

The thought made bile rise in my throat.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to rip it out of me.

“Why did you do this to me?” I whispered aloud, my voice shaking as I curled into myself. My knees drew to my chest, and I buried my face in my hands. “Why did you take that choice from me?”

I didn’t know who I was talking to—Kaedin, the moon goddess, or myself.

Maybe all three.

My body still ached with grief, my soul screaming for something it had lost. And no matter how strong I pretended to be in front of the pack, in front of the world, I was barely holding it together.

I felt broken. Marked against my will. Cursed to carry a bond I never wanted.

And then… I felt her.

The stir of something deep within me. My wolf. My other half.

‘Thalia.’

The voice was soft at first, a whisper in the stillness of my mind. But then it grew clearer, stronger, like the calm that follows a storm.

‘Nyx?’ I asked, startled by her sudden presence.

It had been days since I heard her speak. Since the marking. Since everything changed. She had been silent, just like me—trapped in her own pain. And I hadn't realized just how much I missed her until now.

‘I’m here,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve always been here. I was just… hurting too.’

I swallowed hard, my throat tight. Of course she was. We shared everything—grief included.

‘I can’t take it, Nyx,’ I admitted, my thoughts raw. ‘This pain. This mark. I feel like I’m suffocating in my own skin. I feel like I betrayed him.’

There was a long pause before Nyx spoke again, her voice filled with sorrow. ‘Raze was ours. Our fated mate. We loved him… still love him. Nothing will ever change that. His death… it shattered us. But you didn’t betray him, Thalia.’

‘Didn’t I?’ My throat burned. ‘Kaedin marked us. I didn’t fight hard enough. I didn’t stop him.’

‘Because your heart was broken,’ she whispered. ‘Because you were lost. Because I was too.’ But… her voice grew quieter, more hesitant, ‘I need to tell you something I didn’t want to say before.’

I stilled. ‘What is it?’

Nyx was silent for a beat. ‘When Kaedin touched us… before the mark… I felt something. Something strange. Something real.’

I sat frozen, the breath caught in my lungs. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It wasn’t like the bond we had with Raze. Not fate. Not destiny. But something was there. Something old. Familiar. I don’t understand it yet, but… Kaedin wasn’t a stranger to me. To us.’

I recoiled at the thought, but I couldn’t deny the tiny flicker that sparked in my chest. Even now, thinking of Kaedin’s eyes—stormy gray, the way they looked at me not with conquest but confusion, sadness—I felt that same tug. A quiet echo I had tried so hard to ignore.

‘No. That can’t be.’ I shook my head. ‘He took the bond from us. Stole it. I won’t accept him.’

‘You don’t have to,’ Nyx replied calmly. ‘Not yet. Maybe not ever. But that doesn’t mean the bond isn’t there. It’s not like the fated bond. But it’s real. It came from something… ancient. Maybe even deeper.’

I leaned back against the headboard, staring up at the ceiling. My thoughts were a storm of emotions—rage, guilt, confusion. And yet… something in Nyx’s words settled like a stone in my chest.

Something was different about Kaedin.

And the mark… the more I hated it, the more I realized I could feel through it. A heartbeat. Not mine. His. Always faint, always steady, like a reminder that I wasn’t as alone as I wanted to be.

“I don’t know how to live like this,” I whispered aloud, though I knew Nyx heard every word.

‘One day at a time,’ she said. ‘Grieve. Cry. Scream. But don’t forget—Raze loved us. And he wouldn’t want us to burn forever in the ashes.’

Tears slipped down my cheeks silently.

‘Maybe there’s something to understand here. Maybe there’s more to Kaedin than what he did.’ Nyx’s voice was soft now. ‘You don’t have to forgive him. Not now. But don’t let the pain blind you from truth. We’re still breathing, Thalia. That means there’s still more to our story.’

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

All I knew was that I didn’t feel quite so alone anymore.

Nyx was with me.

And whether I wanted it or not… Kaedin’s presence lingered like a storm cloud in the distance, waiting to be understood.