Claimed By The Cursed King

Chapter3

Chapter Three: Wolf-less

On the third day, Cael summoned me. The guard came at mid-morning — formal, eyes forward, not meeting mine. I followed him through corridors I had already memorized to a room I hadn't yet entered: a study off the main hall, lined with dark wood and books so old their spines had lost their lettering. A fire burned in the grate. The window looked out onto the mountain range. Cael was seated behind a large desk, reading. He didn't look up when I entered. I stood in front of the desk and waited. If he wanted a power display, I could outlast him. I had been surviving discomfort my entire life. After a full minute, he set the book down and looked at me. He was wearing all black again — he seemed to wear nothing else — and in the daylight through the study windows he looked simultaneously more and less human than he had the night I arrived. More, because the morning light stripped some of the mythological weight from his features. Less, because I could see the curse mark clearly now — a dark branching pattern that crept up from his collarbone and curled toward his jaw like something rooting into him from inside." Sit," he said. I sat." Tell me about your wolf," he said.I had prepared for this. "There's nothing to tell you. I don't have one."" Everyone has a wolf." His eyes were steady on mine. "Some are weak. Some are dormant. None is simply absent."" Mine is," I said." Your Alpha — Gregor Voss — submitted documentation to the Pack Council confirming your wolf-less status at age seven." He picked up a document from his desk and set it down again. "Independently verified by a Pack Healer."" Then it's documented."" Documentation can be fabricated." He leaned back in his chair, studying me with that same unnerving steadiness. "A wolf-less girl does not produce the reaction in my curse that you produced the night you arrived." My pulse jumped. I kept my face still. "What reaction?"" The curse is a hunger," he said quietly. "A constant, unrelenting hunger that has driven men stronger than me to madness. The night you walked through those doors, it went quiet." He paused. "That does not happen with wolf-less women."I said nothing. The fire crackled between us."I am not asking you to trust me," he said. "I am telling you that I already know more than you think I do, and that lying to me inside these walls is a waste of both our time."I held his gaze for a long moment. "I genuinely don't know what I am," I said. And this, at least, was the truth. "I have never shifted. I have never felt a wolf inside me. Whatever your curse is reacting to — I can't explain it." He was quiet for a moment. "How did your pack treat you?" The question was unexpected enough that I answered honestly. "As a burden. Something to be managed." I paused. "My Alpha kept me close but never let me forget what I was worth to him."" Which was?"" Somewhere between nothing and slightly less than nothing." I met his eyes. "Until he found a use for me." Something moved across Cael's expression — too quick to name. He looked back at his desk." You will begin combat training with Dax tomorrow," he said. "You will attend meals in the great hall. You will report anything unusual — anything at all — that you notice within the castle walls."" Report to whom?"" To me."I raised an eyebrow. "Why would I report anything to you? You're the one keeping me here."" Yes," he said simply. "And until you understand why, the safest thing you can do is trust that I have reasons." He picked up his book again — a clear dismissal. "You may go."I stood. Walked to the door. Stopped." The documentation," I said without turning around. "About my wolf." A pause. "What if it wasn't fabricated? What if something was done to me instead? Something that made it true whether it started that way or not?" The silence behind me was a different quality than his other silences. Heavier. More awake." Then," Cael said slowly, "someone went to extraordinary lengths to hide you."I left without answering. But in the corridor, my hands were shaking, and I couldn't entirely explain why. That night I dreamed for the first time — not quite a nightmare, not quite a memory. A silver wolf running through burning trees. A woman's voice screaming a name I couldn't hear clearly. Heat, and then cold, and then nothing. I woke up with tears on my face and no idea who they were for.