Page 72 of The Cursed Wolf King

Her words sent a chill down my spine. Logan’s head snapped to me, but I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t bear to see any doubt in his face.

“I tried to help you see the light,” Mariyah continued, addressing Logan. “To guide you toward salvation. But the Heraclids… well, they’re not patient folk. My hand is being forced, and now…” She sighed dramatically. “All your forefathers built, all the alphas of Orion fought for, will be snuffed out like a candle.”

Logan stepped forward, towering and commanding. “If you think I’m going to let you or the Heraclids take what’s mine?—”

“Yours?” Her laugh was high-pitched and brittle. “Oh, Alpha, possession doesn’t equate to righteousness.”

Back and forth they continued. I couldn’t focus on their words anymore. My wolf was scraping at the walls of her cage, desperate to get out.

Something was stirring, something that began to explain parts of my past. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more.

“The truth is awakening in you, little dove. I see it on your face.” There was a glint in her eyes that showed howpleased she was to see my suffering. “What I’m about to say will come as no surprise.”

Don’t. Don’t.I prayed that anything but what I felt would fall from her lips.

“You are a curse, Eve.You.”

I couldn’t look away, even though I wanted to. She held me captive, like she was peeling away layers I’d spent years building to keep myself safe.

Logan growled, a low rumble beside me, his wolf barely held back. I knew he was in a protective stance even without looking at him, the heat radiating off his body like a shield.

“I’m not.” I took a deep breath and stood straighter. “I’m not.”

The old woman clicked her tongue, shaking her head as if disappointed. “Still lying to yourself. You always were good at that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do,” she countered, cruel satisfaction in her eyes. She stepped closer, oppressive, filling the space. “Every vision you’ve ever given, every single one, carried that curse with it.Every. One.”

My head spun, memories rising up of visions that foretold of everything from illness to investments to wars.

“Think about it,” she said. “Why do you think your visions bring nothing but pain and ruin? Can’t you see why the Heraclids were so desperate to keep you locked away, spitting out prophecies like a broken puppet?”

My stomach churned as the past clawed its way to the surface—visions I’d buried because they hurt too much to remember. Packs torn apart by their own claws. Alpha bonds splintered. Wolves consumed by grief or rage, andalways, always the same hollow truth: my visions didn’t save anyone. They destroyed them. Every time.

Was it true? The question pulsed through me, a wound ripped open. I had always thought the darkness in my visions was a reading of fate.

But now…

Had I foretold their ruin… or caused it?

“You see, every time you opened your mouth to speak, every time you told those Heraclid monsters what you saw, a curse followed. It seeped into every word, every image. You didn’t just predict destruction, child—you brought it.”

My knees threatened to give out beneath me. I felt Logan’s hand on my arm, steadying me. I still couldn’t look at him.

“You said it yourself, didn’t you?” Mariyah continued, and if I hadn’t known better, I’d have said there was pity in her tone. “You saw him in your visions. You thought it meant he’d save you. That he was your knight in shining armor, come to rescue the poor little oracle.”

I swallowed hard, my throat dry. The image of Logan, fierce and unyielding in my visions, burned in my mind.

“Even then,” her words seeped like poison, “you cursed him. Before you ever met him, before you even knew his name, you were already his undoing.”

Logan growled. His voice cut through the suffocating weight of her words. “We have no reason to believe you with the havoc you’ve caused,” he snarled, his wolf flashing in his eyes.

“She’s a danger to everyone around her,” Mariyah snapped. “Even you, Alpha Logan. Or haven’t you noticed? Your pack, your people—the division that has settled inwhat used to be the most unified pack under the Shadow Moon. She’s not the first and she won’t be the last oracle wolf to cause such trouble for your pack.”

“Just because the Heraclids manipulated her doesn’t mean she’s responsible,” Logan said, like he believed it. “It’s not because of this supposed curse you won’t stop throwing in our faces.”

“Oh, it’s a curse, alright,” the woman said, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. “One she was born with. And if her mother hadn’t abandoned her to the Heraclids, she’d have cursed the entire Crux pack into extinction by now.”

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