I Cut Our Bond, He Was Cursed All Along

Chapter 4: Trap of Silver

A week had passed since Caleb’s agonizing departure from the gates of the Lycan Royal City. In that time, the hollow, bleeding cavern in my chest had begun to knit itself together, anchored by the searing, protective heat of Prince Elias’s mark on my neck. My inner wolf, once a restless, suppressed phantom, was now a vibrant, surging force of nature. I felt stronger, faster, and more attuned to the wild than I had ever been in the Blood Moon Pack.

Which was why Elias had finally agreed to let me join a border patrol.

"Do not stray past the tree line, Helen," the Lycan Captain, a towering warrior named Kael, warned in his deep, gravelly voice. "The Obsidian Mountains border the Dead Lands. The Nightwalkers rarely cross over, but the fog plays tricks on a wolf's senses."

"I'll be careful, Kael," I replied, inhaling the crisp, freezing mountain air.

I was dressed in a sleek, black leather combat suit provided by the Royal Court, complete with silver-laced arm guards and my ceremonial bone-hilt dagger strapped securely to my thigh. The Lycan patrol moved with silent, lethal grace through the dense pine forest, checking the ancient warding stones that kept the vampire hordes at bay.

The afternoon sun was already beginning to dip below the jagged mountain peaks, casting long, eerie shadows across the snow-dusted ground. The forest here was ancient, untouched by modern civilization. But as we neared the ruins of an old, crumbling stone fortress that marked the absolute edge of Lycan territory, the wind shifted.

My inner wolf suddenly snapped to attention, her hackles raising.

I stopped in my tracks, closing my eyes and flaring my nostrils. Beneath the scent of pine and crisp snow, there was a faint, sickeningly familiar odor. Dark roses. Rotting magic. And beneath it all, the cold, metallic stench of a crypt.

Sera.

"Captain," I whispered, my hand dropping to the hilt of my dagger. "We're not alone."

Before Kael could issue a command, the shadows of the ruins detached themselves from the stone walls.

They moved with impossible, blurring speed. Half a dozen vampires, their eyes glowing a ravenous crimson in the twilight, descended upon the Lycan patrol. Kael roared, a sound that shook the snow from the branches, and instantly shifted into a massive, eight-foot-tall Lycan beast. The other guards followed suit, their bones cracking and reforming in the blink of an eye as they met the vampire ambush with devastating, brutal force.

"Helen, fall back!" Kael snarled, ripping a vampire’s arm from its socket.

I took a step backward, intending to draw my dagger and cover their flank, but another scent caught my attention. It was stronger this time, coming from the dark, gaping entrance of the ruined fortress.

Sera stood just inside the archway. She was no longer wearing the pristine silks of a Luna. She looked ragged, wild, and completely unhinged. Her eyes met mine, a twisted, venomous smile stretching across her face, before she turned and darted deeper into the shadows of the ruins.

My blood boiled. She was the architect of my misery. She was the one who had brought dark magic into my home, who had corrupted my mate, and who had forced me to rip my own soul apart. And now, she had brought the sworn enemies of our kind to Lycan territory.

"Coward," I hissed.

Ignoring Kael’s warning, I sprinted after her. My boots hit the ancient stone floor of the fortress, echoing in the damp, cavernous darkness. The air inside was freezing, heavy with the dust of centuries.

"Sera!" I shouted, my voice bouncing off the high, arched ceilings. "You can't run forever! Even if I don't kill you, the vampires will drain you dry the moment your usefulness runs out!"

"Oh, but I'm going to be very useful, Helen," Sera’s voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once, dripping with malicious glee. "I brought them the ultimate prize. The last of the Ancient White Wolves."

I rounded a corner, stepping into what used to be a grand courtyard. The roof had caved in centuries ago, allowing the dying light of the sunset to illuminate the center of the room.

Sera was standing on a raised stone dais, flanked by three aristocratic vampires whose crimson eyes were locked onto my throat with starving intensity.

I bared my teeth, my eyes flashing to the glowing silver of my inner wolf. "You sold out your own kind. You're a traitor to the Moon Goddess."

"The Moon Goddess never did a damn thing for me!" Sera shrieked, her facade of control cracking. "She made you the special one! She gave you the Alpha! I had to claw and bleed for everything I got, and you took it all away with one thrust of a dagger! You ruined my life!"

"You ruined your own life, Sera. Now, I'm going to end it."

I lunged forward, channeling the ancient magic in my blood, intending to shift mid-air and tear her throat out. I felt the familiar, empowering c***k of my bones beginning to reform.

But as my foot hit the center of the courtyard, the stone floor suddenly ignited.

A complex, intricate array of glowing crimson runes flared to life beneath my boots. Before I could recoil, the ancient stone grates lining the perimeter of the courtyard hissed, releasing a thick, glittering mist into the air.

Silver.

It wasn't just a mist. It was aerosolized liquid silver, laced with dark vampire blood-magic.

I gasped in shock, inhaling the mist. Instantly, it felt as though I had breathed in liquid fire. The shift—the glorious, powerful transformation into my white wolf—was violently violently aborted. My bones snapped painfully back into their human configuration, sending me crashing to the stone floor in a heap of agonizing, breathless agony.

"Argh!" I screamed, clutching my throat. My skin burned wherever the glittering mist touched it. It felt like a thousand microscopic needles burrowing into my pores. The silver aggressively attacked the werewolf magic in my blood, suppressing my inner wolf until her triumphant roars were reduced to weak, suffocated whimpers in the back of my mind.

