~ RONAN ~

A blind rage slams into me. Kael is howling in my head, a sound of pure agony that rattles through every nerve, bone, and cell in my body. It’s as if we’re being ripped apart from the inside out, our very consciousness being devoured by something far stronger than us.

All I can see is blood-soaked darkness. My vision turns hazy, the edges blurring into a mist. The hallway stretches around me, but it’s moving, shifting; the walls are bending in ways that shouldn’t be possible.

Oh hell. The curse.

I can feel it closing in on us, not physically, but like a pressure that’s building in my chest, my skull, behind my eyes. It’s clawing its way toward Kael. He howls again, and the sound echoes through my bones like thunder.

My legs buckle beneath me.

I grip the wall to steady myself but my hand is shaking so badly I can’t hold on. The stone is cool under my palm for exactly one second before the heat returns; the burning sensation that started in my veins is now spreading through my entire body, bas iflike somehad one lit a fire inside my blood.

Nikolai stops in his tracks and turns just in time to see me bracing myself against the wall. His eyes widen, and he’s at my side in an instant, one hand gripping my shoulder.

A warm liquid trickles from my nose.

I lift a trembling hand to wipe it away. The moment my fingers brush my skin, blood smears across my palm in a dark crimson streak.

My stomach plummets. "No... no, no, no," I mutter, staring at my bloodstained hand as if it belongs to someone else. "This isn’t—this can’t be—"

"Ronan." Nikolai’s voice breaks through my spiraling panic. "Look at me."

His eyes widen the moment he sees the blood dripping from my nose. His entire body goes rigid, and for a second he just stares at me like he’s trying to process what he’s seeing. Then his jaw clenches and he grits out:

"Oh fuck no."

My claws are already coming out.

They burst through my fingertips without permission, ripping through skin with a sharp crack. The shift is happening involuntarily. My body is trying to transform completely, and I’m fighting it, trying to hold on to my human form, trying to stay in control, but the curse doesn’t care. It keeps pushing Kael forward, forcing the change whether I want it or not.

My bones feel like they’re splintering apart.

Blood erupts from my mouth in a violent gush, hot as it splatters across my chin, soaks my shirt, and stains the hallway floor. My entire body burns from the inside out, like someone has poured fire into my veins and set it alight. The agony tears through everything in its path—muscle, sinew, bone, even my thoughts.

A strangled gasp leaves me as I drop to one knee.

"I’ve got you," Nikolai says, grabbing my shoulders.

Then he’s lifting me off the ground, moving faster, his Beta strength carrying me down the corridor. My vision swims, but I catch glimpses of the pack house rushing past, walls, doorways, and the alarmed faces of guards who stare as their Alpha is carried like a wounded man.

The world tilts. Everything goes sideways for a moment, and suddenly we’re stopping.

Hands I can’t clearly see grab hold of me, their faces nothing more than blurred shapes. Their voices blend together in urgent whispers, impossible to make out. Then they lay me down on something soft and worn, and I sink into it, struggling to stay conscious as the room spins around me.

Everything is happening in a rush. Someone lifts my head while another forces a small vial to my lips.

"Drink it." I barely hear the words.

The liquid is bitter as it slides down my throat. I try to pull away at first, but they make me swallow every drop.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then the fire raging beneath my skin begins to ease. The pressure in my bones lessens. Kael’s frantic howls grow quieter, retreating to a distant rumble in the back of my mind.

The Seer stands in the center of the room, tall and impossibly thin. Her skin is the color of aged parchment stretched tightly over sharp bones, and her long white hair falls around her shoulders like a shroud. Smoke colored eyes, cold and knowing, settle on me.

She takes one look at me and speaks without preamble. "He shifted again." It’s not a question.

My mother is there. I don’t even realize she’s in the room until she moves, stepping into view. Her face is twisted with a panic I’ve never seen before, her usual composure completely shattered.

She rushes forward and grabs the Seer’s arm with both hands.

"Inject him," she says, her voice frantic, bordering on hysteria. "Now. Do it now before he—"

The words die in her throat. Pain flashes across her face, as though she physically can’t bring herself to finish the sentence. Her grip on the Seer’s arm tightens.

"That’s the last one," the Seer says calmly.

"I don’t care," my mother snaps, her voice shaking with anxiety. "Inject him. Now. Before he loses control completely. Before the curse—"

Her voice falters. "Before it takes him."

The desperation in her eyes hits harder than the pain tearing through my body.

The pressure in my chest eases incrementally with each breath. The hotness in my body calms.

The sensation of Kael burning through my veins resolves back to something manageable, something that feels almost normal except for the absolute exhaustion that crashes over me like a tsunami, dragging me down, pulling me under into darkness that’s at least my own.

My eyes close and then I open, suddenly fully conscious of my environment.

My mother comes up to me, her hands on my face, checking me over like she’s looking for pieces that might be missing. Her fingers trace my cheekbones, my jaw, my forehead. She’s crying. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mother cry.

"How are you feeling?" she asks, her voice shaking like leaves in a storm.

I try to speak but my throat is raw, shredded from vomiting blood, and nothing comes out except a hoarse rasp.

"I heard your growl," she continues, and the tears are streaming down her face now, unchecked, unashamed. "It woke me from sleep. I heard it and I knew, I knew something was wrong. I knew the curse was escalating and I—" She stops, pressing her forehead against mine. "Why were you so foolish to shift? Why would you do that when you knew what it would cost?"

Her voice breaks on every word.

"The pack," she says quietly, and when she pulls back to look at me, there’s something in her eyes that’s broken. "The pack is being held together by you, Ronan. We can’t lose you. They can’t lose you. I can’t—" She stops again, her hands gripping my shoulders like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go. "Your father fought a fair fight. Their generation fought a fair fight. And I would be a failed mother if I couldn’t put my son together. If I can’t keep you standing."

She turns away, pressing her hand to her mouth, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

The Seer is watching us, and Nikolai too.

"He should not shift to Kael again, under any cicircumstancesNot until he’s married his new bride. Maybe finally, they’ll find his mate. Maybe finally, the curse will be broken."

I’m still trying to catch my breath, still trying to understand what just happened, still feeling the residual heat of the curse pulsing underneath my skin like a second heartbeat.

"What if—" My voice comes out hoarse, destroyed. "What if I marry someone who isn’t my mate? What if I marry her and the curse still—" I stop because I already know the answer. I’ve always known the answer. That’s the part that’s been eating at me since this began. "Would she die like the others?"

The Seer looks at me directly for a long moment.

"You shouldn’t ask that question," she says quietly. Her smoke-colored eyes don’t waver. "Because you already know the answer."

The truth of it hits like a punch to the gut.

My jaw clenches. I grit my teeth against the rage that wants to surface, against the desperation that’s clawing at my chest with fingernails made of fear.

"That’s the last vial," the Seer continues, her voice dropping lower until it’s almost a whisper. "If the darkness returns before you marry a new bride, if the curse manifests again while you’re in that state—" She pauses, letting the silence stretch between us like a taut rope. "And you know what happens."

She doesn’t elaborate. She doesn’t have to.

I know exactly what happens.

The darkness takes over completely. Kael and I merge into something that exists in neither form—not wolf, not human, but something in between. A monster. A thing that can’t be killed because it’s already half-dead. A thing that will destroy everyone around it in its hunger to be whole again. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Dread moves through me like ice water settling into my bones, making a home there, refusing to leave.