The Cursed Alpha

Chapter3

I wake up screaming.

The sound rips out of me before I know I’m awake, tearing my throat raw, dragging air from somewhere deep and broken inside my chest. My body jerks violently, muscles locking, then thrashing, as if I’m trying to claw my way out of myself.

“Rowan—Rowan, it’s okay.”

Hands grip my shoulders. Gentle. Firm. Familiar.

I gasp, sucking in air like I’ve been underwater too long. The world snaps into focus in pieces—wooden beams above me, firelight flickering against the walls, the sharp scent of herbs and smoke.

My mother.

She’s right there, kneeling beside the bed, her hands bracketing my face, her eyes wide and shining. She looks like she hasn’t slept. Like she’s been holding her breath since the night swallowed my father whole.

“It’s here,” I choke, fingers digging into her sleeves. “It’s inside me.”

She pulls me against her chest so hard it almost hurts. Her heart is pounding—fast, uneven, like it’s trying to keep up with mine.

“I know,” she whispers, rocking us both. “I know.”

The pressure in my chest pulses in response to her voice. Not pain. Not exactly. More like something shifting, settling deeper, curling into a tighter knot.

Listening.

I shudder.

Kael appears at the edge of my vision, standing rigid near the doorway, arms crossed like he’s holding himself together by force alone. His eyes are red. His jaw is clenched so tight it looks like it hurts.

“She’s been up all night,” he says quietly. “You weren’t alone.”

My mother doesn’t let go.

I cling to her, fingers twisting into the fabric of her tunic, afraid that if I loosen my grip even a little, I’ll fall back into that place where red light burns and the altar screams and my father’s hand goes cold in mine.

The memory slams into me without warning.

The clearing.

The moon.

My father’s voice breaking as he tells me I’m stronger than fear.

My chest tightens violently.

I cry out again, a shorter sound this time, strangled and sharp. The thing inside me flares in response, heat blooming under my ribs, spreading outward in uneven waves.

“Breathe,” my mother says urgently, pressing my hands flat against her chest. “With me. In. Out. Rowan, look at me.”

I try.

Every breath feels like dragging air past something sharp. The pressure eases when I manage it, tightens when panic surges again. It’s… reacting.

Learning.

The realization hits hard enough to steal my breath.

“It listens,” I whisper.

Kael stiffens. “Listens to what?”

“To him,” I say, voice trembling. “To me.”

The words hang in the air, heavy and wrong.

Lysenne steps forward from the shadows near the hearth. I hadn’t noticed her there, but now that she moves, I feel the shift—like the room has gone quiet in anticipation.

She kneels beside the bed, her expression unreadable, eyes unfocused in that way that always makes my skin prickle.

“May I?” she asks softly.

My mother hesitates, then nods once.

Lysenne’s fingers brush my wrist.

Pain detonates.

I scream, arching off the bed as the thing inside me surges violently, reacting to the contact like it’s been struck. Heat floods my chest, sharp and invasive, and for a terrifying second I think I’m splitting apart.

“Stop—!” my mother cries.

Lysenne doesn’t flinch. Her grip tightens, two fingers pressing into my pulse point, her other hand hovering just above my chest without touching.

“It’s settling,” she says calmly, though there’s tension under her voice now. “Not feeding. Not yet.”

“Yet?” Kael snaps.

Lysenne exhales slowly. “The curse is incomplete.”

The word echoes through me.

Incomplete.

The pressure shifts again, like it heard her and didn’t like it. The heat deepens, spreading into my limbs, my throat, my head. My vision fractures, the room breaking into shards of light and shadow.

“I can’t—” I gasp. “Make it stop.”

My mother grabs my hands again, pressing them firmly against her chest. “Rowan. Look at me. Stay with me.”

I cling to her voice, to the sound of her breathing, to the rhythm of her heartbeat beneath my palms.

Slowly—so slowly—it eases.

The thing inside me coils inward, compacting, pulling itself tighter, like something curling up to sleep. The pain recedes into a dull ache, replaced by exhaustion so heavy it makes my bones feel hollow.

Lysenne withdraws her hand.

“It’s anchored,” she says quietly. “But dormant. Waiting.”

“For what?” my mother demands.

Lysenne’s gaze slides to me.

“For growth.”

The room goes very still.

I don’t understand everything she means—but I understand enough. I feel it in the way the pressure lingers, alert and patient, like it’s watching me from inside my own skin.

I turn my face into my mother’s shoulder, suddenly so tired it hurts.

“Is it going to make me like him?” I whisper.

No one answers right away.

My mother’s arms tighten around me. “No,” she says fiercely. “You are not him.”

“But it came from him,” I say. “From what he did.”

Kael looks away.

Lysenne speaks carefully. “What it becomes will depend on him.”

On me.

The thought settles heavy and cold in my chest.

Later—much later—I lie awake while the fire burns low and the night presses in around the den. My mother sleeps beside me, one arm draped protectively over my body, as if she’s afraid I might vanish if she lets go.

I stare at the ceiling, listening to the quiet.

The curse stirs faintly, a low, unfamiliar presence coiled beneath my ribs. Not hurting. Not yet.

Waiting.

I think of my father’s voice. His smile. The way he looked at me like I was something worth breaking for.

My throat tightens.

“I didn’t kneel,” I whisper into the dark, repeating his words like a promise.

The thing inside me responds—not tightening, not flaring—but shifting, as if it’s listening closely.

And for the first time since the Blood Moon rose, I realize something that makes my chest ache with a new, terrifying clarity:

It didn’t choose me by accident.

It chose me because one day, I’ll have to decide what to do with it.

And when that day comes, the choice won’t belong to my father—

It will belong to me.