Chapter 3
1273 Words
THE FOREST THAT BREATHED HIS NAME
Branches whipped past Amina as she ran deeper into the forest, each breath stabbing her lungs like tiny knives. The cold air pulled at her cloak, snatching it sideways, threatening to tear it off entirely. But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop.
Not when the night felt alive.
Not when the trees leaned in as if listening.
Not when her heart beat so hard it felt like it might burst out of her chest.
Something moved behind her, silent, enormous, too fast to be human.
Her foot caught a root buried beneath wet leaves. She stumbled, catching herself on the rough trunk of a pine tree. Bark scraped her palm. Shallow gasps broke out of her as she pressed her forehead against the cool wood.
“You’re almost there,” she whispered to herself. “Just keep moving.”
But where?
She was unfamiliar with this part of the forest. She barely knew the trails near the manor. The Evernight Woods were old, older than any pack stories, older than the lands their ancestors claimed. Wolves avoided this place after dark.
Not because of predators.
Because of whispers.
Amina pushed herself upright. Her legs trembled under her, but she kept running, forcing her body onward even as the fear burned hot through her veins.
Behind her, a low rumble rolled through the trees.
Not thunder.
Not wind.
A growl.
Deep.Powerful.
Too focused to be accidental.
Her pace faltered.
No. No, no, no.
He wouldn’t have followed her himself. Kings didn’t chase runaways. Kings stayed on their thrones and sent warriors after those too weak to obey.
But the stories said the Cursed Alpha King wasn’t like other alphas.
Amina’s heart gave a painful twist.
She sprinted again, this time forcing all the strength she had left into her legs. The forest opened into a narrow ravine. Roots crawled along the ground like veins, and the moonlight barely reached through the canopy.
Her chest tightened.
The trees were too quiet.
Even the wind had stopped moving.
A soft crunch sounded behind her.
A footstep.
A deliberate one.
She spun around so fast she lost balance for a moment, bracing herself against a crooked trunk. Her breath hitched.
No one was there.
Just shadows.
Just silence.
Just the forest holding its breath.
Her pulse thundered in her ears. “I’m imagining things,” she whispered.
But she wasn’t. She knew she wasn’t.
She felt it.
A presence.
A weight.
A pull that squeezed her lungs and made her heartbeat stumble.
Something ancient inside her responded to it, a tug low in her chest, warm and heavy, like a chain she couldn’t see but could feel wrapping around her ribs.
The mate bond.
Half-awakened.
Unwanted.
Unclaimed.
“Stop it,” Amina whispered fiercely. “I won’t be dragged into this.”
She backed away from the shadows, moving slowly this time, her breath plume-like in the cold air. Each step felt heavier. Each inhale felt thinner.
Then
A twig snapped to her right.
She jolted, stumbling backward. Her heel slipped into a patch of mud, and she dropped to one knee with a soft cry. Her palm hit the earth, fingers sinking into cold leaves.
“Amina.”
Her name didn’t echo.
It slid through the trees like smoke.
A male voice.
Low.
Rough.
Too close.
Amina’s blood froze.
She spun toward the slope of the ridge, and that was when she saw them.
Two golden eyes were watching her from the shadows.
They glowed like molten metal, unblinking, fixed entirely on her. Not the way an animal watches prey. Not the way a curious wolf watched movement.
This gaze recognized her.
Amina scrambled backward, her hands shaking. “No, no, please.”
The eyes moved.
A massive black wolf stepped forward into a patch of moonlight, fur rippling with power. Bigger than any wolf she’d ever seen. Muscles like stone beneath dark fur. Golden rings burned around his irises like a curse made visible.
The cursed king.
Her breath collapsed.
His wolf was terrifying and beautiful all at once, like a night storm shaped into flesh. The air around him shimmered faintly with energy, the kind that prickled against her skin like static.
He took another step toward her.
Amina crawled backward on her hands, panic clawing its way up her throat. “Stay back, please.”
He stiffened at her voice.
His wolf’s head lowered, but not in attack. Something flashed across his eyes: confusion, pain, something she couldn’t name.
Then he shifted.
Not violently.
Not grotesquely.
His form rippled, fur dissolving into smoke that wrapped around him before revealing a man tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in black trousers and nothing else. Moonlight caught the scars that crossed his chest, pale lines like claw marks etched by fate itself. His hair fell in dark strands across his forehead, and his eyes, those gold-rimmed eyes, never left her.
Kael Draven.
The Cursed Alpha King.
He stood still, breathing hard, as if holding back a storm.
Amina pushed herself to her feet, but her legs trembled beneath her. Her palms were scratched, her cloak torn, and her heart felt like it was trying to escape its own cage.
Kael finally spoke.
“You ran from me.”
His voice was low, deep, and dangerous in the way a fire is dangerous, warm enough to draw you close, hot enough to burn you alive.
Amina swallowed hard. “I’m not your mate.”
His jaw tightened. “Fate disagrees.”
“I don’t care what fate says!” she burst out. “I don’t want this. I don’t want you.”
The bond pulsed sharply, almost painfully, at her words.
Kael’s eyes narrowed. His chest rose and fell with slow, controlled breaths.
“You look at me,” Kael murmured, voice low as dusk wind, “and all you see is the monster they warned you about.”
Amina held her ground, though her pulse scattered like frightened birds.
“I see enough,” she said. “Your curse isn’t a rumor. Your name travels ahead of you like a storm. Wolves bow to it.”
His jaw tightened. “And you’ve stitched their fear into your truth.”
“I’ve lived near enough danger to know better than to chain my life to it.”
Her breath hitched, the rest of the sentence dying on her tongue.
A shadow moved behind Kael’s eyes, something raw, almost wounded.
“Amina,” he said, softer than the night around them, “if harm was my intent, the trees wouldn’t be standing between us.”
Her spine tensed.
He stepped once; she stepped twice back, leaves whispering under her heels.
“I won’t bind you,” Kael continued, though the restraint in his voice felt like it dug into him. “But the tether between us… It’s real. You feel it the way I do.”
Heat curled in her chest, unwanted, undeniable.
She hated the truth of it.
“I want my life to be mine,” she whispered. “Not shaped by prophecy, not pulled by fate.”
Kael studied her, the girl who feared him, the girl he couldn’t release without tearing something inside himself.
Something in his gaze shifted, almost imperceptible, but it softened the darkness around him.
“You’ll have your freedom,” he said at last. “Tonight.”
His next breath was unsteady, the kind a man releases when surrender tastes like blood.
“But you won’t walk into that night alone.”
Amina’s heart jolted, the promise or threat coiling around her like a second pulse.
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