His Mark, My Curse

Chapter Five

Aria's POV

I didn't see Caleb the next morning.

I heard about the chosen Luna instead.

Her name was Seraphine. She had red hair that fell past her shoulders and the kind of confidence that came from knowing you belonged. The pack loved her instantly. The elders loved her. Even the kitchen staff who brought me food seemed to glow when they mentioned her name.

Nobody told me when she was arriving at the packhouse. Nobody warned me that I'd run straight into her in the hallway outside Caleb's office.

She was smaller than I expected. Delicate. The kind of woman who looked like she needed protecting.

She took one look at me and smiled.

"You must be the girl from the courtyard," she said. Her voice was warm honey. "The one Caleb had to deal with yesterday. I heard all about it."

I didn't say anything.

"I'm Seraphine," she continued, extending her hand. "You can call me Sera. We're going to see a lot of each other, I think."

I didn't take her hand.

She lowered it slowly, her smile never wavering.

"Or not," she said. "Either way, I wanted you to know that I don't blame you for being confused. Mate bonds are rare. I understand it must have been shocking."

The way she said it made my skin crawl. Like she was being kind to a child who didn't understand the world.

"I should go," I said.

"Of course," Sera said. "But before you do, I just want to say that Caleb and I are very understanding. When the elders figure out how to break your bond, we'll make sure you're taken care of. The pack looks after its own, even the ones who don't quite belong."

I left before I did something I'd regret.

But the bond pulled tight in my chest the whole time. A warning. A reminder. A promise that I wasn't done with her.

Seraphine was at every meal.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner. She sat next to Caleb and talked about the ceremony preparations. The guest lists. The traditions. The future they were planning together.

I sat alone at a different table and watched.

Caleb didn't look at me once.

But I felt him. The bond was a constant pull, like a rope wrapped around my chest, tightening whenever Seraphine laughed or touched his arm.

By the third day, the pain was getting worse.

Not just emotional. Physical.

It started in my chest and spread through my limbs like poison. The farther I tried to stay from Caleb, the worse it got.

I asked one of the serving girls what was happening.

She looked uncomfortable.

"The bond," she said quietly. "When a mate rejects you but you're still connected, it can cause separation sickness. The longer you're apart, the worse it gets. It's supposed to drive you back to your mate."

"What if the mate doesn't want me?"

She didn't answer.

That was answer enough.

By that evening, I could barely stand.

I stayed in Caleb's room because being closer to him was the only thing that made the pain manageable. I didn't go to meals. I didn't leave. I just lay on his bed and waited for my body to decide if it was going to kill me or not.

Around midnight, he came in.

He didn't say anything. He just walked to the bed and sat down beside me.

"It's worse than I thought," he said.

"What?"

"The separation sickness. I didn't know it would hit this fast."

"Your chosen Luna doesn't seem to be suffering," I said.

His jaw tightened.

"Sera is not my mate."

"Just your future wife. Close enough."

"This isn't what I wanted," he said quietly.

"Then why are you doing it?"

He looked at me like the answer was obvious.

"Because the alternative is watching the pack tear itself apart. And I can't do that. I won't."

I sat up, ignoring the wave of dizziness that came with it.

"So I suffer instead," I said. "I get to sit in your room and watch you walk around with her while the bond slowly poisons me."

"I'm looking for a solution."

"How? By what, exactly? You can't break the bond. Nobody can. And you're not going to give up the alliance or the Luna your pack expects you to claim. So what solution is there, Caleb?"

He didn't answer.

I lay back down.

"Just go," I said. "Go be with Seraphine. At least then I'll know why the pain is so bad."

He didn't leave though.

He stayed there, sitting on the edge of the bed, not touching me but close enough that the bond settled slightly. The separation sickness eased just enough for me to breathe.

We sat in silence for hours.

By morning, he was gone. But the relief from his presence had lingered long enough for me to sleep.

On the fourth day, Seraphine came to find me.

She walked into Caleb's room like she owned it. I suppose, soon enough, she would.

"You're making this harder than it needs to be," she said, closing the door behind her.

I didn't sit up.

"Am I?"

"Yes. Caleb cares about you. I can see that. But he's the Alpha. He has responsibilities that go beyond personal feelings."

"I'm aware."

"Are you?" Sera moved closer. "Because from where I'm standing, you're acting like a child. Like your wants matter more than the survival of this entire pack."

I finally looked at her.

"What do you want from me?"

"I want you to make this easier," she said. "Accept that the bond is a biological mistake. Understand that Caleb has chosen the pack, and accept that gracefully. Leave Mooncrest. Let go."

"The bond won't let me leave. The sickness will kill me."

Sera smiled, and for the first time, the honey was gone. What was underneath was sharp and cold.

"Then I suppose you have a choice to make," she said. "Die from separation sickness, or die from knowing you're the reason Mooncrest falls apart. Either way, you lose. I just thought you should know that before you waste any more of Caleb's time with this fantasy that somehow everything will work out."

She turned to leave, then paused at the door.

"For what it's worth, I do feel sorry for you," she said. "You're a nice girl. You just picked the wrong person to love."

After she left, I lay there and felt the separation sickness start creeping back in.

She was right. About all of it.

Caleb was the Alpha. The pack came first. And I was a complication that nobody wanted to deal with.

But the bond didn't care about logic. It didn't care about what Seraphine wanted or what the pack needed. It just pulled. Constantly. Relentlessly.

Around evening, when the pain became unbearable again, Caleb came back.

He didn't ask questions this time. He just lay down next to me, fully clothed, and held me while my body stopped shaking.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into my hair.

"Stop saying that," I said. "It doesn't change anything."

"I know."

"Then stop."

But he didn't. Every night for the next week, he came back. He held me while the separation sickness raged through my body. He let the bond settle between us while Seraphine slept somewhere else in the packhouse.

And every morning, he left again.

By the end of the week, I understood what Seraphine had meant.

This wasn't a love story. This was a trap, and we were both caught in it.

Caleb couldn't give me what I needed without destroying everything he was responsible for.

And I couldn't leave without dying.

So we existed in this space between wanting and needing, between duty and desire.

Every night he came back.

Every morning he left.

And I stopped expecting anything to change.