Page 21 of Cursed By Fate

The room closed in around me, heavy with the choice that wasn’t really a choice. I had always been taught one thing: protect the pack above all else. Never let anything interfere. I held my breath and let it out slowly. So why the hell did I feel this way? Why couldn't I just ignore it, ignore her? My protective instincts surged, cutting through any plan or strategy I thought I had.

I shifted in the chair, staring out at the night, wondering if this was how it felt to go crazy. To want to rip down everything that mattered and build it back up differently, with someone like her at the center. I was used to wanting, but not wanting like this. Not something I couldn't control. The mark on my shoulder burned with the same intensity as the memory of her eyes.

For the first time, I couldn’t convince myself that the pack was all that mattered. That maybe, just maybe, something else was just as important. I should have hated the thought. Fought it. But I couldn’t. It was wrapped too tightly around me, like her scent and her amber eyes. I closed my eyes and saw the light from our marks, saw it as vividly as if she were standing right in front of me. This wasn’t going away. She wasn’t going away.

I should have been filled with anger at the idea that I was so easily distracted. Instead, something else rose to the surface. A raw, untamed desire to keep her safe. It wasn’t like me. It wasn’twhat I had been taught. It was something primal, something I didn’t want to admit but couldn’t deny.

The fire dimmed in the hearth, but the heat in the room stayed strong. Stayed as fierce as the impulse running through me. It was more than just duty. It was more than I could understand, but I would get to the bottom of it. The old iron lock on my door was more than a barrier tonight; it was a promise. A promise to find out why she had this hold on me and why, despite everything, I wanted it. I wanted it like I wanted air to breathe.

The more I tried to ignore it, the more it took root. I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t shake her. The outside world shrank to nothing but this one room and my resolve to protect Serena Sterling. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know what that meant or what it would cost me. She was mine to shield, and the idea of anything else was like ash in my mouth. The howls in the distance faded, but the sound of my own heartbeat took their place. Steady. Determined. It echoed in my veins, and every thud whispered the same thing: She's mine.

Memories moved in, fast and unwelcome, as I stared into the fire. My father’s voice came back to me in fragments, like it traveled across time and distance to remind me of what I should have never forgotten. I was a kid, barely old enough to shift, running with him through the forest. We were side by side, his strides measured so I could keep up. “Strength isn't just muscle,” he told me, and the words echoed off the trees and through the years. The next time he said them, I was older, covered in dirt and his blood, looking down at his body as the breath left him. The image of it pressed against me. It pressed and held and would never let go.

The flames shifted in the hearth, and I was back in the forest. I remembered my father lifting me onto his shoulders so I could see the way the trees seemed to go on forever. “One day, all of this will be yours to protect,” he said. His voice was steady, sure.He made it sound like a gift and a burden. Like both those things were one and the same.

It was the day of my first hunt. We moved as wolves, he as a massive black beast, and me, a pup, racing to keep up. I felt invincible with him at my side. I remember the wind rushing through my fur, the excitement of the chase. How he taught me to feel every muscle in my body, to trust the instincts passed down through generations. That day was filled with pride, mine for him and his for me. But mostly, I remembered the promise he made me repeat until I could say it as easily as my own name: The pack is everything.

That lesson never wavered. It was like an old scar, healed but visible. It sat next to another memory, older but just as strong. One I couldn’t shake, no matter how much I tried. Our territory was under attack, and the rival wolves outnumbered us. I watched from the trees as my father fought with a ferocity I’d never seen before. I remembered the way he threw himself into the battle, fearless and fierce. His growls were like thunder, shaking the ground and the certainty of our enemies.

He returned victorious, but not untouched. Blood matted his fur, some his and some not, as he stumbled back into the heart of the camp. The others surrounded him, a mixture of relief and respect in their eyes. He took a breath, shifted back to human, and collapsed. I rushed to his side, confusion and fear making my limbs feel heavy and slow. He was weak, and I was unprepared to see him that way. To know that he was mortal, that our strength had limits. He gripped my arm, his hold firm despite the blood that flowed from him, and said, “Strength isn't just muscle.” I didn’t understand what he meant then, but I do now. I understood it when I looked down at him, older, the life slipping out of him and his eyes locked on mine.

That understanding settled deep in me, where it would grow like roots. Where it would pull me back from distractions, fromanything that threatened to make me forget. The fire crackled again, and I was with him in the sacred caves. The memory was strong, the stone walls feeling close and powerful. I watched him trace his hand along the smooth surface of the cave, his eyes reflecting the luminescent glow of the stones. “These are your legacy,” he told me. “Never forget the mountain's power is our birthright. It must be defended at any cost.”

