Taming The Alpha’s Curse

Chapter 10

Astrid’s Pov

I said nothing.

The words were right there but they would not come out. My mouth opened and closed and I stood there like a complete fool while Xavier held my hands in his and waited.

“Nothing, Alpha,” I finally managed. “It is nothing.”

He let go of my hands.

Then his claws came out.

Not all the way, just enough. Just enough for me to see them lengthen slowly at the tips of his fingers, and my breath turned sharp and fast in my chest. He was not looking at me. He was looking forward, his back still slightly turned, his posture completely relaxed, like a man who had all the time in the world and every reason to use it badly.

“I do not like,” he said quietly, “when I ask you something and you lie to me.”

My heart was slamming.

How did he know? I had barely said anything. I had not even finished the lie. How could he tell that fast?

He turned his head slightly. Not enough to look at me fully, just enough.

“I will ask you again,” he said. “What happened to your hand. And why is your skin doing that.” He paused. “Is it something to do with what you are?”

I was shaking. I could feel it in my knees, in my hands, in the breath I was trying to keep steady and failing at completely. Part of me wanted to say yes. Part of me wanted to say no. Both answers felt like standing on the edge of something I could not come back from.

“I would not like to repeat myself, Astrid.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, Alpha. It is because I am…” I stopped. The word stuck. I forced it out.

“A Vampire.” He completed the statement for me.

“There is a potion,” I continued, my voice barely holding together. “My mother used to make it. It has certain ingredients, specific ones. Without it I cannot stay in direct sunlight for long. My skin starts to peel. It spreads. And then I….”

I stopped again.

“Die,” he said simply.

“Yes, Alpha.”

He was quiet. He reached forward and picked up his wine cup from the table and took a slow sip. He was still not fully facing me. I stood behind him and watched his shoulders and tried to read something, anything, from the way he was holding himself.

Then he stood up.

He did not say a word. He just moved past me toward the door and said, “Follow me.”

I looked around the room for a second, genuinely unsure if he was speaking to me. It was just the two of us. There was no one else.

I followed.

The door opened before he even touched it. I still did not understand how the warriors always knew the exact moment he was about to come through. They just did. Like the whole castle was tuned to him somehow.

We moved through the corridor and I kept pace behind him, taking two steps for every one of his. He was so tall that even his walk covered ground fast. I focused on not falling behind and on not running into anything because I was watching him instead of where I was going.

I told myself very firmly not to ask where we were going. I opened my mouth once, almost did it, then shut it again. Are you stupid, Astrid? You do not ask the Alpha where he is going. You follow. That is it.

So I followed.

We moved through the inner yard and toward the gate and my heart started doing something strange. The main gate. He was walking toward the main gate. The one that led outside the castle walls, outside the grounds, out into whatever world existed beyond this place that I had not seen since the night I was dragged here in chains.

One of the warriors at the gate straightened immediately. “Alpha.”

Talon appeared from somewhere to the left, like he had sensed Xavier moving before he even saw him. He fell into step quickly. Two other warriors started to follow.

“No,” Xavier said. “No one else. Just her.”

Everyone stopped.

Talon came closer, dropping his voice low. I was a few steps behind but I could still hear everything. “Are you alright? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” Xavier said. “I have some business to finish with Astrid. That is all.”

Talon said nothing for a moment. The whole yard had gone quiet in that subtle way things went quiet around Xavier, not silent exactly, just aware. I could feel every set of eyes in that courtyard landing on me and staying there. My face went warm. My hands felt useless at my sides.

People were going to talk. I knew exactly what it looked like, the Alpha walking out of the castle gates alone with a servant girl, a prisoner, someone who was supposed to be invisible. They were going to say things. I could already imagine the words being passed between servants tonight in the dark.

I wanted the ground to open and take me.

Then Talon looked at me.

He looked me up and down once, slowly, and then something moved at the corner of his mouth. It was so quick I almost missed it. A smile. A real one, small and gone almost immediately, but it was there.

I blinked. I must have smiled back without meaning to because his expression had already shifted back to neutral by the time I registered what had happened. He turned and walked away and I stood there wondering if I had imagined the whole thing.

Xavier walked through the gate.

I followed.

The outside air hit me differently than I expected. It was the same sky, the same sun, but something about being on the other side of those walls made my lungs feel like they had more room in them. I had forgotten what that felt like.

We walked for a long time. Longer than I expected. The castle grounds gave way to a dirt path and the path gave way to open land, and still Xavier kept walking without a word or a look back. I stayed close and kept quiet and focused on keeping my breathing even.

Then he stopped.

“Look around,” he said. He was looking ahead, not at me. “If any of what you need is here, find it. Take what you need and do not waste my time.”

I stared at the back of his head for a second.

“Thank you, Alpha,” I said quickly, before my brain could catch up with my mouth.

I turned.

The land around us was wide and green and wild in a way the inside of the castle never was. There were plants everywhere, different kinds, growing in clusters along the ground and creeping up the base of the trees that lined the far edge of the clearing. I moved toward them slowly at first and then faster as I started recognizing things.

This leaf. That root. The small pale flower that my mother always crushed last and added to the mixture with careful hands, telling me it was the one that held everything else together.

They were here. Not all of them, but enough. Enough for now.

I moved through the grass on my knees, pulling carefully, making sure I took enough without taking too much. My hands were shaking slightly, not from fear this time. Just from the relief of it. The specific, overwhelming relief of finding something you thought was gone.

I thought about my mother while I worked. I could not help it. The way she moved around our small home in the mornings, measuring things by eye, humming under her breath, never writing anything down because she had made this mixture so many times it lived in her hands. She would have known this plant by smell alone. She would have found it in the dark.

She was not here.

But her knowledge was still inside me, and right now that had to be enough.

When I had gathered everything I needed I stood up, brushing the dirt from my knees, and turned around.

Xavier was gone.

I spun in a full circle. The clearing was empty. The path behind me was empty. The trees at the edge were still and quiet and there was no sign of him anywhere, not his shadow, not the sound of his steps, nothing.