Page 31 of The Cursed Wolf King

Anger rose in my chest, my fists clenching as I tried to hold it back. “They can’t do that. You’re not?—”

“Not property?” Her laugh was hollow. “That’s exactly what I am to them. Musca was nearly wiped out in the last Shadow Moon skirmish, and their alpha isn’t exactly careful with his spending. He thinks he’s found his goldmine in me.”

For all my years feeling trapped by Grayson and Damian, I knew there were others facing similar suffering. And here was Dahlia, standing before me, bearing that truth like a weight she’d grown used to.

She took a step back, her eyes tinged with a sadness I recognized. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this,” she murmured. “But I wanted you to know. In case… well, in case you can stay free.”

“I’ll find you again,” I promised, without knowing how that could even be possible. “One day. I’ll find you.”

“I hope so, Evensong,” she said.

She lifted her hand, letting a faint surge of warmth pulse between us. It was a connection unlike any I’d felt before—strong, sure, and grounding. Dahlia was sending me a signal, a link that reached somewhere deep in me, like a beacon I hadn’t known I carried.

She pulled her hand back, the bond still humming faintly in my chest. “That’s a pack bond,” she explained. “It’ll guide you, remind you where you come from. We Crux are empaths—if you can harness it, it can be your anchor, your tether. You’re never as alone as you think.”

Without another word, she stepped forward, her warmbreath grazing my forehead before she placed a soft kiss there, like a blessing.

“Goodbye, Evensong.”

Dahlia sniffed the air, then shifted, her small wolf form nimble and swift. She shot me one last look, a farewell as bittersweet as any I’d ever seen.

Her form melted into the shadows as if she were part of the night itself. And before I could utter another word, she was gone, leaving only the faintest trace of her scent lingering in the air.

I have a pack.

Not the Heraclids, who’d taken me in only to use me. Not even the far-away idea of the wolf of my visions, who’d briefly made me dream of freedom. But a true pack, my own, woven together by a bond I had just experienced.

Crux. Lost and scattered, yes, but still bound to each other, the way she’d shown me. Dahlia’s bond, the warmth of it, felt as tangible as my own bones, and I’d found a connectedness I hadn’t felt since my mother left.

My mother’s words took on new meaning now, her promises that I would never truly be alone.

And my mother had been alpha. That explained so much and nothing at all, leaving answers half-formed and questions—so many questions—swirling in my mind.

A memory surfaced, unbidden, hazy like the edge of a dream. I was very young, no more than three or four, blinking awake to find my mother standing outside our small house, surrounded by wolves in a perfect ring. She was in human form, arms lifted toward the sky, speaking words I couldn’t hear as the wolves stood, still as statues, the air thick with something I didn’t yet understand. Hereyes gleamed with an intensity I’d never seen, her focus trained somewhere far beyond us, as though she were calling out to something just out of reach.

I was pulled back into my body, back into this back alley in Seattle, where a smell hit me. Stale and earthy. I spun around, and there was the old woman from the café, her face shadowed and carved with lines that shifted in the dim light.

She looked me over, a little too amused, as if she’d been waiting for this. “Well, well,” she murmured, more to herself than to me, “the little Crux wolf with secrets of her own.”

I stiffened, instinct telling me to run, but I was pinned in place by that unsettling blend of wisdom and cunning, too much like a predator sizing up a meal.

She knew Crux.

“What do you want?” I asked, willing my voice to stay steady.

The old woman laughed, a raspy sound that made my skin crawl. “What I want is of no concern to you, little dove. It’s whatyouowe the world that matters. Or should I say… what you owe Orion. Especially after what their alpha did for you just now.”

She rolled heavy golden rings around her fingers.

“With all the time you’ve spent in Heraclid pack, I’d guess their single-minded alpha has informed you of his little tiff with the Orions. A tiff that goes back generations, from riches to poverty to power again, hmmm? You’ve been playing both sides of the coin.” She tsked with her tongue.

Grayson had tried to compel me to have a vision about the death of Orion, but I’d never uttered a curse. Even if Ihad, it wouldn’t have had any power. The visions came and then we did with them what we wanted.

And my visions had shown me a pack—small, struggling, thinning by the year. Shadows that stretched out over a clearing, a line of wolves fading into the fog. But there’d always been one who stood out, strong and unyielding. A lone figure, hunting through the fog, watching over those wolves with relentless, almost painful dedication.

Logan.

That pull I’d felt toward him from the moment I’d seen him in that place between dream and reality.

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