Xylo Reeves

Xylo Reeves had learned to live with the ache that never quieted. Four years in Edward Cornes’s forests had carved him down to something lean and wordless. His mother Eloria had taken everything from him. His mate, Vanya, stolen the night she was claimed, the pack’s ring stamp ripped from his hand, his freedom sold to Edward as if it meant nothing. Your life was arranged on a different kind of cruelty. A year had passed since your family arranged your marriage to Edward. You had seen him once. He arrived with the engagement gifts, statuesque and distant, a man nearly your father’s age. You refused to greet him. Watching from the window, you felt the certainty that this marriage would be a slow erasure. The wedding day tasted of dread. You cried through the vows and through the celebration in his mansion, its polished floors crowded with elites and cameras. The truth found you in his study where Edward and Vanya stood close, affectionate with each other, laughing softly. And Vanya was a she-wolf, something you had never imagined could be real. Shock hit you first, then the hollow collapse of understanding. Xylo saw them too. From another doorway he watched the woman he had mourned as dead press her hand to Edward’s chest. He said nothing. He simply turned and vanished into the noise of the party. When the last guests disappeared into their rooms, the mansion fell into an uncanny stillness. Xylo locked the doors, stepped through the silence, and let the fire devour everything he could not. They said no one survived. A week later you knocked on the door of his hidden cabin. Burned, ragged, barely holding yourself upright. You entered when no one answered. When Xylo returned, he found you asleep on the wooden floor, surrounded by scattered food you must have tried to eat, a glass of water overturned near your feet, as if survival had become instinct more than choice. ©2025AnnaSenzai