Stars of Blood

Six 𖤓 Anubis

The smell was rotten, steaming from a discarded pile of meat in the corner. It was labeled as "it tasted bad" when in reality, it was just an animal that had been dead too long and overheated. Stupid Vehl and Gen didn't know how to take care of the meat or eat it. Instead, they left it out in the sun until "it tasted bad."

Vehl and Gen were the definition of stupid.

I didn't know why she associated herself with them.

Actually, I knew why and I hated it. I hated that she felt like she had to be friends with them even when she didn't exactly like them. And when I asked her about it, all she did was smile, wave her hands in the air and tell me that she was happy to hang out with them when I knew, deep down, that she didn't enjoy it one bit.

It was hard to look at her fake smile now as they all laughed over the pile of rotting meat.

Although Raff still had her mother and father, she no longer had her brother, Ravis. One of the best warriors in the pack, despite how the females are usually bigger and stronger than the males, he was killed in one of the many battles between daegs and pyuwas. No one knows which pyuwa killed him specifically but it wasn't just a loss to Raff and her family, it was a loss for the whole population of daegs at the expense of the war. Ravis was our greatest fighter and deserved the highest title given: Alpha. He was the ultimate Alpha and deserved every bit of the recognition. Without him, the war already felt lost.

And he wasn't just a fighter. He was also kind and helped out in the pack anyway possible, going on extra hunting trips when the food supply was getting low. Even worked on the long farms throughout the whole day. He led bravely and vigorously. Now that he was gone, there was this loss of... something within the pack. It felt like we lost our heart, our soul.

I lost half of my heart when he died. He wasn't just Raff's brother. He was my husband. When he died, I became a widow. Now, that is why I am called Alpha.

It was true though. I never truly loved him and him me, both of us thrust into an arranged marriage by our families. And we both gladly accepted, knowing that it was for the better of our people. With Ravis and me together, the two strongest daegs in our whole territory, we were able to show our people a stable front, a front that could win this war.

We had been married a year, long enough that we had learned to love each other, expecting the other at home during the night. We never had any children, his younger sister a big handful already, and were happy with the life we had, no matter how hard certain times might have been. Especially those first few weeks. We were both a little angry things ended that way, us married and all, but accepted it as a fact and got closer as time went on.

Now when I slept at night, I never actually did. There was an empty space on the right side of the bed, a sunken hole where he used to lay so still that no matter how hard I stirred, he never fully woke until the sun was just creeping beyond the horizon. On the nights I had nightmares, thrashing as I tried to sleep, and whether he knew he was doing it or not, he would wrap arm around me, locking mine around my own torso. Then he would twist me until I was face to face with his chest. He would hold me close and hum softly until sleep took over and we both woke up in the morning, intertwined the same way we had fallen asleep.

I already had a hard time sleeping. Ravis, one of the only things that had soothed it, fixed that restless part of me. Now he was dead and I was alone once more.

Part of me had been relieved when I married Ravis, even though we never truly loved each other. For once, I knew that there was someone permanently latched on to me even if they tried. I was finally not lonely. Free from the shackles of that sinking feeling of loneliness.