Chapter4
1013 Words
The barrier hums between me and the pack.
It’s thinner now—unstable, like glass stretched too tight—but it holds. Kael is shouting something I can’t hear, his face a blur of fury and fear beyond the pulsing veil of magic. My mate’s mouth moves, her hands clenched at her sides, eyes locked on me with a look that splits me open.
Only Malachai’s voice reaches me clearly.
“You always were quick,” he says, almost fond. “Stronger than your father. Kinder, too.”
I force myself upright. Every muscle protests, fire screaming through my veins as the thing inside my chest shifts, unfamiliar and intimate—like a stranger’s hand wrapped around my heart.
“Let them go,” I rasp. “This is between us.”
Malachai smiles faintly. Not cruel. Not triumphant.
“That’s the problem,” he replies. “You think anything is ever between just two people.”
He gestures lazily toward the pack.
The barrier pulses.
They’re thrown back again, bodies hitting dirt and stone hard enough that I hear the impact even through the roar in my ears. Rowan screams.
The sound guts me.
I take a step forward on instinct—and the thing inside me tightens. Not pain. Control. A firm, precise squeeze that stops me cold.
I freeze.
Malachai watches the realization settle over me. He doesn’t interrupt it. He lets it bloom.
“You feel it now,” he says quietly. “The difference between strength and restraint. Between power and leverage.”
“What did you do to me?” I ask.
He tilts his head, considering. “I corrected a flaw.”
A sharp, humorless laugh tears out of me. “You call this correction?”
“I call it necessity.” His gaze flicks, briefly, to Rowan. “Look at him.”
I don’t want to.
I do anyway.
My son is pressed tight against his mother’s side, her arms locked around him like she can shield him from anything if she holds on hard enough. His eyes are too old right now—too aware. He’s watching me the way wolves watch storms, measuring distance, gauging danger.
Love surges through me, fierce and reckless.
The coil tightens.
I gasp.
Malachai nods, satisfied. “There,” he murmurs. “That. That’s the weakness.”
I bare my teeth. “You think love is weakness?”
“I think it’s volatility,” he says. “Unpredictable. Ruinous in the wrong hands.”
“Then you don’t understand leadership.”
“Oh, I do.” He steps closer, voice lowering. “I’ve watched Alphas tear their packs apart for mates. For children. For pride dressed up as devotion. You lead with your heart, and the world learns exactly where to cut you.”
My jaw tightens. “So you decided to become the knife.”
“No.” His eyes sharpen. “I decided to remove the illusion that you were ever safe without one.”
He circles me slowly, boots whispering over stone slick with fading red light. Every instinct screams danger, even as my body refuses to move without permission.
“You see destruction,” Malachai continues. “But I see potential. Order. A lineage of Alphas who will never again mistake sentiment for mercy.”
“You’re enslaving us,” I spit.
He doesn’t deny it.
“I’m refining you.”
The words settle heavy and cold. I test the coil carefully, experimentally. I think of Rowan’s laugh. My mate’s steady presence at my back. The pack’s trust—given freely, without fear.
The thing inside me stirs.
Responds.
Malachai’s lips curve. “There it is. Proof.”
“You won’t control me,” I say.
“No,” he agrees. “Not like this.”
He stops directly in front of me, close enough that I can smell the ash on his skin, the iron beneath it.
“But one day?” he continues softly. “When the fear of losing them outweighs your pride? When the choice is obedience or watching them suffer?” He shrugs. “You’ll kneel. Or your son will. Or his son after him.”
The thought makes my stomach turn.
“This curse,” I say slowly. “It isn’t meant to kill.”
“Kill you?” He shakes his head. “That would be wasteful. No. It’s meant to wait.”
The word lands like a verdict.
“It will grow,” Malachai continues. “Respond to emotion. To attachment. The more you love, the tighter it holds. The more you fear, the easier you are to guide.”
The coil tightens in agreement.
I hate him for noticing.
“You’ll spend your life balancing on that edge,” he says. “Strong enough to lead. Controlled enough not to destroy what you love. And when you fail—because everyone does—the curse will be ready.”
“Why?” I demand. “Why us?”
His expression softens, just a fraction. “Because someone needs to be strong enough to be afraid.”
The barrier flickers again—thinner now. Kael is closer. My mate meets my gaze across the trembling magic, something fierce and unspoken passing between us.
I straighten, ignoring the weight pressing down on my spine.
“You think you’ve won,” I say.
Malachai smiles. “I think I’ve begun.”
The moonlight shifts, red bleeding slowly back toward silver as the ritual energy settles into something dormant but watchful. The altar goes quiet. The barrier finally shatters with a sharp c***k.
The pack surges forward.
Hands grab me. Voices shout my name. My mate’s arms wrap around me, Rowan crushed between us, shaking.
I hold them as tightly as I can.
Inside my chest, something coils tighter.
And for the first time in my life, I understand that survival won’t be about strength—
—but about how much of myself I’m willing to lock away to protect the people I love.
And the curse is listening.
- Writer
