Dolph's POV
The storm had broken before dawn.
From the high balcony of Dravenhold Fortress, I watched lightning crawl across the mountains like veins under the skin of the world. The air reeked of rain and rust — the scent of war in its softer disguise. Every drop that struck the stone reminded me of her heartbeat. Too fast. Too alive. Too human.
I had not slept. Not since the curse began to stir again. The wolves in the courtyard howled through the night, uneasy, and the guards whispered about seeing ghostlight in the windows.
They thought it was the moon.
I knew better.
When the summons came from the temple below — the priestess requests your presence, my king — I almost laughed. Priestess Priestess Veya never "requested." She saw. She commanded.
I went anyway.
The temple was colder than the corridors, carved deep into the heart of the fortress where no sunlight dared reach. The torches were dying one by one, their smoke coiling like thin black fingers.
She stood at the center of the circle — barefoot, hood drawn low, the fur of her cloak dragging over the mosaic floor as if she floated.
Priestess Veya.
The wolf oracle. The voice of the old moon.
Her eyes, though blind, shimmered faintly — silver threads crawling through the pale mist of her pupils. It was said that each thread was a soul she had seen die in prophecy. I believed it.
She lifted her chin when I entered.
"Alpha Hati," she greeted me, her voice echoing in two tones — one human, one ancient, a voice that sounded as if it had come from under the earth. "You walk heavy tonight."
"I haven't slept," I said. "Your messengers thought it wise to summon me when the storm still bites the walls."
"Storms come when the heavens must speak."
Her words grated against me — slow, certain, like teeth gnawing on bone.
I stepped closer, boots echoing in the hollow space.
The air thickened. I could smell the ash, the incense, the faint copper tang of blood that clung to her robes.
"You know why I called you," she said.
"Enlighten me."
Her blind eyes found me anyway. "The curse."
I stiffened.
It wasn't spoken aloud often. Not even my inner circle dared utter it near me. But she said it as if it were her right.
"You feel it again," she murmured. "The beast stirring when she walks near."
My jaw locked. "Watch your tongue, oracle."
"She is not of our kind."
"She is under my protection."
"She is your unmaking."
Her last words rippled through the chamber like a shockwave. I could feel the pull in my chest — that ache that came whenever Elina's name even hovered near my thoughts.
Veya's hand rose, trembling slightly as she traced a circle in the air. A faint glow followed her motion, dust motes sparking like fireflies caught in moonlight.
She began to chant — words older than the fortress, older than the kingdom itself. The sound crawled under my skin, deep into my veins, until I could feel my pulse answering it.
Then she spoke again — her voice split now, one soft and one guttural:
"In the hour of twilight, the cursed Alpha shall find his mirror.
Flesh of the hunt. Blood of the forbidden.
She will bear the light that shatters, or the darkness that devours.
One choice. One death. One redemption."
The flames in the braziers flared green, casting shadows that twisted like beasts along the walls.
I could see — no, feel — her visions bleeding into mine:
A woman standing in a field of white ash. Her eyes — Elina's eyes — filled with light. My wolf kneeling before her. Then blood. A crown of bone. The moon, cracking like glass.
I tore my gaze away. "Enough."
Priestess Veya didn't stop. She was trembling now, as if the spirits inside her were too strong for her mortal body.
"She will break the chain of your blood, or she will forge it anew.
To love her is to bleed. To deny her is to die."
The last word hit like a strike to the chest.
I reached forward, grabbed her by the arm, feeling her bones light beneath my grip.
"What do you want from me?" I demanded. "To abandon her? To let the curse swallow me whole?"
Her sightless eyes met mine again — and I swear she saw through me.
"The curse is not the beast you fight, Alpha. It is the choice you will not make."
The air broke with silence. Even the fire seemed to hold its breath.
For a moment, she looked small — frail even — her chest rising and falling shallowly. Then she straightened, her face unreadable.
"You cannot cage fate," she said softly. "But you can walk willingly into its teeth."
I let her go.
She staggered back, but her expression didn't change. Her gaze turned toward the altar where the sacred wolf skull rested — its hollow eyes gleaming faintly.
"Every king believes his will stronger than prophecy," she said. "Until prophecy takes the thing he loves."
The words hung in the cold air long after she was gone.
I stood alone.
The green fire still burned faintly, whispering against the stones. I tried to breathe, but it felt like swallowing glass.
Her warning had burrowed under my skin — deeper than the curse itself.
She will save you or destroy you.
The words looped in my head like a snare drum. I thought of Elina's hands — small, trembling when she tried to pour water into a basin that first night. Her eyes when she looked at me, defiant but frightened. Her voice when she whispered that she didn't belong here.
If she were my undoing, then the gods had a cruel sense of irony.
I turned toward the door, but something caught my reflection on the black marble wall. For an instant, I didn't see myself — I saw it. The wolf. My other half, staring back with burning gold eyes and bared teeth.
"You think I'd let her go?" I whispered to the reflection.
It didn't answer, but I could feel its hunger — the same hunger that had followed me since the curse was born.
When I left the temple, the storm had eased, but the fortress still moaned under the wind. The scent of rain had turned metallic, sharp.
Finn crossed my path in the corridor, He is one of my pack, The Blades. He bowed low. "My king, Priestess Veya—"
"She's finished," I cut him off. "See that her chamber is sealed for the night."
He hesitated. "Did she speak of the curse?"
I didn't answer.
His eyes lingered on me, worry threading through them. He knew me too well — could probably smell the rage beneath my skin. But he said nothing more.
I walked past him, through the long halls of Dravenhold, until I reached the west tower — my tower.
The fire was still burning there too, softer, gold instead of green. And there — by the hearth — the scent hit me before my eyes did.
Elina.
She'd fallen asleep curled in a corner, one of my cloaks around her shoulders. Her breath came steady, the smallest sound in a world full of storms.
The sight should have calmed me. It didn't.
Instead, I felt something tighten in my chest. That dangerous tenderness again — the kind that no alpha should feel toward a human slave. The kind that Veya's words had warned me about.
I stepped closer, just enough for the firelight to reach her face. The curve of her lips. The faint bruise on her temple that hadn't yet faded. The fragile pulse at her throat.
My hand hovered above her hair — just shy of touching.
She stirred, murmured something in her sleep, and the sound was like a blade sliding between ribs.
My curse throbbed in response, the mark under my skin pulsing faintly. The wolf stirred, whispering in the back of my mind — not words, just need.
Mine.
I pulled back sharply, hand closing into a fist.
Priestess Veya's voice echoed through me again: To love her is to bleed. To deny her is to die.
I didn't know which I feared more.
Outside, thunder rolled again, far away but deep enough to shake the stone.
I turned from her and faced the window. The moon had slipped behind clouds, pale light barely touching the world.
Somewhere in that darkness, the gods were laughing.
I didn't sleep that night either.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face — Elina's — but it wasn't human anymore. In my dreams, her eyes glowed silver like Veya's, and her hands were stained with blood. My blood.
When I woke, my heart was racing, and my wolf was restless, pacing inside my chest like it wanted out.
The fortress was silent. Even the storm had died.
But the silence wasn't peace.
It was the breath before something breaks.
And for the first time in years, I realized the thing that might break was me.
End of Chapter Five.