The curse takes root
691 Words
The next morning, Kael's packhouse.
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Kael woke screaming.
The pain was not in his chest anymore. It was everywhere—in his bones, his teeth, the marrow of his spine.
He clawed at the sheets, at his skin, at the cracked moon branded into his sternum.
Black veins spread from the mark like tree roots, crawling toward his heart, his throat, his eyes.
Serena sat up beside him. Her good hand reached for his arm. Her other hand—the ruined one—hung at her side like a dead animal, flesh now withered to parchment and bone.
"Kael. Kael."
He shoved her away. His palm left a black print on her shoulder.
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The packhouse woke to horror.
Three pack members—young wolves, all of them, the ones who'd laughed loudest when Elara was dragged forward—tried to shift that morning. Tried to call their wolves. Felt nothing.
"They're dead," one of them whispered, clutching his chest. "My wolf is dead inside me."
Panic spread like fire in dry grass.
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Beta Thom locked himself in the library.
Forbidden texts. Hidden shelves. Things Alpha Kael's father had collected but never read, warnings scrawled in margins by trembling hands.
Thom pulled them all down, dust-choked and desperate, until he found what he was looking for.
The Red Moon bloodline.
Spirit-touched, the text read. Able to command the dead. The last of their kind were slaughtered two centuries ago—or so we believed. If a Red Moon heir lives still, and if they are wronged, their rejection curse is absolute. It does not rot the flesh. It rots the soul.
The only cure: the heir's true forgiveness, or the rejector's death in service to the heir.
Thom slammed the book shut.
He found Kael in the war room, staring at a map. The road Elara had left on was still marked—a thin red line leading east, toward territory the pack had never explored.
"The only cure," Thom said, "is her forgiveness. Or your death in her service."
Kael didn't look up. "Send riders after the convoy."
"Alpha—"
"Send them."
Thom went.
The riders didn't come back.
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Serena found the witch at the edge of the territory, where the forest turned black and the trees grew thorns.
She didn't ask how Serena knew her name. Witches didn't ask questions like that. She just watched with colorless eyes as Serena held out her ruined hand and said: Fix it.
"Nothing is free," the witch said.
"I know."
"The price is your firstborn child. Delivered to me on its first breath. No takebacks. No bargains."
Serena's throat worked. She thought of Kael's face when he looked at her now—not with love, not even with pity, but with a distracted irritation, like she was a piece of furniture that had started making noise.
She thought of Elara's silver eyes. Her ancient voice. The way Kael had watched her leave.
"Done."
The witch smiled. Her hand closed over Serena's rotting fingers. Green fire bloomed between their palms—not healing, not exactly.
Replacing. Serena felt something slither into her chest, something that wasn't wolf, something that tasted of swamp water and old bones.
When she opened her eyes, they flashed green.
She was no longer entirely wolf.
She didn't care.
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Kael stood at the eastern window as the sun set.
No riders. No word. Just the long red road and the empty horizon where Elara had disappeared.
Behind him, the packhouse groaned. Wolves whispered. The curse spread—slowly, invisibly, but spreading all the same.
He could feel it in his own chest, the black veins pulsing with every heartbeat, drawing closer to the center of him.
You destroyed us, his wolf whispered. For Serena. Was she worth it?
Kael pressed his forehead against the cold glass.
He had no answer.
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In the forest, alone, Kael howled.
The sound tore through the trees, raw and desperate, unanswered by any wolf for miles. The pack had heard him. They just didn't answer anymore.
Above him, the moon was white again.
He'd never hated anything more.
- Writer
