Chapter 1

Twenty-One Years Later

Alpha Ethan

Kelly takes off her clothes at record speed in a sensual way without taking her dark blue eyes off me, after I had mindlinked her to be in my master bedroom.

She knows that every time I call her here, it means only one thing. I’m going to fuck her.

I waste no time taking off my clothes. As always, I unzip my pants just enough to get my hard cock out and put on the condom, not bothering to remove any of my clothes.

I need some release before I chase down another lead. Will it be worth it this time?

“Your cock is so hard, Alpha Ethan! Were you thinking about me?” Kelly’s full lips enunciate each word as she points with her manicured scarlet nails at her already bare pussy.

She thinks she is being sensual.

And she may even be.

But this doesn’t work for me. Maybe if I didn’t have this fucking curse...

I just grunt and pull her close to me before throwing her on the bed. She promptly gets on all fours because she knows that’s how I prefer it.

She raises her ass up, showing me her already wet pussy.

Kelly turns her head sharply, tossing her perfectly coiffed dark hair to the side to look at me. “Ethan, I—”

“It’s Alpha Ethan to you!” I interrupt her. “Make no mistake, Kelly. We’re not together.”

Her sultry smile quickly fades for a second before it returns to her lips. “But I heard you say that if you couldn’t break the curse, you would choose a mate! Well, I thought that since I’m the only female in the pack you're interested in, the choice would be obvious!”

“I did not call you here to talk, Kelly!” I say in an icy voice. “I don’t remember promising you anything.”

Although I don’t confirm her delusions, Kelly’s sultry smile gets bigger when she arches her back even more. “Don’t worry. I know that when the time comes, you will make the right choice,” she says in a sensual voice. “Alpha Ethan, please, I need your coc—Ahhh!”

I don’t wait for her to finish. In one swift move, I shove my cock into her pussy, and Kelly moans loudly at the sudden thrust.

I wrap my hand around her wavey hair and pull it so that her head turns forward while my other hand grips her hip. With each thrust, her muscles ripple beneath her sun-kissed bronze skin, accentuating her toned physique.

I keep pounding into her fiercely in this position.

I don’t want to see her face.

I’m not going to lie—Kelly is beautiful. No wonder she’s a model.

She always looks like she stepped straight out of the glamor magazines that she models for because of the way she’s always so put together.

Her hair? Picture perfect.

Makeup? Flawless.

And her outfits? Well, let’s just say she’s never seen a wrinkle. Whether she’s just in the pack or hitting Summerville, the closest city from here, for a night out, she’s always on point—that’s one of the reasons I always show up with her at any charity gala.

She is an impeccably groomed she-wolf.

Yet, her beauty does nothing to arouse me.

For me, Kelly is about as desirable as a chronic sexual disease. And it’s not because she’s a lethal combination of high maintenance and low IQ.

It’s because I’m completely dead inside.

Her high-pitched moan brings me back to what I’m doing while letting me know she’s cumming.

I take a deep breath as I desperately try to cum to be done with it.

This curse has haunted me ever since I was a young boy, causing me to become cynical and bitter towards any potential chosen mate. Much to my wolf’s displeasure, I’ve had many brief hookups, but none of them have ever felt real or fulfilling to me.

I finally cum. I don’t know if it was because this time I had a good feeling about our new clue or because my cock got tired.

I immediately pull my cock out of Kelly’s pussy.

Kelly gets up from my bed, and despite being sweaty all over her body, her makeup is still firmly intact.

“Call me again when you get back!” Her tall frame turns to me, not towering over mine, but still enough to lean in and kiss my lips with no trouble one last time before she leaves my room.

And I felt nothing.

Sadly, that’s one of the other reasons I fuck Kelly.

No love or lust, even though we just fucked.

At one time, I thought I could live without my fated mate, but without her, how do my wolf and I live at all?

I can’t give up. I’d rather cease to exist than to exist without my fated mate.

🐺 🐺 🐺

“He was killed not long ago,” Vi says beside me as she lightly pushes the man’s ribs with the tip of her high-heeled shoe. “Ugh! I can’t believe he’s dead! I’m so sorry, Ian!” Vi turns her chestnut eyes to me.

I can see how upset she is over yet another lead that goes nowhere.

“This odd cut in his neck wasn’t accidental,” I say without looking at her, analyzing the dead male’s neck.

The blood from the cut is already dry. Still, there is something yellowish oily in it that obviously doesn’t belong to his bloody dead body.

“Do you think this is...” Vi looks closer and realizes the same conclusion as I do. “Fuck, my informer told me he was involved with witches, but why would someone kill him with this yellow goo?”

“Werewolves don’t need the help of any fucking witch to kill anyone. Either he was killed by a witch or a human,” I say after approaching my nose closer to the gash on his neck.

I have no doubt in my mind that a human murdered him.

If a witch had been involved, the attack would have been less noticeable. Sneakier.

