The Alpha’s Cursed Omega

Chapter 2

Cael

He had expected a witch.

Cael had been hunting the source of the ward for three years, across territories and borders and one deeply unpleasant excursion into the southern marshes that he chose not to think about. The ward was old magic - old enough to predate the Sovereignty's founding, old enough to have killed four of his best scouts before they realised what it was. A ward that activated on contact with a claiming bond was not common. A ward that killed the claimant was not legal. Whatever was generating it was powerful, deliberate, and had been moving in a careful, untrackable pattern across the central territories for at least four years.

He had expected something ancient and intentional. A crone with a grudge. A rogue mage working for one of the rival packs. Something that made sense.

He had not expected a young woman in dusty travelling clothes arguing with his commander about a horse.

He had especially not expected the mate bond.

Cael turned his horse away before anyone could look at his face. The bond had hit him the way they always said it did - he had dismissed the descriptions as poetic exaggeration for eleven years - like something in him had been waiting without his knowledge and had simply stopped waiting. His wolf, which he kept so quiet and controlled it might as well have been theoretical, had recognised her before his mind did and had taken approximately one second to form a very clear and inconvenient opinion about the situation.

He rode ahead to the forward camp and dismounted and stood in the dark for a moment with one hand on his horse's neck, breathing with the specific deliberateness of a man who had trained himself to feel nothing on command. It was a skill he'd developed at sixteen, after Mira. He had gotten very good at it. His generals sometimes remarked, with varying degrees of concern, that he had never lost his temper in a war council. He had never explained that this was not because he was calm. It was because he had learned to put his feelings behind a door and leave them there.

The door had taken a significant impact just now.

He turned when Idris rode up.

"She's the source," his general said. No preamble. Idris had been with him for eleven years and had long since abandoned the conventions of rank in private. "The ward is on her. Not cast - it's woven into her, born magic. Deep old bloodline work."

"I know," Cael said.

A pause. Idris was watching him with the particular careful expression he wore when he was thinking something he had not yet decided to say.

"She's also-”

"I know," Cael said again.

Another pause, longer.

"Shall I-”

"No. We take her to the Sovereignty for questioning. The ward has to be examined by the archive scholars before we can determine if it can be deactivated." He walked to his tent without looking back. "Treat her as a guest. She's not a prisoner."

He could feel Idris' silence behind him, heavy with the specific weight of things his general had chosen, wisely, not to say.

Good. Cael had enough of his own things not to say. He didn't need Idris's as well.

She was brought to him an hour later.

He had used the hour productively - reviewing the council's latest correspondence, drafting two trade agreements, and spending a completely unreasonable amount of time staring at a spot on the tent wall and not thinking about the mate bond.

She walked in and looked around his tent with the calm interest of someone taking inventory. Her eyes moved over the maps, the correspondence, the war table, and landed briefly on his face before sliding away. She had steady hands, he noticed. She was not afraid of him.

Most people, he had found, were afraid of him. He had spent considerable effort cultivating this. It was efficient.

"Sit down," he said.

"I'd rather stand, thank you."

He looked at her.

"I've been on horseback for six hours," she said, meeting his gaze with the particular easy honesty of someone who had decided that politeness required too much energy. "Standing feels good right now. No offence."

Cael set down his correspondence. "What's your name?"

"Seraphine Voss." No hesitation. "You're the Alpha King. Cael Dawnveil." She paused. "You're younger than the paintings."

"The painters have an investment in gravitas."

Something moved in her face. Almost a smile. Then it was gone.

"You've been hunting me," she said.

"I've been hunting the ward."

"Same thing, as it turns out."

He studied her. She was doing the same to him, with the frank and slightly unsettling assessment of someone accustomed to rapid diagnosis. Healer's eyes, he thought. Looking for what hurt. He was aware of her the way he was aware of very few things - not strategically but physically, the bond running low and constant like a current he was standing beside and choosing not to touch.

"Tell me about the ward," he said.

Something shifted in her expression - not fear exactly, but the specific wariness of someone approaching territory they had long learned to navigate carefully.

"I don't know anything about it," she said. "I didn't put it there. I didn't ask for it. And I would very much appreciate it if you'd believe me."

"Why would I believe you?"

"Because if I'd wanted to kill your soldiers," she said, quietly, "I'd have done it directly. I'm a healer. I know exactly how bodies fail. Killing from a distance through a ward I can't even feel or control is not my style."

The last two words landed with a precision that told him she had chosen them carefully.

He believed her. This annoyed him.

"You'll come to the Sovereignty," he said. "The archive scholars can examine the ward. Once we understand it, we can determine what to do about it."

"And if I say no?"

He held her gaze. 'The ward has killed four of my people. You're coming.'

Seraphine looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded once - not submission, just economy. The nod of someone filing the situation away for later resolution.

"Fine," she said. "I want the horse stabled properly. He has a fever and he needs willow bark in his water and someone who knows how to wrap a leg. I'll show your stable master personally if his skills are substandard."

Cael stared at her.

She stared back.

"The horse," he said, "will be given every comfort available."

"Good." She turned to go, and then, over her shoulder: "For the record, I think your ward situation is more complicated than you think it is. I have a feeling the answers are in my family history and not, as your scholars will probably assume, in illegal dark magic. I'm telling you this now so you can save everyone some time."

She left.

Cael sat in the silence she'd left behind and did something he had not done in a very long time. He reached into his desk drawer and closed his fingers around a small carved wooden wolf, worn smooth from years of handling.

His sister had made it badly. It had lumpy ears and no tail to speak of.

He held it and did not think about the mate bond.

He was very good at not thinking about things.