Kael
I felt it the moment we entered the town.
It hit low—deep in the gut. Not pain. Not instinct. A pull.
Like someone had hooked a thread behind my ribs and started dragging me forward.
I said nothing, just sat in the back of the SUV with my arms crossed and jaw locked, pretending it was nothing. That I was imagining things.
But I wasn't.
The forest that bordered the town felt ancient—older than the buildings, older than the streets. It pulsed with something I couldn't name. Something watching. Waiting.
The Alpha summit was a formality. I came for appearances, to keep the other packs wary and the council quiet. But now, with that pull growing stronger by the hour, I wondered if fate had decided to move at last.
Then I caught it.
Faint. Nearly nothing. But unmistakable.
A scent on the wind—so diluted it could've been a dream. Earth and air. Wild herbs and skin warmed by sun.
It wasn't clear. She'd masked it well, whoever she was. Covered in layers of something bitter and sharp, like old witchcraft.
But my wolf surged so fast I had to clench my fists to keep from shifting right there in the street.
He knew.
She was here.
And not just near. Not just passing. Here.
"Sir?" one of my men asked, pausing beside me.
I didn't answer at first. My eyes were on the edge of the trees. That's where the wind came from. That's where the pull was strongest.
"She's here," I finally said, voice flat.
"Your…?"
I turned to him slowly. "My mate."
Shock flickered in his eyes, but he didn't speak. None of them did. The rest of the pack had stopped hoping years ago.
Because no one had mates anymore.
Not since the curse.
No one ever talked about it directly—not to outsiders—but in our pack, children had become a rarity. Some wolves mated without bonds. Others tried and failed to have pups, over and over again.
And me? The Alpha? I'd tried more than anyone. Strong partners. Rituals. Potions. Blood matches.
Not a single heir. Not even a flicker of life.
The curse didn't strike all at once. At first, the pack blamed the soil, the bloodline, the times. But year after year, hope dimmed. Loss piled on loss. Some families left. Others faded into silence. Our numbers thinned. Our hearts hardened.
And then came the prophecy:
When the Alpha takes his true mate and sires an heir, the curse will break. The bond will return. The pack will heal.
Until then, we rot.
But we weren't always rotting. My grandfather ruled in an age of blood and belief. He ended the witches—not for power, not for cruelty, but because he believed he was saving the world. There had been sicknesses then, too. Strange deaths. Children born with twisted bones or none at all. He believed the witches had cursed the land, poisoned it. And when they burned, the sickness faded. For a while.
The pack called him savior. Called him hero. No one knew that with their deaths, something darker had been planted—something that took root deep beneath our lands. It waited. It watched. And years later, it bloomed.The curse was the witches' revenge—not loud or immediate, but slow and relentless. It turned nature against us. Turned time against us. And it made sure the punishment would last for generations.
The price for what my ancestors did. For burning witches and thinking the ash would disappear with them.
It didn't.
And now, the bloodline is rotting from the inside out.
But she—whoever she is—could change that.
I took a slow breath, forcing myself to steady the rise in my chest. My wolf was pacing just beneath the surface, ears high, teeth bared in something close to hunger. It wasn't lust. It wasn't even longing. It was something older. Something colder. A need rooted in survival.
I'd spent years searching. Chasing rumors. Tracking dead ends across continents. I'd watched wolves lose themselves to the lack of it—mates that never came, bonds that never formed. Some went mad. Some turned rogue.
And me? I just got colder.
Until now.
I faced my men. "Sweep the forest. Discreetly. No damage, no chasing shadows. If anyone sees her before I do, you report. Immediately."
One of them shifted uncomfortably. "What if she's not ready to be found?"
I let the silence stretch.
"She won't have a choice."
I didn't say it to be cruel. But I wasn't going to pretend this was something we could afford to be gentle about. Time was running out. The signs were getting worse—more stillbirths, more sickness. More unrest in the pack.
Even the council had started whispering about replacement. About bloodlines. About failure.
They didn't say it to my face. But I heard them. I always did.
I didn't care who she was. Didn't care what she wanted.
The curse had lived long enough. And if fate had finally opened the door, I was walking through it.
Even if I had to tear down the forest to get to her.
I stepped toward the tree line, just enough to feel the wind against my face. The scent was gone now—muted again. Buried beneath layers of smoke and earth.
But that thread was still there. Still pulling.
And I knew one thing with absolute certainty:
She was hiding.
Which meant she knew what this was.
And she was afraid of it.
Good. That made two of us.
But fear wouldn't stop me. Not now. Not when I'd spent a lifetime watching the world fall apart around me.
If she was the key to fixing it—if she was the one fate had chosen—I was going to find her.
No matter how far she ran.
No matter what stood in my way.
Because I wasn't just chasing a bond.
I was chasing a future.