Cursed to the Alpha

Chapter 2: The Forbidden Touch

The wards broke like glass.

I didn’t feel the explosion. I felt him.

His arms were around me before I hit the ground, heat and storm and something ancient that made the curse in my chest settle. For three seconds, the world went quiet. No Kieran. No pack. No fire. Just the sound of his breathing, ragged, like he’d been drowning and finally surfaced.

“Ridah,” he said again. My name against his throat. It didn’t feel like a curse anymore. It felt like coming home.

I shoved back. Hard.

He let me go, but his silver eyes never left mine. Up close, he looked younger than I expected. Maybe thirty. Scars cut across his jaw, old and white. His hands were bare, no gloves, no weapons. Just calluses and blood under his nails.

“You’re hurt,” I said. Stupid thing to say. His shoulder was torn open, blood soaking his shirt.

He glanced down like he’d forgotten. “Wards taste like silver and pain. You get used to it.”

Footsteps crashed behind us. Kieran. The pack. The elders with their daggers.

Forsaken stepped in front of me without thinking. His back to me, his stance wide, like I was something to protect. Like I mattered.

“Stand down,” he told them. His voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. The air itself went still. “She’s mine.”

Kieran laughed, breathless and furious. He held up the silver dagger, the blade still wet with my blood from where it nicked my throat. “She renounced you! She chose the pack!”

“Liar,” I said. My voice shook, but it came out. “I didn’t choose anyone.”

The curse flared again. Not pain this time. Heat. Recognition.

Forsaken’s head snapped toward me. “Don’t say it unless you mean it.”

“Say what?”

“That you want me to claim you.” His eyes darkened. “Because if you do, the bond will snap into place. And there’s no undoing it. Not for either of us.”

I should have been terrified. I was. But under it, under the fear and the pain and the eighteen years of being told I belonged to someone I’d never met, there was relief.

Someone had been looking for me.

Someone had bled for me.

Kieran lunged.

I didn’t see the blade move. One second it was in his hand, the next Forsaken had caught his wrist, twisted, and slammed him into the nearest tree. The crack of bone echoed. Kieran howled.

“Leave,” Forsaken said, voice low. “Now. Before I forget she doesn’t want me to kill you.”

The pack hesitated. Then the elders stepped forward, silver daggers raised. “You can’t take her, Forsaken. The council—”

“The council can burn.”

He turned back to me. His hands hovered, not touching. “Ridah. Choose. Now. The wards are down. If you don’t bond with me, the council will kill you to break the curse. And I won’t let that happen.”

My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would break my ribs.

I thought of my mother’s eyes. Guilt and love and fear.

I thought of Kieran’s hand on my wrist. Ownership.

I thought of eighteen years of being a secret, a problem, a weapon.

Then I looked at Forsaken.

And I said, “Then don’t let them.”

His breath caught.

He reached for me.

His fingers brushed my cheek, and the world went white.

The bond snapped into place like a lock clicking shut.

The world didn’t stop spinning when the bond locked. It just got quieter.

For a second, it was just me and Forsaken in the middle of a clearing full of armed wolves. His forehead was still against mine, his hands cupping my face like I’d break if he let go.

Then reality crashed back.

“Forsaken!” Elder Mara’s voice cracked like a whip. “Step away from her. Now.”

He didn’t move. If anything, his grip tightened.

“Touch her and I’ll kill you,” he said. No heat, no anger. Just fact.

Mara’s jaw tightened. “You’re exiled. You have no rights here.”

“I have a mate. That’s more rights than any of you.”

The word _mate_ hit me like a punch. It wasn’t romantic. It was possessive. Final. Like my life wasn’t mine anymore.

I pulled back first. My legs were shaky, but I stood on my own.

“What happens now?” I asked him, keeping my voice low. Only he could hear me.

“Now we run,” he said. “Before they decide you’re safer dead.”

Before I could argue, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the trees. The pack shouted, but the wards were still down. No one could stop us.

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