Chapter 71
Raphael’s POV
The forest swallows me whole as I carry her limp form in my arms. Her breaths come shallow, every rise of her chest a battle she’s losing. Each step is a war against the dread pressing down on me. She feels so small, so breakable, too fragile for what she’s meant to become.
“You’ll survive,” I whisper against her hair, voice cracking. “You have to.”
When I break into the clearing, they are waiting.
Kael stands like a storm given flesh, shadows rippling in his veins, his presence suffocating the air itself. Selene is beside him, ethereal and trembling.
“She’s fading,” Selene gasps, rushing forward. She cups Raven’s face with shaking hands, as if the touch alone could tether her back to life.
Kael doesn’t waste time. His palm, glowing with dark energy, presses to Raven’s chest. The poison shudders, writhing, and then smoke bursts from her lips like expelled venom. Selene follows with a vial of shimmering liquid. She pours it gently into Raven’s mouth, chanting in the old tongue. Her throat moves, swallowing instinctively, color returning to her skin.
Relief breaks through me so violently I nearly collapse. She’ll live. She’ll live because I brought her here. Because she belongs with me.
Kael withdraws his hand, eyes cold and commanding. “You’ve done well, boy. You’ve returned her to where she belongs.”
That word again, belongs. It coils tight around my chest, a chain I pretend to wear with pride.
“She is the anchor,” Kael continues, voice like thunder rolling across mountains. “We planted her in Nadine-west, let her grow among them, their trust blind and absolute. She was our opening ,and now, awakened, she will burn their precious pack to ash. No wolf will survive. She suffered the way we wanted to and that hatred for the pack grew, and Mason helped by rejecting her and touturing her.”
Selene’s hands tremble as she strokes Raven’s hair. “But she’ll hate us. She already does. She’ll never forgive us if she finds out we were behind her mate bond with Mason.”
Kael cuts her off, sharp and merciless. “Hate doesn’t matter. Destiny matters, she is ours, whether she likes it or not.”
I stare down at her face, still unconscious. Peaceful now, but that peace is an illusion. When she wakes, the storm will come. And when it does, I’ll be the one standing in the wreckage, the only one who can handle her fire.
But some part of me, hidden, unwanted, whispers, 'She doesn’t belong to you, she never did, she belongs to him.' I crush the thought as fast as it appeared.
Caleb’s name is a blade I won’t let pierce me. Not now. Not when she’s finally mine.
Her lashes flutter. A soft groan escapes. And then, her eyes open. For a heartbeat, confusion paints her face, then recognition, then fury.
“You,” she spits, jerking against the bindings Kael wrapped around her wrists. “Raphael, you snake, what am I doing here." She asks after looking around and realizing where she is. "I don’t want to be here, where is Caleb...Caleb!" She shouts, his name again. That wolf, that arrogant fool, searing her lips like a sacred word. My jaw locks, but I swallow the urge to scream, not yet.
Her gaze shifts, and lands on the two shadows behind me. Her whole body stiffens.
“No.” The word tears from her throat, jagged and raw. Her eyes blaze with something even stronger than rage, hate, ure, unfiltered hate.
Selene steps forward, tears spilling. “My daughter... ”
“Don’t you dare call me that!” Raven snaps, the venom in her voice enough to freeze Selene in place. “You abandoned me! You left me to rot, to grow up alone, scrubbing floors like a servant while you hid in the dark. And now you show your faces wanting to use me again, you are pathetic?” she spits, I've never seen her this angry before, I've known her to be so sweet.
Selene staggers back, sobbing, but Kael only narrows his eyes.
“You are ours,” he declares, voice cracking like thunder. “Our blood, our creation. That wolf you cling to is nothing, just weakness, chains that shackle you.”
“Chains?” Raven lets out a broken laugh, bitter and sharp. “Caleb is more than you’ll ever be to me. He’s my strength, my choice. And I would rather die than bow to you.”
The words are daggers, hurled into their chests, and into mine. She says his name with fire, says it like it’s hers to keep. I want to tear it from her lips, replace it with mine. But even now, bound and broken, she spits it in my face.
Tears stream down Selene’s cheeks. “My moon, please... ” Selene sure knows how to put on a show.
“I’m not your moon!” Raven roars. Her whole body shakes with fury. “You’re nothing to me. Nothing! And you... ” Her gaze swings to me, and the hatred in her eyes is so fierce it nearly knocks me backward. “I hate you most of all, I trusted you... so much.”
The words tear me open. My chest hollows, but I force myself to smile through it, to hide the bleeding wound inside. Hate can be reshaped, it can be turned , at least it means she feels something, and I will change that hatred for sure.
Kael steps forward, his patience done. “Enough! Selene, cleanse her before the poison eats her alive. Wipe those awful memories of that good for nothing Beta, now.” Selene hesitates, but at last she raises her hands, silver light pooling at her fingertips.
“No!” Raven thrashes, wrists tearing raw. “Do it and I’ll never forgive you. Not in this life. Not in the next. Caleb will come for me, he will, and when he does, he’ll burn this place to the ground!”
Her defiance shakes the chamber. She is wildfire, even in chains. The ritual begins, silver light seeps into her mind, she screams, body arching as if her soul itself were being pried apart. Tears streak down her face, her voice raw and breaking, but unyielding.
And me? I stand frozen, torn between triumph and devastation. Every scream tears me apart, but I don’t stop it , I can’t. If this is what it takes to keep her, then let her hate me. Let her curse me. As long as she doesn’t leave. Her final words before the darkness claims her are not pleas, not surrender, they’re a curse.
“I’ll never be yours, not yours, Raphael. Not theirs either, never.” Then silence, she loses consciousness.
Selene collapses, shaking, Kael looks pleased.
And me? I kneel beside her, brushing the damp hair from her face, my voice cracking to a whisper only she could ever hear.
“You already are. You just don’t know it yet.” I say but part of me is afraid of how she'll react when she awakens.