After I fucked Kelly, Vi and I came to Summerville. Vi found a clue that a rogue werewolf had information about a powerful witch in the city. However, when we arrived at the address where she discovered this rogue would be, instead of finding helpful information in search of that old witch, we found the rogue dead in this druggie alley.

I’ve been on a journey to find the fucking witch to end the curse once and for all ever since it was placed upon me.

My parents have traveled far and wide, seeking advice from wise elders and studying ancient magic texts. But, unfortunately, despite my family’s efforts, especially Vi’s, and mine, we’ve been unable to break the curse. Every fucking attempt was met with failure.

Despite this, I still hold on to the hope that one day, I will break the curse and find my fated mate.

Although I always push people away, Vi is always with me by my side. Whenever we find a tiny little track, she drops everything to go with me—just like right now. Even though she doesn’t tell me, I know her fated mate hates it when she does this.

Deep down, I can feel she carries immense guilt because I took the curse in her place when we were children, even though I assured her that not in a million years would I let her be cursed.

“Ian, let’s get out of here,” Vi says as she looks at her phone screen. “I need to get back to Blackmoon urgently! Lily got into trouble at school again!”

“Why doesn’t Jordan go there?” I ask about her shitty fated mate. “He’s the pack’s Gamma, and he is near her school! Jordan gets a minute or two to spare, so you don’t need to head over there just to sort it out.”

I only put him as my Gamma because of my sister. I tried to convince her to be my Gamma, but she begged me to put Jordan in her place.

And I literally couldn’t deny her that.

Instead of being the pack’s Gamma, Vi preferred to manage my nightclub, called Moonlight, here in Summerville together with me. Although the most significant reason was to make it easier for her to find the witch, I knew that a small part was to snoop in my life.

“I know,” she says, biting her bottom lip. “But you know Lily gets upset when he goes instead of me.”

Their daughter is ten years old and has just got her little wolf. And, of course, Lily’s easily my second favorite family member—though some days, she might just take the top spot. Maybe it’s because she looks so much like Vi did when she was a little girl.

Every now and then, when I see the way Jordan treats Vi, I wonder if having a fated mate might be the actual curse.

Poor Vi has someone who has practically nothing in common as a fated mate.

However, I see the distant way Jordan treats Lily, so I know for sure it’s not something particular to the mate bond, but rather because it’s his stupid way of treating his family.

Still, he has something I can only ever dream of.

My phone rings as Vi, and I head to my car. It’s Josh, my best friend, and Beta. “Good news?” he asks from the other side, and I respond with a long sigh. “Fuck, Ethan!”

“Yeah,” I say after taking the key out of my pocket and unlocking the car. I clutch the car key tightly as Vi enters the car, making my way to the driver’s door. “We’re heading back to Blackmoon.”

“Why don’t you spend the night at Moonlight? Maybe a week or two. You should chill out a bit. It’s been ages since you crashed there for the night. No worries, everything’s cool over here!”

I built Moonlight before I became the Blackmoon’s Alpha for the simple reason of having somewhere outside the pack to go when it became difficult to breathe in the pack in front of so many fated mate couples with their mate bonds.

I thought I’d be fine before. But day after day, living there, I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and each time I saw the fated mate couples, I felt jealous of their bond. Every time I heard them sigh in love or run with their wolves together, I wanted to be like them. Only when shattered glass pierced my hands and my mirror lay broken from my punch did I truly understand the agony of living in my pack. I needed a safe place.

Despite being a nightclub, Moonlight has a complete apartment on the top floor that Vi and I use whenever we are in the city.

“Okay, see you tomorrow,” I hang up and get in the car. “Change of plans! I’m sticking around, not hitting the pack today.”

“Ah, damn! I’m going to go back alone,” she says, putting on the seat belt as I start the car and begin driving toward Moonlight.

“But I want to swing back in this car!” Vi flashes a mischievous smile.

“Ha,” I snort. “Once in a while, you crack some pretty good jokes,” I smirk at her as I stop at a red light. “Go in your usual car. It’s safer,” I say firmly.

“Ian, you know I’m a she-wolf, right?” She says, rolling her eyes. “Safer my ass! You just don’t want me to drive your precious car!”

I grunt as I move forward when the light turns green.

She starts yapping about some ideas for Moonlight, but I can tell she’s just dodging, talking about yet another flop.

My mind wanders as I drive toward Moonlight.

I clench my jaw. The whole pack is on edge.

Everyone at the Blackmoon waits for a Luna, who might not even show up.

No one is more anxious about this than me. The once vibrant colors of life have faded into a monochrome existence as the curse wanders and fills the void of my heart, longing for a warmth that can’t be felt.

My heart is bitter and black—like the old witch’s black cape.

I fear I might not be able to find my fated mate even after I break the curse. But I will make the witch regret the day she broke my heart, for a broken heart is much more dangerous than a full one.

My wolf and I decided to never give up. Never stop trying because all things come to an end.

Even curses as foul as this.