Chapter 5 : The First Twist Drops
901 Words
==Elara Voss==
The silver light kept pulsing between us, bright and cruel. I could not stop screaming. The pain felt like my chest was being ripped open from the inside.
Kai staggered, one hand pressed hard over his heart, his face twisted in the same agony that lived in me every single day.
“Elara!” His voice cracked.
I curled in on myself on the bed, gasping for air that would not come easy. The glow under my skin slowly faded, but the damage was done. Kai dropped to his knees beside the bed, breathing hard.
Sweat beaded on his forehead. He reached for me, then pulled his hand back like he was afraid touching me would make it worse.
Footsteps pounded down the hallway. The door burst open. Kai’s mother stepped in first, the old Luna with her steel-gray hair and sharp eyes that had judged me so coldly the night before.
Two elders followed close behind, faces already set in disapproval.
“What is happening?” she demanded. Then her gaze landed on my chest where the shirt had slipped low. The faint silver veins still shimmered faintly under my skin. Her face went pale.
She crossed the room in three quick steps and grabbed my shoulder, turning me so she could see better.
Her fingers traced the glowing lines without asking permission. I flinched but did not have the strength to pull away.
“Moon Goddess above,” she whispered. Her voice shook. “This mark. I know this mark.”
Kai pushed himself up, still breathing heavy. “Mother, what is it?”
She looked at him, then at me, then back at the mark. The room went dead quiet. When she spoke again, her words landed like stones dropped into still water.
“This girl is the last surviving descendant of the Silverfang bloodline. The rival line we wiped out in the moon war twenty years ago.
The curse was our punishment for that night. We thought we ended them all. But the Goddess made sure one lived. She carries their blood. And their curse.”
The words hit me like a slap. My stomach dropped. The room started spinning again, but this time it had nothing to do with the pain.
Chaos erupted.
Voices exploded all at once. Elders shouted. Younger wolves pushed into the doorway, drawn by the noise.
Someone yelled, “Kill her now before she brings the curse down on all of us!” Another voice countered, “She is a threat to the entire pack.
Silverfang blood cannot be Luna. It will poison the bloodlines!”
The beta from last night shoved his way forward. “I told you, Alpha. She is poison. Send her away or end it ourselves.”
My head pounded. I tried to sit up, but my arms would not hold me. This could not be real. My mother had never spoken the name Silverfang out loud.
She had only whispered about old enemies in the dark. Now it all made horrible sense. The night they came. The screams. The way my family was erased.
Kai’s mother stepped back, eyes wide with a mix of fear and old guilt. “The Goddess does not forget. This is why the bond pulled you to her, son. Blood calling to blood. But the pack will never accept her. Not with this history.”
I looked at Kai. He stood tall in the middle of the shouting, shoulders squared, golden eyes burning. The pack pressed in closer, voices rising, some already reaching for weapons or shifting forms in agitation.
Kai raised his hand. The room did not go silent, but the volume dropped enough for his voice to cut through.
“She stays,” he said. His tone left no room for argument. “Elara is my mate. The bond has chosen. I claim her publicly. Anyone who touches her answers to me.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd. A few wolves backed down, heads lowering in submission. But many more glared, muttering under their breath.
The beta looked ready to argue again, but Kai’s mother placed a hand on his arm, silencing him for now.
My world shattered around me in slow motion. Everything I thought I knew about my past, about why I suffered, about who I was, cracked wide open.
I was not just a cursed healer trying to survive. I was the last piece of a bloodline this pack had tried to erase. And now I was trapped in their house, bonded to their Alpha.
Kai turned back to me. His expression softened just a fraction when our eyes met. He reached out, brushing damp hair from my forehead. For a moment it felt like the noise faded and it was only us.
Then the pain spiked again, worse than before. My body folded in on itself. I collapsed back onto the bed, vision going gray at the edges. A weak whisper slipped out before I could stop it.
“If I am really your mate… then why is the Goddess trying to kill me through you?”
Kai’s face went tight with fresh shock. The pack’s muttering grew louder behind him as my words hung in the air, heavy and accusing.
His mother’s eyes widened again.
The realization that the
bond might be destroying us both settled over the room like a dark cloud.
- Writer
