To the grave

The first snowflake of the season landed on Zhao’s cheek, a cold kiss on a face already numbed by months of self-inflicted bitterness.

Six months.

Six months since the forest swallowed Savannah whole, its stupid emerald branches suffocating the embers of the newly found love and hope Zhao had desperately held onto. Six months since Zhao, the shadow of his former self, took down the Valerian Kingdom with the cold efficiency of a winter frost.

Alpha Zhao, they called him now, a title that tasted like ashes on his tongue. The memory of that fateful night, the raw fury that had fueled his victory against Reginald’s pack, flickered in his mind like a dying fire. Learning Savannah was a member of the pack, he’d carved through them, a wolf possessed leaving trails of crimson snow and echoing howls in his wake but still, he couldn’t find her. That only made his triumph taste like ashes in his mouth. Victory had come at a price, a price etched deep in the lines around his eyes, in the tremor o