The Alpha’s Forbidden Bond

Chapter 02

Jax’s POV

"Show yourself," I ordered, my body coiling, half-expecting a wolfsbane arrow to come whistling out of the dark.

"I mean you no harm," the voice answered, calm despite my hostility.

"Then quit hiding and face me!"

Light bloomed in front of me, small at first, swelling until it dimmed into the shape of a stooped old man leaning on a gnarled walking stick, his beard nearly reaching his chest, his hair pooling white down his back.

"The Oracle," I breathed. I'd seen this old man wandering these woods for years, watching from a distance, never once approaching. I'd never given him a second thought.

"Alpha," he said again, his grip visibly tightening around the stick or was it a staff now? I genuinely couldn't tell anymore.

"You should turn back tonight," he warned, voice trembling. "Whatever waits for you at that packhouse will only bring ruin. A curse has already found you. Return home, and everything you love starts to unravel."

"Excuse me?" I nearly laughed. "Have you lost your mind, old man?"

"I need you to hear me, Alpha. Your mate's betrayal wasn't the ending, it was only where this begins."

"How could you possibly know what happened tonight?" I closed the distance between us, temper spiking again. This stranger somehow already knew, before I'd said a single word.

"There is no lie in what I'm telling you"

"Enough!" My hands flew up, blood roaring in my ears. "You have no right to speak to me like this. I am Alpha of this land. Everything you're standing on belongs to my pack."

"I only wish to warn you. Sickness is coming. People will die. Go home now, and you seal that fate." He reached toward me, desperation carved into every line of his face.

"Stop talking or I swear I will kill you where you stand!"

"Your bloodline will suffer for it. Your entire pack will feel this pain"

I didn't let him finish. My hand closed around his throat before I'd fully decided to move. "I said stop."

Maybe the worst possible way to end a night that had already ruined itself twice over.

"Kill me if it pleases you, Alpha," he wheezed beneath my grip. "But nothing I've spoken will prove false. Your fate is already sealed. You are doomed.”

The Oracle's whole body folded when my boot connected with his ribs, a strangled cry tearing out of him as he slammed spine-first into the nearest oak. Even watching him crumple against the bark didn't touch the fury still boiling under my skin.

"You don't get to call me cursed." I was already closing the distance again, fists clenched so hard my nails bit into my palms. "I'm the Alpha. Nobody speaks to me like that." My hand found his throat a second time, tighter now.

He wheezed, both hands scrabbling weakly at my forearm. "Wait please you need to hear this. Do not set foot in that packhouse again, or you'll"

"I told you to shut up!" I released him mid-sentence, drawing my arm back to finish what I'd started, but my fist swung through empty air. He was simply gone.

"That's the last conversation you'll get out of me, Alpha." His voice drifted through the trees from nowhere and everywhere at once, and no matter how hard I searched the dark, I never laid eyes on him again.

I gave myself a few minutes to breathe before heading back toward the house. The forest had gone quiet again, like nothing had happened at all, like an old man hadn't just vanished into thin air after promising my life was already ruined. I almost laughed at how absurd the whole night had become. Betrayed by my mate, betrayed by my best friend, and now apparently cursed by a stranger who lived in the woods. What else was left to go wrong before sunrise?

"Alpha! Is it real? Did Catherine actually cheat on you?" Garrick caught up to me before I'd even reached the gate, practically vibrating with the kind of excitement only bad news could produce in him. My cousin had never once mastered the art of a closed mouth. "And with Cassian?! That's disgusting, honestly, who does that"

Please, for the love of the Goddess, stop talking, I begged silently.

Every fiber in me wanted to shut him up with my knuckles, but I forced my jaw tight instead and kept walking like he wasn't even there.

"So what now? They just ran off together? Who's supposed to be Beta? The pack's got no one lined up!" He kept pace beside me, undeterred.

"Wonderful." The sarcasm dripped off the word. As if tonight hadn't already handed me enough garbage to sort through without adding a leadership vacancy to the pile.

"Wait, what?" Garrick blinked, clearly not following.

"Congratulations, you're Beta now. Show up at my office in the morning and I'll walk you through everything." I didn't slow down. "First order of business tells the entire pack that anyone caught gossiping about those two gets thrown straight into the dungeon."

I'd hoped that would be the end of the subject entirely. Then I spotted my parents sprinting toward me and understood that hope was wasted.

"Sweetheart, where in the world have you been?" My mother crushed me into a hug so tight you'd think I'd wandered in from a blizzard.

I gently pried her arms loose and just looked at both of them, empty.

"Take down everything hanging in the main hall. Every photo, every frame. I don't want a trace of it left," I said, voice hollow.

"Where's your shirt? Did you run off into the forest again"

Because apparently a T-shirt was the priority here, Mom.

Before she could push further, an Omega came sprinting toward us, breathless, dropping to her knees the second she reached me. "Alpha! Please, the Southern Razor is burning! Half the houses are on fire and people can't get out!"

My pulse spiked instantly, my head snapping around searching for Cassian out of pure habit before the memory hit me that he wasn't my Beta anymore. He wasn't anything anymore.

"Garrick! Get Torin, grab fifteen fighters, and get Fire Management and the medics out there now! Check every single house!" The orders left me in one breath. Garrick practically cheered before bolting off.

Strange time to look thrilled.

I dropped to the Omega's level so she'd actually see my face. "I won't lie and promise everyone survives, but we're going to do everything we can and trust the Goddess with the rest. Saving as many lives as possible, that's the only thing that matters right now." I squeezed her shoulder before standing.

I hadn't even caught my breath when a Gamma from the Northern territory came barreling in.

"Alpha, the Howling Fangs hit the North! They've got children as hostages they're saying if you don't show up within the hour, they start killing them!"

"They can't be serious. I already refused their treaty. Nobody's carving up our land for them!"

"They mean it, Alpha! Please, they're just kids!" Her voice cracked on the last word.