Page 48 of The Cursed Wolf King

Her lips parted and she spoke, trembling. “Logan…”

I stopped, barely a foot away. The heat of her scent wrapped around me, clawing at my resolve.

“You,” I said, not daring to utter her name aloud.

Her face fell, her eyes pooling with fear, betrayal, shame.

My wolf thrashed harder, clawing at my mind, desperate to reach her.You’ll regret this until the end of time.

I shook my head, trying to clear the thought, but it was as much mine as it was his.

“Speak the truth!” I demanded, my voice breaking before I could stop it. “Tell me what you did to Orion.”

Her silence was deafening.

I growled low in my throat, my claws flexing, itching for action. “Speak,” I commanded, my alpha tone powerful enough to send most wolves cowering. But not her. Whatever she was, I wouldn’t be able to command her into doing as I wished.

She remained still, and I thought she might stay silent forever.

“You think I wanted this?” Her breaths came quick and shallow, her chest heaving as if the words themselves were chains she was dragging forward. “That I asked to be the Heraclid oracle?” Her silent laugh was bitter. “Every choice was ripped from me. Every word they forced me to speak was like carving pieces out of myself.”

“That’s not my problem,” I growled.

“You think I cursed your pack? I refused, over and over. I wouldn’t do it. I only spoke what I saw in my visions. And I won’t deny that. But I did not speak a curse on you.”

The wolf inside me snarled, urging me to believe her. I couldn’t—Iwouldn’t. My jaw clenched as I stepped closer, towering over her. “Then why is my pack falling apart?” I demanded, anger and confusion twisting together into something I couldn’t control.

She flinched. “I didn’twantto see what I saw,” she whispered. “The visions… they weren’t of destruction. They weren’t of curses.”

“Thenwhat were they of?” I pressed, my fists clenching so tightly my nails dug into my palms.

“You.”

I nearly lost my balance.

“You,” she whispered, like a confession. “It was always you.”

My wolf surged at her words, his howls filling my mind with a longing so fierce it nearly drowned out my rage. I forced him back. This woman was at the center of everything that had gone wrong, everything that had torn my pack and my life apart.

Her arms were stretched high above her head, her wrists bound tightly and secured to the low branch of a weathered tree. Her body hung just enough to make her heels barely brush the ground. The sight of her like this ignited something feral in me.

I was caught between the man I needed to be for my pack and the man I feared I’d become if I ended her.

“You’re lying,” I said, but I had already begun doubting. “Why would your visions be about me if not to curse my bloodline?”

Her head tilted back, the rope pulling taut with themovement, her neck arched in a way that was more bold than submissive.

“Because every time he demanded I curse you,youwere there.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

“In my visions, you weren’t the one suffering. You werefighting. You were trying to save them—your pack—even as everything around you fell apart.”

The tension in her body, the stubborn fire in her eyes. She was telling the truth. Or at least, she believed she was.

Her shoulders shook, her body trembling as she took a ragged breath.

“I don’t know why the Goddess chose me to see you, but you became the only thing I could hold on to,” she continued, her words rushing out. “Every time Grayson demanded I curse Orion, I sawyou. Standing, hunting, protecting—even when you didn’t have enough left to give. I didn’t curse you. I couldn’t. Because…” She hesitated, the words sticking in her throat. “Because you were the only thing that gave me hope.”

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