Elina's POV
The sound of the hall still rings in my ears—shouts, claws scraping against stone, the crush of bodies pushing back as Dolph Hati moved through them like a storm.
He didn't ask me to follow. He simply caught my wrist, his hand closing around it like iron, and pulled me from the great hall before I could find my breath. My feet stumbled across the polished floor. The air outside the chamber was colder, silvered by the moonlight pouring through the high windows.
I could hear them—every whisper, every hiss behind their fangs.
"The cursed Alpha has found his mate."
"After all these years…"
"A human? That's what fate gives him?"
Their voices tangled with the echo of my own heartbeat. I tried to pull away once—just once—and his grip tightened, not cruelly, but with a warning that told me resistance would break me faster than obedience ever could.
"Let me go," I whispered. My voice cracked; I hated the sound of it, thin and frightened.
He didn't answer. His stride was long, each step echoing like the toll of a bell. The corridors stretched ahead, flanked by guards whose eyes flicked down as he passed. None dared meet his gaze.
He was the King's Blade, the cursed Alpha—every story I'd ever overheard in the slave quarters painted him as a shadow that even monsters feared.
And now his hand was wrapped around mine.
When he finally stopped, the silence struck harder than the noise. The doors behind us closed with a deep, final sound, leaving me inside a vast chamber lit only by the pale wash of moonlight. The walls were stone, the air colder here, cleaner.
He released my wrist and I stumbled back, clutching the spot where his fingers had been.
"Why did you sit on my seat?" he asked. His voice was low, roughened by restraint. "Of all the places in that hall to spill wine, why my seat?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it. My throat worked uselessly for words.
"I didn't know," I managed. "I was cleaning. Somehow I spilled wine."
His eyes caught the light. For a moment they weren't just eyes—they were something ancient, burning from beneath his skin. "You expect me to believe you wandered to the one place no wolf dares approach?"
"I wasn't thinking," I said, too quickly. "I was only trying to do what I was told."
He moved closer, and I felt the air shift. Not a touch, not yet, but the weight of his presence pressed against me until I couldn't breathe right.
"I could break you for that mistake," he said. "You knew who I was, little human."
The words cut deep—little human—as though being small, fragile, mortal were a crime.
"I didn't know you were there," I said, forcing the words past my shaking chest. "I didn't mean to sit, I slipped, and then you—"
"Then the bond happened."
He said it like a verdict.
The memory flashed behind my eyes: the heat that had shot through my body, the noise, the way the room had felt too small for the power that rolled off him.
"Is it… real?" I asked before I could stop myself.
He turned his head slightly, studying me as though I were a puzzle he regretted solving. "You felt it. Don't pretend you didn't."
Something about his certainty made me angry. "I felt something, yes," I said. "Terror. Confusion. Everyone staring at me as though I'd ruined their sacred night."
For the first time, his expression shifted. A hint of something like regret flickered there, gone as soon as it appeared.
"You didn't ruin it," he said quietly. "Fate did."
He walked past me then, to the window. His reflection was a dark shape in the moonlight, shoulders broad, hair disheveled from the chaos of the hall.
"I don't understand any of this," I whispered. "Why me? I'm nothing."
His reply came without turning. "That's what they said about the last ones."
The last ones. The words twisted in my chest. Everyone knew the stories—every mate he'd ever had had died. Some said by his curse, others by the King's hand.
I took a step back. "You should let me go before your curse kills me too."
He faced me then. "You think I haven't tried before?"
Something in his voice—ragged, hollow—made my heart stumble. He moved closer again, slow, deliberate.
"The bond won't let me," he said. "You bear its mark now. Do you feel it?"
I didn't have to answer. The truth pulsed under my skin like a second heartbeat, wild and unwanted. Every breath I took seemed to echo his own.
"Yes," I whispered. "And I hate it."
His jaw tightened. "Good. Hate will keep you alive."
He stopped a few feet away, but it felt as if the distance didn't exist. The air between us shimmered with something invisible, something alive.
I could smell the faint trace of pine and iron on him, the scent of storm air and blood. My knees felt weak; I hated that my body reacted even while my mind screamed to run.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"You'll stay here tonight," he said. "The King will decide what to do with you in the morning."
"The King?" My stomach turned cold. "He'll kill me."
His expression hardened. "Not while I breathe."
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The night outside the window stretched endlessly, silver and still. Inside, the silence pressed until I couldn't bear it.
"Why do they call you cursed?" I asked quietly. "Is it because of them—the ones before?"
He didn't answer right away. His hand clenched at his side.
"They died because the bond tried to break the chains that bind me," he said at last. "The curse doesn't want me free, and it takes what the bond gives me."
I swallowed hard. "Then I'll die too."
His eyes found mine, and in them I saw not anger this time, but something older—grief, maybe.
"Not if I can stop it."
He moved again—closer than before. The air between us thickened, humming with something that made my pulse flutter. I could see the faint scar along his jaw, the dark line of his throat when he swallowed.
"Don't look at me like that," I said before thinking.
"Like what?"
"Like I belong to you."
A faint, humorless smile touched his mouth. "You sat in my seat. Fate decided you do."
"I don't believe in fate."
"Then explain this."
He reached out—slow, hesitant—and brushed his fingers across the back of my hand. The spark leapt instantly, heat racing up my arm to my chest. I gasped and stepped back, but the connection didn't fade; it lingered like lightning caught between two clouds.
"See?" he said softly. "Even the air obeys it."
I hated the tears that burned behind my eyes. "I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask to be part of your curse or your fate or whatever this is."
His gaze softened for the first time. "Nor did I."
The words hung there between us, quiet and heavy.
Then he turned away, as if the moment had cost him something. "There's a chamber through that door. You'll stay there. No one will touch you while I'm near."
I hesitated. "And if I run?"
His head tilted slightly, not quite a smile. "You won't get far. The bond will lead you back."
He started toward the door, but I stopped him with a single word. "Dolph."
He paused, surprised that I'd dared use his name.
"I'm not afraid of you," I said, though my voice trembled.
He looked back at me, and for an instant his eyes softened into something almost human.
"Yes, you are," he said quietly. "But you'll learn to fear other things more."
Then he was gone, leaving the door half open behind him and the echo of his presence curling in the dark like smoke.
When the silence settled, I pressed a hand over my heart. It was still racing, still matching the rhythm of something that wasn't entirely mine.
The cursed Alpha has found his mate.
The whispers from the hall clung to the edges of my thoughts as I sank onto the cold stone bench by the window. Outside, the moon burned white and unblinking. I watched it until my eyes blurred, until I couldn't tell where its light ended and the mark beneath my skin began to throb in answer.
And though I told myself I hated him, a small, traitorous part of me was afraid of what that bond would make of us both.
End of Chapter Two