63

63
Thalia’s POV

When the door closed behind Nancy, the silence she left behind seemed to crawl into my skin. Her words echoed like a curse, wrapping around my heart and squeezing until my chest ached. Accept him. Submit. Mate. Each word was a chain in itself.

I paced the room, my bare feet dragging against the cool wooden floor, trying to outrun the thoughts circling my head. But the bond pulsed with every step, reminding me that it wasn’t just in my wrist—it had dug deeper, into my blood, my marrow, my very soul.

Jaden hadn’t moved. He stood near the doorway, arms folded, shoulders tense. He was too quiet, too still, like a storm holding itself back. I wanted to scream at him, shake him, demand he undo what had been done. But deep down I already knew: there was no undoing.

The railing of the balcony called to me, and I stepped outside. The sky stretched gray and endless, clouds bleeding into one another. The air smelled of damp earth and wood smoke, carried from the village below. People were beginning their morning routines—fetching water, tending fires, shouting to children who darted between huts.

And yet… I felt their eyes. Even from up here, I imagined them glancing upward, whispering about the strange girl cursed by their Alpha. A girl tied to him now by shadows.

My grip tightened on the railing until my knuckles whitened.

“Thalia.”

His voice broke the air, rough and low.

I didn’t turn. “Don’t. Don’t say my name like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like it belongs to you.”

The bond pulsed sharply at my defiance, stabbing heat through my wrist, up my arm, into my chest. I hissed and clutched at the mark, glaring down at it as if I could burn it away with fury alone.

Behind me, I heard Jaden shift, the faint scrape of his boots on the floor. He didn’t come closer—he never crossed that invisible line—but his presence was heavy enough to press against my back.

“You’re fighting it,” he said quietly.

“Of course I am,” I snapped, spinning on him. “Would you rather I just roll over and let it take me? Let you take me?”

His jaw tightened, but his voice stayed steady. “I’d rather you didn’t destroy yourself trying to resist what can’t be undone.”

Something inside me cracked. I strode toward him, every step fueled by the fire in my chest. “Easy for you to say. You’ve lived with this curse your whole life. You’ve built yourself around it. But me? I never asked for this. I never wanted you.”

The words flew out before I could stop them, sharp and cruel. And for a heartbeat, I regretted them.

Because his eyes—usually hard as iron—flickered with something raw. Pain, maybe. Or maybe I only imagined it.

“You think I wanted this for you?” His voice was quiet, but it trembled at the edges. “I’d tear this mark from your skin with my own hands if I could.”

The bond flared again, not with pain this time but with a wave of his emotion. Guilt, sorrow, fury—all bleeding into me until I staggered back, clutching the edge of the bed to steady myself.

“No.” I shook my head violently. “Get out. Get out of my head!”

He took a step forward, and the air between us tightened. “I’m not in your head. That’s the bond. That’s what Nancy meant. The more you fight it, the stronger it fights back.”

“I don’t care!” I screamed. “I won’t be bound like this!”

Silence crashed down after my outburst. My chest heaved, tears stinging my eyes though I refused to let them fall. I turned away from him again, staring at the floor, willing myself to be stone.

Minutes stretched, heavy and suffocating. Finally, his footsteps retreated. The door creaked open, then closed softly behind him.

Only then did I let myself collapse.

I sank onto the bed, pulling my knees to my chest, my arms wrapping tightly around them. My wrist throbbed with every beat of my heart. The veins creeping from the mark seemed darker now, more pronounced, crawling like ivy up my arm.

Fear crept in, colder than the dawn air. Nancy’s warning whispered again in my ear: If you resist, it will burn your soul.

I didn’t know what that meant. But I knew enough about curses to understand that “burn” rarely meant just pain. It meant destruction. It meant being hollowed out until nothing of me remained.

The thought made bile rise in my throat. I pressed my forehead to my knees, rocking slightly, the way I had when I was a child trying to block out nightmares. But this wasn’t a nightmare I could wake from.

The bond throbbed again—softer this time. Not pain. Something else. A tugging warmth, like a thread being pulled gently between us. And with it, an image, faint and hazy, slipped into my mind.

Flames. Not the consuming fire of destruction, but the warm crackle of a hearth. A small cabin, walls lined with pelts, shadows dancing against wood. And in the center, a boy. Younger, fragile, his eyes too old for his age. Alone. Always alone.

I gasped, clutching my head. The image vanished as quickly as it came, leaving only the echo of loneliness so sharp it made my throat ache.

It wasn’t mine.

It was his.

I shot to my feet, trembling. “No,” I whispered to the empty room. “Stay out of me. Stay out.”

But the bond pulsed again, insistent, alive. Not cruel—at least not in that moment—but demanding to be felt, demanding to be known.

I stumbled back to the balcony, desperate for air. The village had grown busier, laughter and shouts filling the square. For a moment, I envied them—their simplicity, their normalcy. They weren’t tethered to someone they despised. They weren’t fighting a shadow that lived beneath their skin.

The weight of eyes hit me again. Not imagined this time. Below, a pair of warriors had stopped their patrol, their gazes fixed on my balcony. One of them pointed subtly at my wrist. Even from here, I could see the black veins creeping into view.

Whispers spread fast. Heads turned. Mothers pulled children closer. Fear rippled through them like a wave.

My chest tightened.

I wanted to run, to slam the shutters closed and hide. But I stood frozen, pinned by their stares, the shame curling like smoke inside me.

“Thalia.”

The voice was gentle this time, carried on the wind. I turned and found Jaden standing just inside the doorway, watching me. His eyes weren’t cruel, not then. They were weary, shadowed by something I couldn’t name.

The bond tugged again, urging me toward him.

And for the first time, I didn’t know if the trembling in my hands was from resisting—
or from wanting to give in.