Chapter 53 THE CURSE THAT REFUSED TO DIE
CHAPTER FIFTY THREE
GENERAL POV
Power had always belonged to the Draven family.
Their power was quiet, heavy, unquestioned. It was in the way people lowered their eyes when a Draven passed. In the way doors opened before they were touched. In the way fear sat comfortably beside respect whenever their name was spoken.
They did not need to prove their supremacy.
History had already done that for them.
For generations, the Dravens were known for one thing. Strength without sentiment. They were stoic, unimpressed by weakness, unmoved by mercy. Love was never part of their story. It was considered a distraction, a flaw that could be exploited.
And then came the one they later called the Grandfather.
No one remembered his real name anymore. It had been buried under blood and legend. To the world, he was simply known as the Grandfather. The strongest of them all. The vilest. The most ruthless Draven to ever exist.
He killed without hesitation and without mercy. He did not wage wars. He ended them. Entire lineages disappeared at his command. Widows mourned. Children grew up knowing his name as a warning. Fear followed him like a shadow, stretching far beyond his reach.
And yet, for all his brutality, the Grandfather was untouchable.
Until Lily.
She came from nowhere.
No one knew her people. No one knew her past. She arrived quietly, unassuming, with eyes too soft for a world like his. She was everything the Grandfather despised and everything he never knew he could want.
She did not fear him.
That was the first crack.
Lily spoke to him like he was a man, not a monster. She challenged him, questioned him, softened him. Slowly, dangerously, she captured his heart. And once she had it, she owned him completely.
He fell in love with her in a way that erased reason.
For Lily, he abandoned his other women. He turned his back on children he had fathered but never claimed. He cut ties with blood that had once defined him. He changed laws. He spared enemies. He bent himself into something unrecognizable, all in the hope of deserving her love.
He would have died for her.
What he did not know was that Lily had been sent.
Her family had been destroyed by the Draven name long before she ever saw him. Fathers slaughtered. Brothers erased. Mothers left with nothing but grief. Lily was raised on stories of the Grandfather’s cruelty. She was shaped by loss and sharpened by hate.
She did not come to love him.
She came to end him.
The night of their wedding arrived draped in celebration. Music filled the air. Wine flowed freely. The Grandfather stood victorious, convinced that even fate itself had bowed to him.
That night, Lily slaughtered his lineage.
Her gang moved through the estate like ghosts. Silent. Efficient. Ruthless. Sons were dragged from their beds. Daughters were silenced mid scream. Wives begged and were ignored. Blood stained the halls the Dravens once ruled.
Everyone died.
Everyone except one woman.
She hid.
She hid with her infant son pressed against her chest, her hand over his mouth as she listened to the screams of her family being erased. She stayed silent while the world burned around her. When morning came, she crawled out of the ruins with nothing but her child and her terror.
The Grandfather did not die that night.
Lily wanted him alive.
He was bound, humiliated, stripped of the power that had defined him. For days and nights, she punished him. She made him watch what remained of his legacy rot. She reminded him of every life he had destroyed. Every family he had shattered.
And for the first time in his life, the Grandfather was helpless.
Something inside him broke.
Not into remorse. Not into regret. But into rage.
He convinced himself that his crime was love.
That changing for a woman had been his undoing. That softness had invited destruction. In his twisted mind, Lily became the symbol of betrayal. Of wickedness. Of everything that had cost him his empire.
Consumed by frustration and humiliation, he took his own life.
But death did not take him peacefully.
He died angry.
And that anger did not fade.
It transformed.
His hatred, his curse, his unfulfilled vengeance twisted into something unnatural. Something ugly. Something no longer human.
The Widow Collector was born.
A beast with two horns. Legs like an animal. A body warped and grotesque, yet standing upright like a man who refused to fall. His voice was no longer speech but roars that carried intent. Intelligence remained. Memory remained. Hatred burned brighter than ever.
He began with the widows.
Women who had lost their husbands. Women whose grief mirrored the ruin he blamed on love. He hunted them mercilessly, leaving terror in his wake. Entire towns woke to blood and fear. His name became a whisper. A warning.
For five years, the killings continued.
Then he stopped.
It was said the fifth year marked the age of the surviving son. The child who had escaped the massacre. The last living thread of the Draven bloodline.
The Widow Collector turned his rage toward Lily.
She did not escape him.
Her death was brutal. The town fell into chaos. Fear spread like wildfire. People prayed. People hid. People offered sacrifices. And when nothing stopped the killings, they did the unthinkable.
They worshipped him.
Temples rose in his name. Blood offerings were made. Songs were sung in fear, not reverence. It was believed that the spirit of the Grandfather lived inside the beast. That his curse was eternal. That no one could eradicate the Widow Collector.
And so the legend endured.
Passed down in hushed voices.
A history soaked in blood.
A curse that refused to die.