Chapter 7: The Weight of the Curse
1083 Words
The chamber smelled of smoke and damp earth. The kind of smell that seeped into the skin and lingered. The brazier sputtered low embers, casting more smoke than light. Cold poured from the mountain stone and shadows hunched in the corners as if they were listening.
Aveline sat against the wall, wrists bound, head bowed. Amber eyes flickered in the firelight now and again, too bright with fear, too heavy with exhaustion. She tried to keep herself still, folding in small, but the tether betrayed her. Zarek felt her tremors as if they were his own.
Every uneven breath scraped his ribs. Every flutter of her wolf—the restless, newborn creature it was, clawing under her skin—shook through his marrow.
The bond dragged it all into him.
It pulsed with her heartbeat, her shame, her dread until he could taste them like iron on his tongue. His wolf prowled under his skin, snarling to answer what wasn’t his. He dragged his hands through his hair, ropes burning raw against his wrists, and forced himself to breathe.
This was why he hated it.
Not her. Not exactly. But the bond itself. The way it stripped him bare, made him feel things he’d spent years burying.
He slammed his fist into the wall. Stone cracked. Pain shot up his arm—and the tether flared, searing hot. Aveline gasped, clutching her ribs as if he’d struck her.
Zarek froze.
Her pain was his. Braided into the same thread.
“Damn it,” he muttered, jerking his hand back. His knuckles throbbed, split open, but it wasn’t the sting that twisted in him.
It was her. The way her shoulders hunched, the way her breath came ragged, the way the bond made her bear his fury like it belonged to her.
He dragged himself to the corner, sinking down until shadow covered him. He tipped his head against the wall and shut his eyes. But the tether pulsed steadily and relentlessly, her heartbeat thudding in his veins. There was no silence. No escape.
Born in chains. Dying in them too.
They had called him cursed since the day he first opened his eyes. Storm-colored instead of gold, lightning before a storm instead of sunfire. The pack had whispered it was an omen—the Moon’s rejection carved into his face.
His first shift had only sealed it. Blood. His mother screaming. His wolf was wild and wrong, tearing at her flesh before he could stop it. She had lived, but barely. And his father had never looked at him the same.
Zarek remembered Caelan’s voice more than his face. Hard, cold, final: The Moon will never bless you, boy. You’ll never rule this pack.
Those words had followed him every step since chains tighter than any rope.
Evander was the golden son, heir and pride. Zarek was the shadow. The mistake that survived.
And now the Moon had bound him to another mistake. A bastard-born girl whose wolf came years too late, whose father’s blood was a secret everyone feared to name. Two broken threads knotted together and called destiny.
It wasn’t destiny. It was cruelty.
He opened his eyes.
Aveline sat curled small against the opposite wall, hair spilling loose, wrists red from the bindings. She pressed her shoulders back like she was trying to make herself a wall instead of prey. He felt the ache in her chest, the sting of whispers still lodged in her ribs, the way she tried to hold herself steady.
Damn her for being stubborn.
Damn him for noticing.
The guards’ voices bled through the iron door, careless of who heard.
“Evander spoke like a king tonight.”
Zarek’s jaw ached with the clench of his teeth.
Another voice answered, sharp and eager. “The Alpha won’t last another moon. It’ll be Evander’s Circle soon. And when he takes it, he’ll cut that tether free and burn the bastard girl.”
Heat struck through Zarek like lightning. His wolf lunged, claws scraping against his chest, desperate to tear the door down. The tether flared with him, rage rolling into Aveline—her head snapped up, amber eyes wide, breath catching.
He forced himself to still, forced the wolf back down.
He wanted to tell himself he didn’t care. That she could burn and he’d watch. But the words withered before they formed.
The thought of Evander’s hands on her, Evander’s voice twisting her into a weapon, turned the bond into barbed wire around his ribs. His brother would use her, bleed her, until the pack cheered for it.
Not while Zarek still breathed.
Not because he wanted her. Not because the Moon had said she was his.
Because Evander couldn’t have her.
The whispers outside didn’t stop. They thickened, a chorus of knives.
“Caelan coughs blood every dawn.”
“I heard his wolf won’t rise anymore.”
“The Goddess has abandoned his bloodline.”
Each rumor landed heavy, and Zarek carried the weight of them all. His father was already a shadow, too sick to sit the Circle, too stubborn to yield. And still, even dying, Caelan had found a way to remind him he was never enough.
The brazier spat sparks, filling the chamber with smoke. Aveline shifted, bound hands curling in her lap. Her wolf pressed against her skin, bright and restless, as if trying to claw free. The tether shivered with it, and for a moment, he almost forgot which heartbeat was his.
Fool girl. She thought silence would save her. But silence had never saved anyone.
Sleep dragged her down eventually. Her head tipped forward, lashes brushing her cheeks. Even then, he couldn’t escape her. The tether hummed with her breath, her pulse, her wolf. Steady. Relentless.
He told himself to shut it out. To close his eyes. To pretend it didn’t matter.
But his gaze stayed on her.
Amber glowed faint beneath her lashes, like embers refusing to die. Her fingers clenched even in sleep, bracing for another strike.
And her wolf— it is wrong, too bright, too fierce—flickered under her skin like lightning bottled in glass.
Stronger than they knew.
His chest tightened, the tether pulling hard. He told himself it was the Moon, nothing more. A chain. A curse.
But as her breath synced to his, her pulse threading into his own, the truth scraped through him like a blade.
Ruin had never looked so alive.
And still… he couldn’t look away.
- Writer
