Chapter 5 Bloodlines and Bruises.

~​Zaria~

They say some wars are fought with steel.

Mine?It's fought with scent. With secrets. With skin.

And I'm about to win it all.

The tavern burned behind me.

No literal flames yet. But the tension Jasper left in his wake was enough to set every wall crackling. I could still feel his breath against my mouth. His voice in my blood. His rage braided into the tether that pulsed under my ribs like a war drum.

I hated that he still moved me.

I hated more that I let him.

But there's a difference between feeling a pull and following it. And I had no intention of crawling back into a collar, no matter how much gold they poured over it.

I made it two miles into the woods before I felt him again.

Not Jasper.

Levi.

His presence wasn't a roar it was a shadow. Silent. Familiar. A comfort wrapped in chaos. I knew he'd follow me. He always did.

"You still smell like him," came his voice from the dark.

I didn't turn. "And you still think that bothers me."

He stepped out from between the trees, shirt half-unbuttoned, chest rising with the rhythm of a storm barely held back.

"It should bother you. He's the reason you were exiled."

"And you're the reason I survived it."

Silence.

Gods, it hurt to look at him sometimes.

Levi wasn't just a Beta. He was the only wolf who didn't flinch when I bared teeth. Who didn't try to tame me, chain me, or break me. He knew how to fight beside me not above me.

He moved closer.

"You let him touch you," he said, low. "Why?"

I met his eyes. "Because I wanted to remind him what he lost."

"You're playing a dangerous game, Zaria."

I smiled. "Good. Danger's the only thing that makes me feel alive."

He reached for me. Not roughly. Not like Jasper. He cupped my jaw like I was made of ash and starlight something precious and barely held together.

"I know you don't need anyone," Levi said. "But d*mn it, Zaria, I'm here anyway. I always have been."

My throat tightened.

He leaned in.

I let him kiss me.

It wasn't fury like Jasper's.

It was something else. A promise. A prayer. The kind of kiss that tasted like home if home had ever been safe.

But safety wasn't what I needed right now.

Power was.

I broke the kiss with a breath that trembled more than I wanted it to.

"Tell me what you've heard," I said, switching gears before I crumbled into him again.

Levi stepped back, jaw clenched.

"There's movement in the east. Alpha Ronin's packs are shifting toward Red Hollow. They smell blood in the water."

"And they'll drown in it if they think Jasper will fall that easily."

Levi's gaze hardened. "And what about you, Zaria? Where do you stand in all this? With the King? Or against him?"

I didn't answer right away.

Because the truth?

I didn't know yet.

JASPER

"She left you standing in a pile of your own power," Cade muttered as he stitched a wound on my side. "Bet that felt nice."

I didn't kill him.

That's how you know I've matured.

"She's planning something," I said through gritted teeth. "She wouldn't show up just to tease the throne. She wants a war."

Cade nodded. "Then maybe it's time we give her one."

I stared out the window of the war room.

The sky was turning black.

Not with clouds.

With wings.

Scouts. Messengers. Smoke trailing behind.

And every single whisper they carried was the same.

Zaria. Zaria. Zaria.

My exile had become her legend.

And now the legend was coming home.

ZARIA

Mother Myra didn't flinch when I returned.

But her voice was steel wrapped in velvet.

"You kissed him again, didn't you?"

I blinked. "You spying on me now?"

"I don't need eyes to smell your soul." She pointed at my chest. "It's fraying."

"It's burning," I corrected. "That's different."

Myra shook her head, mixing herbs with something that hissed and smoked. "You can't war with two men at once. Not when one still holds your name in his blood, and the other holds your heart."

"I'm not choosing between them."

"No," she agreed. "You're choosing yourself. And that's why it terrifies them."

LEVI

I found the Alpha King's guard before they found me.

Stalking near the southern ridge. Trying to pick up Zaria's trail.

Idiots.

I killed the first one fast. Arrow to the neck. He never made a sound.

The second begged.

I didn't listen.

The third?

I left him alive. Just barely.

"Tell your King," I whispered, crouched beside his bleeding body, "that she's not his anymore. And if he touches her again, I'll burn his palace to the ground brick by brick."

Then I walked away.

Because Levi the Beta wasn't soft anymore.

Not when it came to her.

ZARIA

The next night, I stood on a cliffside, wind whipping through my hair, cloak snapping like a banner of war.

Below me? Red Hollow glowed like a city of embers.

Behind me? Wolves stirred. Rogues. Outcasts. Scars on their skin and fury in their eyes. My army wasn't royal. Wasn't pureblooded.

But it was mine.

"We ride at dawn," I said, loud enough for the stars to hear.

"To take back what they tried to bury."

"To carve our names into the bones of kings."

And deep in the dark, the tether snapped.

Not broken.

Activated.

Jasper felt it too I knew he did.

Because for the first time in years...

He howled.

And it wasn't a call for power.

It was a warning.

That the Queen was coming.

And she wasn't coming to kneel.

She was coming to reign.