Chapter 0 – Prologue

When he found the woman, he intended to kill her.

Tarhan listened to the tearing noises of the sky with a numb face.

It started to rain.

He glanced down as the lightning struck a nearby tree, making it charred and smoked. Raindrops hit his tight, muscular forearms. Even the cold water droplets turned into misty water vapor in the painful heat where his skin, which was covered with anger and betrayal, blew up.

‘…The wolves are making a fuss.’

Suddenly, he remembered that he had been living this life for quite some time. First, with rising anger, then with a madness that could not be controlled on its own. And, he was now blaming the reason he continued to do this on ferocious inertia.

Yes, it was inertia…

‘Otherwise, there is no reason to continue this madness of wandering aimlessly in search of that woman, whose life or death is unknown.’

Tarhan realized that at some point, unexpectedly, his thoughts began to flow in that direction again.

‘Sh*t… It was that again.’

He remembered the bitterness of his stinging wounds and tried to change the direction of his thoughts. However, he could not do that. If possible, Tarhan would have been successful by trying a hundred times already.

It was always her… Behind all the motives of his actions was the woman.

To him, who was responsible for the survival of the entire tribe, surviving alone in the forest was not a task. Rather, he was more suited to this condition. Nevertheless, he reconsidered the reason why he had been obsessed with living in the group.

…A child.

It was because of the child. His children that she would have again. The child who would be in her nine months inside her bulging belly enough to make her narrow shoulders stand out. Oddly enough, it was at first. Since they were young, he thought they would soon have children.

Living in groups increased the survival rate of newborns. To do that, he had to be recognized within the tribe.

Tarhan, a man of Cartantina to the bone, did what the man who gave the seed of the child she would bear should do.

He desperately needed a high position.

As if looking up at the top of a sheer cliff, his status was so high that everyone looked up to him. A position that would never be defeated in a subtle conflict between his woman and the prey he has taken over.

…He needed a position where no one on the ground he stepped on would ever point a finger at his woman for fear of him.

It was for this reason that he did not attack the surviving fallen Cartantina by biting their stomachs and tongues right away, despite the kicked and spat insults of the Aquileans.

If he had torn their dirty faces on the spot, he would have been intoxicated with a victory that night, though he would not have been able to hide his woman with poor legs from among the women of the tribe while he went hunting.

He would not have been able to build a house that was not lacking in anything compared to others, nor would he be able to hand over the necklace crafted from the bones of Geppas, the most honorable accessory that could save ten more such houses…

However, now, Tarhan was thinking over and over again, what a foolish and terrible decision it had been for his life.

‘She never wore that necklace.’

In the house where he and the woman lived, the necklace was kept in its original place. The woman did not take anything about him… as though she would not wear any traces of him, no matter how small.

It tightened Tarhan’s breathing every moment.

There was not a night he did not regret — without knowing what he regrets. By the time all the dust and dirt had been washed away, and only the smell of pouring water was present, Tarhan began to move his steps again.

His eyes were sharp again like the claws of a predator.

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