Chapter 2: The Alpha's Curse
Rhys's POV
The curse was restless tonight.
I leaned back in my chair, trying to focus on the territorial dispute report Kael had left on my desk. The words blurred. My chest ached. Not the sharp, immediate pain that meant the curse was feeding, but the constant, grinding pressure that began about a year ago.
I rubbed my sternum absently and forced my eyes back to the page. Two Lycan packs on the northern border were at each other's throats over hunting grounds. Again. Normally, I'd handle this with a few strategic threats and a reminder of what happened to those who disrupted the peace.
Tonight, I couldn't bring myself to care. I put the report to the side and closed my eyes. My wolf was just as restless as the curse.
The black veins crawled up my left forearm, visible even in the dim lamplight. I yanked my sleeve down and gritted my teeth as another pulse of cold spread through my chest. The entity inside me writhed, hungry and impatient.
I was dying. Slowly, inevitably, but faster now than even six months ago.
Ten years. I figured I had 10 more years before this thing consumed me fully. That is if nothing drastically changed before then.
The knock on my study door made me straighten. "Enter."
Kael stepped inside, his expression grim. My Beta knew me well enough to read the signs—the tight set of my shoulders, the way I'd pushed away from the desk like I needed space to breathe.
"Problem?" I kept my voice level. Always level.
"Magical alarm at the Ashford Gallery." Kael closed the door behind him. "Possible Umbra activity."
My hands stilled on the desk. "Umbra-Blooded?"
"The alarms are specific. Same signature as the old wards from before the purge."
Impossible. The Umbra-Blooded witches were extinct. We'd made sure of that—or rather, the coalition of factions had, driven by Cassius Ashcraft's lies and manipulation. By the time we'd discovered the truth, it was too late. The witches were gone, their bloodline extinguished.
My mother's face flashed through my mind, her dark hair, violet eyes, and the way she'd smiled even as she'd cursed me to save me. The way she'd died fighting while I'd hidden, too young and weak to help.
I pushed the memory down. Deep down, where all the other feelings went to die.
"I'll investigate personally." I stood, reaching for my jacket.
Kael's eyebrows rose. "That's not necessary. I can send—"
"I'll handle it." The words came out harder than intended. I softened my tone, barely. "If there's truly an Umbra signature, this is delicate. Political. Every faction will want answers."
And if there was even a chance—the smallest possibility—that one of my mother's people had survived...
I couldn't finish the thought. Hope was dangerous. Hope fed the curse as surely as love or joy.
The drive to the Ashford Gallery took twenty minutes. I spent it in silence as Kael sat beside me in the passenger seat, while three of my enforcers followed in the car behind. My chest grew tighter with each mile, the curse sensing something. My agitation, maybe. Or perhaps something else.
The gallery was in chaos when we arrived. Faction representatives everywhere—vampires, Fae, other Lycan packs. All of them drawn by the magical alarm, all of them circling like sharks.
A trap. This whole thing reeked of a trap.
"Stay sharp," I murmured to Kael as we exited the vehicle.
The main gallery doors stood open. Inside, a crowd had gathered, staring at the guards poised and ready at the vault doors, waiting for me to lead.
And then the scent hit me.
Citrus and amber and something else, something that bypassed every logical thought and slammed straight into my hindbrain. My wolf surged forward, sudden and violent. The curse shrieked in my chest. And the mate bond—that mystical, inexorable pull I'd never felt, never expected to feel—locked into place like a chain around my throat and urged me forward.
Mate.
The word echoed through every cell in my body. Absolute. Undeniable. Terrifying.
I forced myself to keep walking, to maintain the cold mask I'd worn for over a century. But my heart hammered against my ribs. My hands wanted to shake. The curse and the bond warred inside me, tearing me apart from opposite directions.
There. In the center of the crowd. Small, defiant, with long curly hair that looked black in the dim light and silver-blue eyes that—
Glowed violet.
No.
No no no.
Not just my mate. Umbra-Blooded. A heretic, by the coalition's ancient laws. A witch whose very existence would make her a target for every faction in this room.
Her eyes met mine across the gallery, and I felt it. The recognition. The pull increased. I wanted to run to her and make her mine.
My heart stopped. Actually stopped for one impossible beat before slamming back to life, racing so hard I could feel it in my throat, my wrists, behind my eyes. Heat flooded through me—not the cold of the curse, but a scorching liquid fire that started in my chest and spread outward. My wolf clawed to the surface, desperate and feral, trying to take control. Every muscle in my body locked tight with the effort of not moving, not running to her, not dropping to my knees and…
The mate bond snapped into place like a steel cable pulling taut. I felt it wrap around my ribs, my lungs, my heart, squeezing until I couldn't breathe properly. My hands opened and closed at my sides, aching to touch. My mouth flooded with her scent like I could taste it. The curse shrieked and writhed, but even its cold couldn't touch the burning need that consumed me.
