Page 68 of The Cursed Wolf King

And then I saw her.

Me.

The world narrowed to the figure standing on the platform. It was unmistakably me—my hair, my trembling hands—but there was something different. The version of me in the vision looked older somehow, worn down by secrets and the weight of her choices. Her expression was a mask, her lips moving as though she were whispering something only she could hear.

I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. My eyes were drawn to hers, and then—she looked into the crowd.

Our gazes locked.

The fear in her eyes mirrored my own, and there was something else too. Knowledge. She knew me, knew what I was thinking, what I was feeling. I saw her black heart.

And recognized it as my own.

The connection shattered like glass, and I was flung back into the bungalow, gasping for air. My hands gripped the edges of the table, knuckles white as I tried to ground myself. My heart hammered in my chest, and my lungs burned as though I’d been running for miles.

My mind raced, trying to make sense of what I’d just seen, but the pieces refused to fit. Why had I seen myself? What was that blackness in her, or was it in me?

And why did it feel like the wretched answers were already written in my bones?

31

LOGAN

It had been a week since Eve arrived, and the hum of day-to-day life carried on, but there was an edge to it. Conversations in the village were quieter. The sound of blades being sharpened echoed more often. Wolves were running harder during training, as if preparing for something.

Maybe that was a good thing.

Eve’s presence hadn’t been the disaster Rhys feared, but it hadn’t been smooth, either. The pack wasn’t the same as it had been before she arrived. Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps this was what the Shadow Moon Goddess intended for us—to be reminded that we are hunters, survivors, a pack meant to rebuild and reclaim the glory we’d lost.

Not everyone saw it that way. Some wolves still bristled when she passed, the distrust woven into their posture and their silence. Others… others surprised me.

In the common kitchen, where Eve had been spending most of her time, she was starting tofind her footing. The pack mates there had only great things to say about her—the way she seemed to know how everyone was feeling, saying the right thing in the right moment. Isabelle had taken to her quickly, and even Blair made a point to stop by the kitchen more often than usual, claiming he needed extra snacks but always throwing Eve a quick nod of acknowledgment before leaving.

I’d caught sight of her through the window the other day, a rare laugh escaping her as one of the elder cooks showed her how to knead dough. The sound had been unexpected. It tugged at something deep in my chest, something my wolf wouldn’t stop pacing about.

Those were the good moments.

More than once, I’d sensed the tension in her when she thought no one was looking. A forced smile here, a spark of unease there. She was trying, but it was clear the weight of being here—the outsider, the Heraclid oracle in Orion lands—was something she carried heavily.

It hadn’t escaped me, either, that the pack bond was beginning to pull at her. She was feeling it, the connection that wove us together. I’d seen it in the way her head tilted slightly when someone nearby felt something strongly, as if she were sensing their thoughts. She hadn’t said anything about it, but I could see the way it both fascinated and unsettled her.

And then there was me.

Somehow, without permission or planning, she was finding her way into my days. I’d catch myself waiting for the sound of her voice in the kitchen, pausing when I caught her scent drifting through the village. Once, I spotted her crouched by the elders’ garden, plucking herbs whilenodding along to one of Raina’s endless stories, and it struck me—she was a stranger only in name.

Her laugh, her gestures, even the way she tucked her hair behind her ear as she listened—all of it felt woven into the fabric of my life before I even had the chance to resist.

Like a song I’d never heard but already know by heart.

Every time I crossed paths with her, my wolf surged, clawing at me to close the distance, to be closer, to touch her. To kiss her again like I did that day in the bungalow. It took everything I had to stay composed, to keep my thoughts locked down and focused.

Because whatever I felt, whatever this bond between us meant, it would come to nothing if we weren’t prepared for an inevitable confrontation with the Heraclids.

I caught Rhys’s scent before I saw him. His steps, usually light and meandering, carried an urgency that caught my attention. He fell into stride beside me.

“Isabelle found something,” he said, his tone low but taut with excitement.

Relief and apprehension warred in my chest. I’d been waiting for this—for a lead, for something to break the stillness that had settled over the pack like a storm cloud. I hadn’t realized how much I needed it until now. Despite watching my pack sharpen their skills and rally together, and as much as I’d been drawn to Eve and the small ways she was starting to fit into our world, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was coming. Something big.

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