Wolf's Bride

PROLOGUE 2

LYLA

Several days had passed since I had become Ronan's wife—his rejected mate. The words still didn’t feel real in my mind, no matter how many times I repeated them. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted them to.

The house—the fortress, really—felt like a cage. Dark stone walls, cold and unyielding, closed in around me from every side, and the silence in my chambers was suffocating. I could hear faint noises—whispers of the night air and the occasional howl of a wolf—but other than that, there was nothing. Ronan and I hadn't spoken since that unfortunate night where everything changed for the worse and the world I knew continued to slip far far away from me.

We were married, yes. But we were not mates.

The soulbond curse as I was told, however, had other ideas.

The night Ronan rejected me, I had felt something snap inside of me, a tether that had unravelled only to be bound again, but tighter—far tighter than before. It wasn’t the bond of love or trust that I had once dreamed of in a mate. No, this was something darker, something that had wrapped itself around my heart, squeezing the life out of me whenever I tried to fight it.

At first, it was small things—shivers of pain that would strike at random, echoes of each other’s emotions flitting across our minds. Sometimes, I would feel anger bubbling up inside me, only to realise it wasn’t my own, but Ronan’s. Other times, I’d catch glimpses of his thoughts, faint impressions of frustration or fear. I didn’t understand it at first but I got to know some of the effects of the curse. But none of it compared to what started happening later at night.

The nightmares.

The nightmare was creeping in again tonight, I could feel it. My breath caught in my throat as I lay in bed, my pulse quickening. I didn’t want to close my eyes, but exhaustion weighed heavily on me. No matter how hard I tried to resist, sleep pulled me under, dragging me into the abyss.

The darkness was immediate. Suffocating. I stood in a barren landscape, the ground beneath me cracked and blackened, as if scorched by fire. The air was thick with ash, choking me with every breath. I turned in circles, searching for something, anything that made sense. But there was nothing. Only the endless expanse of destruction.

And then, I saw him.

A monstrous figure, larger than any wolf I had ever seen, its fur as black as night, its eyes glowing with an unnatural light. It stood on a distant hill, overlooking the ruin, its gaze fixed on something far beyond my reach. A shiver ran down my spine as I realised it was looking directly at me.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. I was frozen in place, trapped in the nightmare.

The earth beneath my feet began to tremble, cracks spreading outward like veins of poison. Flames erupted from the ground, licking at my heels, but I couldn’t run. All I could do was watch as the destruction unfolded before me.

In the distance, I saw villages burning, their people—our people—falling to the ground, their bodies twisted in agony. I could hear their cries, their screams for help, but I was powerless to stop it.

A voice whispered in the back of my mind. This is the future.

My heart raced. “No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “This can’t be real. This isn’t happening.”

“It is, the voice hissed, growing louder, more insistent. This is what awaits the werewolf race. The Shadow Wolf will rise, and there will be nothing left.”

A figure appeared beside the Shadow Wolf on the hill. I strained my eyes to see, but the smoke and ash blurred my vision. The figure was tall, cloaked in shadows, its features obscured. But I knew, deep in my bones, who it was.

Ronan.

He stood there, side by side with the creature, as if they were one and the same. A chill ran through me, colder than any I had felt before. I wanted to call out to him, to demand answers, but my voice wouldn’t come.

Instead, I watched as Ronan raised his hand, a command for the Shadow Wolf to move. And with a single step, the creature leaped forward, tearing through the land, leaving nothing but death in its wake.

RONAN

I woke up drenched in sweat, the nightmare still clinging to my mind like a second skin. My heart pounded in my chest, the image of the wolf and the destruction it caused seared into my brain. But what unsettled me most wasn’t the nightmare itself.

It was the fact that I had seen Lyla there, too.

She had been standing at the edge of the chaos, just like me, watching as the world crumbled around us. Our eyes had met across the expanse of burning land, and in that moment, I had felt something shift. A sense of recognition, of shared fear, coursed through me.

It wasn’t just my nightmare. It was hers, too.

The soulbond curse was deepening. Twisting. It had started with small things—flashes of emotions, stray thoughts—but this? Shared dreams? Shared nightmares?

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to shake off the lingering dread, but it clung to me like a shadow. My instincts screamed that this was more than just a cursed connection between us. This was a warning. A glimpse into a future that I wasn’t prepared to face.

But who was the big wolf? And why had I seen myself standing beside it, as if I were responsible for the destruction?

I couldn’t stay in bed any longer. I threw off the covers and rose to my feet, my body still trembling from the effects of the dream. I needed answers, and I knew Lyla had seen it, too. I could feel it. The bond was pulling me toward her, demanding we confront this nightmare together.

I was halfway to the door when I heard the soft patter of footsteps outside. My hand froze on the handle, and I listened. The footsteps were hesitant, as if someone else was moving through the darkness, just as uncertain as I was.

Lyla.

Without thinking, I yanked the door open and stepped into the hallway, only to nearly collide with her. She stood there, her face pale and drawn, her eyes wide with the same horror that I felt coursing through my veins.

We locked eyes, and in that moment, I knew. She had seen everything I had. The destruction, the rise of the Wolf, the end of our world.

“Lyla,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. My eyes filled with questions my mouth failed to ask.

“I don’t understand,” she finally whispered, her voice shaky. “What… What was that? What’s happening to us?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. But this is the curse. It’s getting worse.”

Her lips parted, but she said nothing, as if she was struggling to find the right words. The bond between us hummed, pulsing with the same shared fear. I could feel her heart racing, just as mine was.

“We need to figure this out,” she said after a moment, her voice stronger than before. “Before it’s too late.”

I nodded, the weight of the nightmare pressing down on me.

Lyla glanced around, as if expecting the shadows to come alive, then back at me. “Do you think… Do you think it’s real? What's coming?”

I swallowed hard, the answer heavy on my tongue. “I don’t know. But we can’t ignore it.”

She took a step closer, her eyes burning with determination despite the fear. “Then we fight it. Whatever this is, whatever’s coming, we stop it. I know we can’t stand each other but we can not ignore whatever this dream means like you said for the sake of your people and mine.”

I stared at her, surprised by the fierceness in her voice. For a moment, the weight of everything seemed lighter. There was no affection between us, no warmth. But there was something else—an unspoken agreement, a mutual understanding that whatever this nightmare meant, we were in it together.

“Agreed,” I said quietly.

But even as the words left my lips, the shadows seemed to thicken around us, and a chill ran down my spine. The nightmare had felt too real, too vivid to be dismissed.

The Shadow Wolf was coming. And somehow, we were tied to its rise.

But there was one thing I knew for certain.

The curse wasn’t done with us yet.