She would have felt it too, though she couldn't possibly understand what it meant.
Beautiful. She was absolutely beautiful. And absolutely doomed.
I moved before I could think, before any of the others could react. My wolf demanded I go to her. The curse screamed for her light. I could feel it even from here, bright and warm and everything I'd been starving myself of for decades.
The guards didn't try to stop me. They knew better.
I grabbed her arm. It was rough, but I couldn't afford gentleness, hauling her into a shadowed corner, away from watching eyes and listening ears. Her skin burned under my palm. The mate bond sang. The curse writhed, eager and hungry.
Up close, she was even worse. Even more dangerous. Her scent overwhelmed me—citrus and amber, yes, but underneath it something uniquely her. Warm. Alive. Mine.
I wanted to pull her closer. I wanted to bury my face in her hair and never let go.
I needed to run as far and fast as I could before I destroyed us both.
"Listen very carefully." My voice came out a quiet growl "You're my mate."
Her eyes widened. Silver-blue edged with that impossible violet. "I'm your… what?"
The bond thrummed between us. She didn't know. She didn't understand. Human-raised, probably. No idea what she was, what we were, what this meant.
Which made what I had to do slightly less cruel.
Only slightly.
"And I reject you." Each word tasted like ash. Like poison. Like the vilest curse. "For both our sakes."
The bond shattered.
I felt the golden rope between us break and shatter as the blinding pain tore through both of us. But I'd been preparing for this my whole life. Expecting pain and braced for it.
She hadn't.
She went to her knees, a broken sound escaping her throat. Tears poured down her face. Her whole body shook.
The Shadow Eater feasted on my anguish caused by the agony of watching my mate crumble because of me. It surged through my veins, black and cold and hungry, and I couldn't—I had to—
I stepped back before I did something unforgivable. Like gathering her up and taking it back.
My jaw ached from clenching. My hands fisted so tight my nails cut into my palms. The physical pain helped. Barely.
"Take her." I didn't trust myself to look at anyone, didn't trust my control.
I turned and walked away, each step precisely measured. Each breath was carefully controlled.
Behind me, I heard her being hauled to her feet. Heard the murmurs from the crowd—heretic, abomination, kill her—and the wolf in me snarled.
Mine. She was mine, and they wanted to hurt her.
I kept walking.
Kael fell into step beside me. "Rhys… "
"Not here." My voice came out barely above a whisper.
We made it outside to the car. I was barely able to make it three blocks before I had to tell the driver to pull over.
I stumbled out and vomited into an alley, the curse ripping through me with savage glee. Black veins crawled up my neck. My hands shook. The pain in my chest was worse than it had been in months—years—because now I knew what I was missing. Now I had a face, a scent, a name to attach to the emptiness.
Now I knew exactly what I'd given up.
"We need to get you back to the fortress." Kael's hand on my shoulder was the only thing keeping me upright. "You need—"
"I need her safe." The words ripped out of me. "Thorne was there. Every faction was there. They'll come for her."
"So what do you want to do?"
I straightened, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Forced myself to think past the pain, past the curse, past the bond screaming at me to go back.
"Fake her death." My voice was hoarse but steady. "The human authorities will buy an escape attempt gone wrong. A body in the river, too damaged to identify properly. Meanwhile, we take her to the fortress."
"You want to imprison your mate?"
"I want her alive." I met his eyes. "That's all that matters. Keeping her alive."
Even if it killed me.
The irony wasn't lost on me. The curse would feed on my guilt, my longing, my desperate need to protect her. It would consume me faster now, use every emotion I couldn't suppress to hollow me out.
But she would be safe and that was worth any price.
"I'll make the arrangements," Kael said quietly.
I nodded and climbed back into the car, my chest still burning, my hands still shaking.
Somewhere across the city, in a cell or a holding room, my mate was probably terrified. Confused. In pain from the rejection.
And I'd put her there.
The curse purred with satisfaction, gorging itself on my self-loathing.
I closed my eyes and tried not to think about silver-blue eyes edged with violet. About citrus and amber. About the way she'd looked at me in that split second before the bond broke—like I was everything to her.
Then I broke her and locked her in a cage, but I was the one truly imprisoned.