The silver trap hadn't just stopped my shift; it was paralyzing my healing factor and slowly suffocating me from the inside out.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Sera purred, slowly walking down the steps of the dais. The vampires remained behind, watching the spectacle with amused, hungry expressions. The silver mist seemed to part around Sera, repelled by a dark amulet she clutched in her hand. "The Nightwalkers have spent centuries perfecting this trap. They call it the Silver Water Array. It strips a wolf of everything that makes them special. It reduces you to a fragile, pathetic human."

I gritted my teeth, forcing myself up onto my hands and knees. My muscles trembled violently. Blood dripped from my nose, sizzling as it hit the silver-coated stones. "You're... pathetic..." I choked out, glaring up at her through strands of sweat-soaked hair.

Sera stopped a few feet away, her eyes flashing with pure, sadistic triumph. She reached behind her back and unclasped a weapon. It was a spear, its long shaft carved from dark oak, but the blade was forged from pure, solid silver.

"Caleb thought you were so strong," Sera sneered, walking a slow circle around me as I struggled just to breathe. "He thought you were a queen. He howled for you until his throat bled. I had to listen to the man I loved destroy himself because of you."

"He... never loved you," I rasped, refusing to break eye contact. The silver in my lungs was making my vision blur, but I forced my chin up. I had not bowed to an Alpha. I would certainly not bow to a traitor. "He loved... the spell."

Sera’s face twisted into a mask of pure rage. She kicked me squarely in the ribs. The impact, completely unmitigated by my paralyzed werewolf healing, cracked bone.

I hit the floor hard, a sharp cry escaping my lips.

"Shut up!" Sera screamed. "He was mine! I earned him! I was the perfect Luna! You were nothing but a weak, defective freak who couldn't even satisfy her own mate!"

She raised the silver spear, pointing the lethal tip directly at my throat.

"The vampires want your blood, Helen," Sera whispered, her voice dropping into a deadly, unhinged cadence. "But they don't need you alive to harvest it. They just need the body."

I reached frantically for the bone-hilt dagger strapped to my thigh. My fingers were numb, burning with silver poisoning, but I managed to unclip it. As Sera took a step closer to deliver the killing blow, I rolled onto my back and slashed upward with everything I had left.

The silver-edged blade sliced through the fabric of her pants, cutting a deep gash across her calf.

Sera shrieked, stumbling backward and dropping to one knee. The vampires on the dais hissed in collective agitation, taking a synchronized step forward, but Sera threw up her hand.

"No! She's mine!" Sera snarled, scrambling back to her feet. Blood stained her leg, fueling her murderous frenzy. She gripped the silver spear with both hands, her eyes wide and manic. "Always fighting back. Always so arrogant. Let's see how arrogant you are with a silver blade through your heart!"

I tried to push myself up, but the silver mist had taken its toll. My limbs felt like lead. My lungs were burning, desperate for clean air. My inner wolf was silent, trapped beneath the crushing weight of the magical array.

I looked up at the descending silver spear. I wasn't afraid. I had made my peace with death the night I severed the bond. I was only furious that a creature as vile as Sera would be the one to end my ancient bloodline.

"Say hi to the Moon Goddess for me," Sera spat.

She raised the spear high above her head, using all her werewolf strength to thrust it down toward my chest.

CRASH.

The sound of shattering glass and exploding stone was deafening. The magical barrier of the Silver Water Array—designed to keep werewolves out and their magic suppressed—exploded inward in a blinding flash of crimson and silver light.

A massive, terrifying shadow erupted from the ruined wall behind Sera.

It was a wolf, but it was unlike any wolf I had ever seen. It was easily the size of a Lycan, a monstrous mountain of dark grey fur, corded muscle, and unadulterated, apocalyptic rage. The beast was completely soaked in blood—both its own and that of the vampires it had slaughtered to get here.

Caleb.

He didn't just break through the barrier; he shattered it with sheer, suicidal brute force. The silver mist instantly clung to his fur, burning his skin, melting through his flesh with an agonizing sizzle that filled the courtyard with the stench of burning hair and ozone.

But Caleb didn't even flinch.

He didn't howl. He didn't roar. He moved with a terrifying, silent singularity of purpose.

Before Sera could even process the explosion, before the silver spear could descend the final inch toward my heart, the giant dark wolf slammed into her.

The impact was devastating. Caleb’s massive jaws clamped over the wooden shaft of the spear, snapping it in half like a twig, as his sheer momentum carried both him and Sera away from me. They crashed into the far stone wall of the courtyard, bringing down a shower of ancient debris.

The three vampires on the dais hissed, their fangs elongating as they drew their weapons, realizing the silver trap had been breached.

I lay on the ground, gasping for air as the silver mist began to dissipate through the broken barrier. My vision was swimming, my chest heaving, but my eyes remained locked on the dark grey wolf pinning Sera against the wall.

Caleb was burning. The silver from the trap and the shattered magical barrier had seared his flesh to the bone in several places. He was breathing heavily, a ragged, blood-choked sound, but his glowing, crimson eyes never left the vampires. He stepped over Sera’s trembling, terrified form, placing himself squarely between me and the Nightwalkers.

He looked back at me, just for a fraction of a second. His crimson eyes, devoid of Alpha arrogance, were filled with an agonizing, silent plea for forgiveness.

Then, with a roar that shook the very foundations of the earth, Caleb turned and charged the vampires, throwing himself into a suicide mission to buy me time to breathe.