I took those words into me. Held them closer than anything else, like they could shield me from every doubt. It was a time before curses and birthmarks. Before fate showed up, wrecking everything. When all that mattered was the pack, and everything made sense.

“Protect the pack above all else.” The fire burned down to embers, and the memory of his last words to me stayed hot in my mind. I was a child and a man, both at the same time, standing over him as his final breath left his body. It was gone, and so was he. But his words remained, echoing through my life and my choices.

I saw myself the night of my first full moon as Alpha. It came the same way it had for my father—after a fight and a death. I could feel it like it was happening again, the weight of the title settling onto me, more solid than any bruise or wound. I was filled with a combination of pride and terror. The pack ran with me that night, and I remember the strength in our numbers, the collective sound of our howls claiming the territory as mine. As ours. I led them under the stars, feeling the mountain’s energy course through us, feeling his presence in the night and in me. I wanted to live up to it, to be everything he believed I could be. The pack is everything. Protect it above all else.

I returned to the present, these memories like a storm I couldn’t weather. Like rain on a roof, pounding and relentless, but unable to drown out my need to protect Serena. Everything my father taught me said I should put the pack first. Said Ishould fight whatever was pulling me towards her. Said I should ignore this feeling that was as persistent and consuming as the memories themselves.

I didn't know how to tell him he might have been wrong. I didn’t know how to tell myself. But the marks on our bodies made promises I couldn’t ignore. The more I thought about her, the less the past felt like the only thing that mattered. The less the weight of my history seemed like a burden, and more like a chain I could finally break.

But could I break it? Could I go against my father’s last words, the ones that had defined me, guided me, kept me steady and in line? I needed answers, but everything I knew said I wouldn’t find them at the bottom of a mystery. I’d find them in the same place my father had: in a promise kept, in a pack protected. In strength that wasn’t just muscle. I let out a breath, slow and unsure, letting it hang in the air as I looked past the fire and into the past that refused to let me go.

I left the fire to die in the hearth. Let it sputter out the way my father never did. The room was cold now, and I was too restless to sit. Too haunted by what my old man would have thought about Serena and me. What he would have thought about her. About me. A fresh ache throbbed through my shoulder, the mark burning under my skin. I tried to ignore it. Tried to think past it as I moved to my desk. Papers littered the top, but they weren’t just reports and patrol schedules. They were lives. The pack’s. Mine. Ewan's.

The clutter was an eyesore, the kind of thing I usually couldn’t stand. But it had a way of quieting the noise in my head. It was proof that things were manageable, that a little order could cut through the chaos. Not tonight. Not with this uncertainty snapping at my heels, refusing to let go.

I pushed some of the papers aside, not sure what I was looking for, only that I needed to find it. Details were my weapon againstthe storm inside me. They kept me in control, kept the past from drowning me. But what was scattered in front of me wasn’t just about patrols or border disputes. It was about something a hell of a lot more personal. It was about me. About Serena. About the one wolf I thought I could count on.

Conversations with Ewan played back in my mind. Rehearsed, but not. Sincere, but not. They rang hollow now, like echoes from the far side of a canyon. He’d been by my side longer than anyone. His voice had always been a lifeline. But now it felt like a lure, drawing me in while he plotted behind my back.

I sat at the desk, shoving a pile of patrol schedules aside. My fingers itched for answers, but all I found were the same route rotations I’d approved last month.

I flipped through a border watch log. Southside activity—normal. A missing rabbit trap. I threw the page down.Too ordinary.

Next, the patrol training schedule. Ewan’s handwriting was neat. Too neat. I wanted it to scream guilt, but all it gave me was routine.

I found a requisition form marked urgent—signed by Bram. I frowned. No link to Ewan, but it raised a different question:Why the hell were they stocking silver-tipped arrows?I made a mental note to follow up, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.

I dug deeper, frustration mounting like heat behind my ribs. Ewan's shift reports finally surfaced—line after line of clean, consistent, boring detail. Nothing out of place. Nothing that would explain the bile rising in my throat.

And then I saw it. A folded scrap of paper, half-hidden beneath the bottom drawer. The handwriting on it was different—rushed, angry.

I opened it with trembling hands. One line.

“Midnight. East Ridge border. Alone.”

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