Page 67 of The Cursed Wolf King

That vision, a festering taking me over.

Orion fighting. Orion dying.

I threw myself even more into his kiss, anything to block that out, to be withhim. He was an alpha, the alpha of the Orion pack of all things, and yet I heard in his heart how he was bowing before me, needingme.

Wanting me.

“I want to stay, and I can’t,” he whispered as he caressed my cheek. I felt the pull in him, the truth of his words evident, even though I knew what he was going to say next. “I must take care of what needs to be done, and I’ll be back. It’s best if you stay here. Lay low.”

“Lay low?” I’d been lying low my whole life, but being here, the talk of the town, made it rather hard to do so.

Regret filled his expression. He brushed my cheek one last time with the back of his fingers and I felt a wash of calm. “I’ll find you later.”

He left. The door clicked shut, and the bungalow felt impossibly quiet. My breaths came in shallow pulls as the heat in the room finally lifted, only to leave something heavier behind.

Lay low.The phrase buzzed in my head like an irritating fly. I sure knew how to lay low—hiding, surviving, slipping through the cracks when I had to. It was what I was good at. But now? There was nowhere to slip, no cracks to disappear into. I was here, in Orion pack territory, surrounded by wolves who didn’t trust me, tethered to a man who wasn’t a means to an end anymore.

What the fuck was I supposed to do withthat?

Logan wasn’t just a tool for survival, to be used strategically to outmaneuver the Heraclids. The way his touch vibrated on my skin, even after he’d stepped away, felt deeper than it should have. As though it had been there all along.

The Heraclid mark on my arm prickled, a sharp, stinging itch that refused to settle. It wasn’t supposed to do that. It had never done it before. My fingers brushed over it, and the sensation flared, spreading like a ripple across my skin. I froze, staring down at the faint scar that had been branded into me years ago.

“What is happening to me?” The mark felt alive, almosthumming beneath my touch, and I didn’t know if it was meant as a warning or something worse.

I sat back against the wall, curling my legs beneath me, trying to make sense of the chaos spinning in my head. The bond between me and Logan pulsed, a thread connecting us that I couldn’t seem to sever, no matter how hard I tried to distance myself from it.

And yet he’d left. Not two minutes ago, he’d walked out the door, leaving me alone in this strange place, in this strange pack, to sort out these strange feelings on my own.

I tried to swallow the growing sense of abandonment clawing at my throat. It wasn’t fair to feel this way—he had his pack, his people, and more responsibilities than I could fathom. He didn’t owe me anything.

That didn’t stop the ache from settling deep in my chest.

I turned my focus back to the bungalow, the warm but unfamiliar walls. The smells of the surrounding forest and rocks that felt so quintessentially Orion were at odds with the faintest hint of my own scent, lingering in the air like I didn’t quite belong.

Ididn’tbelong.

Still, the bond with Logan pulsed gently.

I got to my feet and slumped into the chair, the wooden legs scraping faintly against the floor as I dropped my weight into it. The overwhelming quiet of the bungalow pressed in on me, feeling like the only anchor I had left. My forehead found the cool, smooth surface of the table, and I closed my eyes, letting out a shaky breath.

The anchor slipped.

The instant my skin touched the table, the world shifted.It wasn’t gradual or gentle—it yanked me out of myself, flinging me into the vision like a stone skipping across a lake.

The sounds hit me first, a cacophony of snarls and howls so visceral I could feel them reverberating in my chest. Teeth clashed against teeth with a sickening crunch that made me recoil. Blood sprayed through the air, staining the ground, and the metallic tang of it filled my senses.

The familiar surroundings of the bungalow were warped and twisted by chaos, like I knew where I was but it didn’t resemble itself anymore. Wolves tore into one another, their bodies locked in vicious combat. The bond pulsing through the pack was fractured, splintered into something wild and feral. This wasn’t protection or unity—this was war.

The ground beneath me shifted, and the vision pulled at me again. Suddenly, I was in the Heraclid city center, the towering buildings casting long shadows over the streets below. The same violence raged here, but it was colder, calculated. Wolves fought with precision, their movements less feral but no less deadly. Blood ran in rivers down the cobblestones, pooling at my feet.

Before I could catch my breath, the scene shifted once more, and I was standing on the Moonstone Plateau. The air was heavy with the scent of rain, the horizon painted in ominous hues of red and black. Wolves clashed here too, their howls echoing around the rocky expanse. This time, I saw Logan, his form towering and fierce, his teeth bared in a snarl as he lunged for an opponent. Blood streaked his fur, and his eyes burned with an unrelenting fire.

He foughtalone.

He was fighting for something, for someone—but the details blurred before I could grasp them.

Another pull, and I was somewhere else entirely. Blackthorn Grove. That vile platform where I used to share my visions with the Heraclids. It loomed before me, its cruel edges cutting. The air was thick with the weight of betrayal and pain, and the breath was sucked out of me. I was in the crowd, watching as thousands of bodies wavered on their feet.

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