Moonbound To Hell: The Cursed Lycan's Mate

Chapter 2

By the time, the car passed through the iron gates of Ironmoor Pack long after midnight, its headlights cutting through the perfectly manicured darkness like a blade. I stared out the tinted window, taking in the sleek streets, glowing streetlamps, and towering buildings that looked nothing like the brutal concrete and steel of Thornwall. This place breathed money and control. Thornwall had been forged for warriors — blood, frost, and survival. Ironmoor had been built for power.

I understood now why my father had sent me away. Warriors’ packs were where monsters like me belonged. Not here, among polished marble and fragile glass.

The car stopped outside an estate so large and ostentatious it looked like it had been ripped from a painting and dropped into reality. Towering columns, manicured gardens that stretched into the shadows, and windows that gleamed with warm golden light. I studied it through the glass and felt nothing but cold clarity. This was how much I was worth to Isaac Thorne — less than one wing of this ridiculous building. A convenient bargaining chip. A hybrid daughter he could finally cash in.

The door opened and one of the Ironmoor men gestured for me to follow. I stepped out with my duffel bag slung over my shoulder, boots quiet on the pristine gravel. Servants moved around me like ghosts — eyes down, faces blank, trained to see nothing. I catalogued them all the way Thornwall had taught me: exits at every corridor junction, structural weak points in the older stone sections, faces that showed fear versus those that showed curiosity. Threat assessment never stopped.

They led me through wide corridors lined with expensive art and thick carpets that swallowed sound. My combat boots looked obscene against the luxury. Good. Let them remember exactly what they had invited in.

Isaac Throne waited for me in his study.

The moment I stepped inside, the scent of aged wood, cigar smoke, and wolf hit me. He sat behind a massive oak desk, older than I remembered. Softer around the middle, but his eyes had sharpened into something colder, the look of a man who had made ugly choices and refused to lose sleep over them. He stared at me like he was searching for the terrified nine-year-old he had banished. He wouldn’t find her. She had burned away years ago.

I didn’t wait for an invitation. I dropped into the leather chair across from him and crossed my legs.

“Evie,” he said, voice carefully neutral. “You’ve… changed.”

“So have you,” I replied. “You got fatter. And richer, apparently.”

He didn’t smile. Instead, he pushed a thick folder across the desk. The royal seal of Ebonspire caught the lamplight — blood-red wax stamped with a snarling wolf. My stomach didn’t flutter. Ashra, however, lifted her head inside me, intrigued.

“King Nyx Calder needs a bride,” Isaac said without preamble. “His fourth. The previous three were claimed and knotted… and all three died within twenty-four hours. The curse is eating him alive. He needs an heir before it consumes him completely. You have been selected.”

Selected or sold??

I flipped open the folder and scanned the contract. Legalese, blood oaths, breeding clauses. My eyes lingered on the part about completing the mating bond.

Ashra’s voice curled through my mind, smoky and amused. *He wants to knot us and then let us die? How romantic.*

I almost smiled.

“I have one condition,” I said, closing the folder. “Liliana Satin dies. Painfully. For what she did to my mother. That is non-negotiable.”

Isaac’s jaw tightened. “No.”

I leaned forward slowly. The air around me warmed by several degrees. Tiny sparks danced at my fingertips before I pulled them back.

“I have spent fifteen years in Thornwall becoming something that makes its own choices,” I said quietly. “Whether anyone grants them or not. You of all people should remember what happens when you try to control me.”

For a moment, real fear flickered in his eyes. Then it hardened into the same stubborn arrogance I remembered from the night he banished me.

“You have no choice, Evie. The king has demanded a hybrid with strong blood. You will go to Ebonspire, and will marry him. Then, give him an heir. That is your purpose.”

“Did the King choose or you sold me off? Because it's strange really ”

I watched him across the polished desk and saw him clearly for the first time — not a complicated man haunted by regret. Just a small, selfish one. A man who had chosen his fated mate over the woman who bore his child. A man who had stood by while that mate murdered my mother.

I stood up.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“You will do as you’re told—”

“I said I’ll think about it.” My voice dropped, laced with hellfire. “Goodnight, Father.”

I turned and left the study before he could respond. A servant silently led me to the guest wing — a lavish suite with silk sheets, a massive bed, and windows overlooking the east side of the estate. The door clicked shut behind me. I dropped my bag and walked straight to the window staring into nothing.

Ashra whispered. *We could burn her tonight. End it quickly. No one would stop us.*

I placed my palm against the cool glass, watching that distant golden square. “Not yet,” I whispered. “I want him to watch her die. I want him to feel it.”

Memories tried to surface — my mother’s screams, flames that weren’t mine, the scent of burning flesh and betrayal. I shoved them down. Feelings were weaknesses in Thornwall, and I had learned that lesson too well. I no longer felt rage the way normal people did. Only cold purpose and the occasional spark of hellfire.

I spent the next hour studying the room. Mapping exits. Checking for cameras. Testing the strength of the window bars (decorative, easily broken). I unpacked my suppressants and weighed the vial in my hand. Taking one would dull Ashra she has started talking too much.

A soft knock sounded at the door. A young female servant entered with a tray of food and a clothing bag.

“From your father, miss. For next tomorrow’s journey to Ebonspire.”

I unzipped the bag. Inside hung a blood-red dress. It looked elegant, expensive and seriously beautiful but seriously???

Ashra growled. *They want to dress us up like a sacrifice.*

I ran my fingers over the gown. “At least it's expensive and can be resold for alot of money.”

The servant left quickly. I walked back to the window and stared at Liliana’s lit room again. The light finally went out.

I checked the time: 4:43 a.m. I was way too tired to take a bath, so I just collapsed onto the bed. Don’t get me wrong — I wasn’t dirty — but I was seriously exhausted.