CHAPTER FOUR
1472 Words
Chapter Four: His Darkness, My Curse
POV: Lira Velasquez
---
I didn’t remember falling asleep.
But I woke to the sound of thunder, my heart already racing, as if my soul had heard something before my body did.
The manor groaned with the weight of the storm. Rain slammed against the windows like desperate fingers clawing to get inside, and somewhere beneath the rumble of thunder… I heard it.
A howl.
Low.
Wounded.
Not from a wolf.
A man.
Kael.
And it wasn’t just pain I heard in his voice.
It was something ancient. Something broken.
---
I grabbed the robe from the hook and stumbled barefoot into the hallway, the stone floor like ice under my feet. Lightning slashed across the stained glass as I passed it, casting shards of crimson and gold across the walls. The air thickened with every step I took, as though the house itself was holding its breath.
I followed the sound.
The pull.
Not with logic — but with instinct.
And even before I reached the door, I knew where he was.
The library.
---
I pushed it open — and the moment I crossed the threshold, it hit me.
The bond.
It slammed into my chest like a crashing wave, knocking the air from my lungs. My knees almost gave out, but I grabbed the doorframe, gasping.
And there he was.
Kael.
On his knees in the center of the room, surrounded by torn books, broken glass, and spilled ink. The fire had long since died out, but the lightning through the windows lit his soaked figure in flashes — a tortured god in ruin.
His shirt clung to his chest, drenched from the rain. His shoulders trembled with restraint. His silver eyes glowed like twin moons, brighter than I’d ever seen them — and yet unfocused, distant, feral.
And he was shaking.
From cold?
No.
From the effort of holding himself back.
---
“Kael?” I whispered.
His head snapped up.
And for one terrifying second, he didn’t see me.
Not me.
Only the Luna.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he growled, his voice a twisted echo of its usual smooth coldness. This was raw. Fractured.
“I heard—”
“Leave. Now.”
But I didn’t move.
I couldn’t.
My feet were planted like roots, my body trembling, but something deeper—older—refused to let me run.
“I won’t,” I said.
A flicker of pain crossed his face. A warning.
“You don’t understand what the storm does to the bond,” he rasped. “It tears the barrier down. My wolf—he wants to claim you. Tonight.”
I took a step forward. “Then why haven’t you?”
Kael laughed bitterly, but it cracked halfway, like glass under pressure. “Because once I mark you… you’ll be cursed like me.”
---
The word cursed hit like a punch to the chest.
So it was real. The rumors. The whispers. The nightmare that followed me since I stepped foot in this manor.
“I already am,” I said softly.
Kael looked up sharply. “No. You’re not. Not yet.”
“Then tell me the truth. All of it.”
He stood, slowly, like rising took every ounce of control he had.
“The truth doesn’t change anything.”
“Maybe not. But I deserve to know what kind of fate I’ve been dragged into.”
He stared at me for a long moment, as thunder shook the walls.
Then finally… he began to speak.
---
“I wasn’t supposed to survive,” he said, his voice low and hollow. “The midwife told my mother to kill me the moment I was born. Said I was born under a cursed moon. Said I had no aura. That the Goddess had abandoned me.”
I swallowed. “But your mother didn’t listen.”
“No. She believed I was chosen, not cursed. Said the Moon Goddess had plans for me. And maybe… maybe she was right. At sixteen, my power awakened. I shifted without pain. I was faster. Stronger. Alphas twice my age couldn’t best me. But then…”
He paused.
“The dreams started.”
My stomach twisted. “The ones where you saw people die?”
Kael nodded, jaw tight. “Not just people. My people. I saw their deaths in perfect detail — and each time, I tried to stop them. I did everything I could. But fate always twisted. If I saved one, another died in their place.”
“So you stopped trying.”
“No,” he said bitterly. “I never stopped. That’s what cursed me. Trying to rewrite fate is what made it worse.”
“And now?”
He looked me straight in the eye.
“Now, I dream of you.”
---
The world tilted.
“You saw me?”
“Yes. Long before you were brought here. Always the same… You, lying on the library floor. In this robe. Bleeding. Your mark still fresh.”
My throat tightened. “And you still allowed the bond to happen?”
“I fought it,” he snapped. “Rejected it. But the bond doesn’t listen. Every time I pushed it back, you still died. Just sooner. And always more violently.”
The cold in my chest spread to my bones.
“What kind of sick fate is this?” I whispered.
Kael reached out, cupping my cheek.
And for the first time, his touch wasn’t a command.
It was a plea.
“I don’t know. But I swear to you… I’d rather die than be the reason you do.”
---
I stood there, barely breathing, as the storm raged around us.
It should’ve scared me — the visions, the curse, the knowledge that death had already visited me in his dreams. But what terrified me more… was the way my soul responded to his pain.
I wanted to stay.
I wanted to fight.
“You said if you mark me, I’ll become cursed,” I said. “Is there any way to undo it?”
He hesitated. “I’ve searched for years. Most rituals are forbidden. Dangerous. And if they fail… they make things worse.”
I clenched my fists. “Then we’ll find a way that works.”
He blinked. “You mean it?”
I nodded.
“I don’t want to run anymore. If fate is hunting me, then I want to understand why. I want to fight back.”
Something shifted in Kael’s expression.
Hope.
Just a flicker — but it was there.
And it made something in my chest ache.
---
The storm faded by dawn.
The silence afterward felt unnatural, like the house was catching its breath.
Kael sat near the fire, quiet, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. I sat beside him, not speaking, not touching — but something between us had changed.
The bond was no longer pulling us toward destruction.
It felt… aligned.
Balanced.
Even if only for a moment.
And for the first time since I arrived, I didn’t feel like prey in this house.
I felt seen.
---
Later that afternoon, Mira found me in the east corridor.
She looked nervous, almost shaken, holding something wrapped in velvet.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I found it in the restricted archives,” she whispered. “Hidden behind the wall panel in the south study. I think it’s yours.”
I unwrapped the velvet.
A book.
Worn. Bound in black leather. Ancient.
The pages were filled with symbols I didn’t recognize, but one caught my eye — the same mark carved into my mirror. And the front page bore a name written in faded ink.
My mother’s name.
I froze.
“This belonged to her?” I breathed.
Mira nodded slowly. “She stayed here once. Before you were born. She was… meant to be Kael’s Luna.”
The world cracked around me.
“What?”
“She was chosen. By the Goddess. But she fled. No one knows why. Maybe she saw what Kael saw. Maybe she wanted to protect you.”
Tears stung my eyes.
I turned the pages, fingers trembling.
Blood rituals. Bond-breaking rites. Warnings written in red ink.
This wasn’t just a spellbook.
It was a map.
A way out.
Or a way deeper in.
---
I stumbled back to my room, the book pressed to my chest, my thoughts spiraling.
Everything I thought I knew… was a lie.
My mother had stood in my place once.
She had chosen to run.
And now, here I was — standing on the edge of the same fate.
Only this time, the cycle wasn’t going to repeat.
I would break it.
Even if it meant burning everything down.
- Writer
