Chapter 9 Nine
Chapter 9 Nine
Kael’s POV
Distance was supposed to make it easier.
It didn’t.
Every step I took away from her only sharpened the sound of her heartbeat in my memory. I tried to drown it out with work, training, anything that reminded me I still had control. But control was the first thing the curse always came for.
I could feel the change moving under my skin long before the moon called it. Heat, then cold, then the ache in my bones that meant the wolf was waking. It always started like this, quiet, patient, pretending to be pain I could ignore.
But this time it wasn’t just pain. It was her.
The bond had started to stir. Every breath carried her scent. Every flicker of thought drifted back to her face, to the way she’d looked at me as if my ruin wasn’t reason enough to walk away.
That look scared me more than the shift ever could.
I gripped the edge of the desk until wood splintered beneath my fingers. My palms were bleeding, but even that couldn’t anchor me. The wolf didn’t care about pain; it fed on it. The curse wanted me to surrender, to give in and let it run until everything I loved was ash.
But love was the word that poisoned me.
I’d sworn never to use it again, not after the first time cost me everything. Yet somehow, she was here, soft voice, stubborn heart, standing where no one else dared.
The last woman who’d touched me had screamed my name as I tore through her throat. That was the night the curse sealed itself inside me. The night the pack lost its Alpha to blood and regret.
I’d lived with that silence for years. Until Aria.
She was the first sound in a long time that didn’t feel like a scream.
The moonlight through the window caught the edge of my reflection. For a moment, my eyes flickered gold, not silver. That had never happened before. I stared until they burned back to gray.
The curse was changing.
I could sense it in every heartbeat. The bond between us wasn’t weakening it; it was twisting it, binding it tighter around my ribs. The wolf wanted her, not to destroy, but to claim. To make her part of the hunger that had been killing me slowly for years.
I couldn’t let that happen.
When I left my study, the house felt smaller. Every corridor carried her scent, light, warm, maddening. I followed it like a fool until I stopped outside her door. My hand lifted once, then fell. I couldn’t knock. Not now.
If I saw her, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
The air thickened. The first wave of the shift hit, sharp, sudden. My knees buckled, breath catching as the heat roared through me. My claws tore free before I could stop them, raking across the wall.
No. Not here.
I forced myself toward the hidden door behind the staircase, the one that led to the underground chamber, the only place strong enough to hold me when the wolf broke through.
By the time I reached it, my hands were shaking too hard to unbolt the chains.
Pain followed, fast and familiar. Bones stretching, muscles twisting, skin burning. I bit back a roar that shook the walls anyway.
The sound that came out of me wasn’t human.
It never was.
I dropped to my knees, breath ripping from my chest. The change tore through me, but beneath the agony there was something else, something I’d never felt before.
A heartbeat that wasn’t mine.
Hers.
The bond.
It pulsed through the curse like a thread of light through rot, pushing back against the darkness that usually swallowed me whole. I clutched at it without thinking.
The pain dulled for one impossible moment.
I saw flashes behind my eyes, her face, her hands, the sound of her whisper when she’d said she wasn’t running.
Then the wolf took over.
I wasn’t Kael anymore. Not entirely. But I wasn’t just the beast either. The two halves fought for dominance until the only thing I could think of was her.
Her name became the anchor in the storm.
“Aria,” I growled, the sound more snarl than word.
The chains bit into my wrists, drawing blood. The scent of it should have driven me mad, but it only made the bond stronger. I could feel her fear somewhere above the floorboards, faint and quick like wings fluttering in the dark.
She could sense me too.
The curse was feeding on it.
I slammed my fists against the floor until the stone cracked. The wolf wanted out, wanted to find her, to touch her, to mark what already belonged to him.
I forced my head back, teeth cutting into my lip as I fought it down.
No.
I wouldn’t become that again.
But then her voice echoed in my head, soft, unshaken. Then let it burn.
And it did.
The bond ignited like fire under my skin. It wasn’t pain this time; it was power. The wolf stopped fighting. For the first time in years, it didn’t want destruction. It wanted protection.
The realization tore through me with more force than the shift itself.
The curse wasn’t a punishment. It was a cage built from guilt. And she was the only thing strong enough to open it.
The chains snapped. I hit the ground hard, gasping, half-man, half-beast, body trembling with exhaustion. My claws were gone. My hands, human again.
I stared at them, chest heaving, trying to understand what had just happened. The moon still hung full above, but the bloodlust was gone.
The curse had changed.
I had changed.
I pushed myself upright, every muscle trembling. The urge to find her was stronger than reason.
When I reached the main floor, Mrs. Blake was waiting in the shadows, her expression unreadable.
“She felt it,” she said quietly.
I froze.“What?”
“The girl. Aria. When you lost control, she screamed your name. The bond works both ways now.”
I swallowed hard, the truth sinking in.“She shouldn’t feel it.”
“She already does,” the woman said.“You’ve tied her to your fate.”
My hands clenched.“I never meant to, ”
“No one ever does.”
The guilt cut deeper than any claw.
Mrs. Blake’s gaze softened, almost pitying.“You can’t break it, Kael. You can only choose what to become because of it.”
I wanted to tell her she was wrong. That I’d end it before I let Aria carry the weight of my curse. But the words refused to come.
Because for the first time in years, I didn’t want to end it. I wanted to understand it.
I wanted her.
And wanting was how every monster began.