The scent of sickness hung in the air of the Silvermoon pack. It was a vile, coppery smell mixed with the faint, sweet decay of dying flora. Two years. Two long, desolate years since I, Damien Blackwood, had committed the greatest act of cruelty of my life. And for every day of that cruelty, the pack had paid the price.
The curse was a silent, creeping plague. It began with the land itself. The great oaks, once the pride of our territory, now stood gaunt and skeletal. The streams ran sluggish and dark. And then it came for the wolves. Their strength sapped, their senses dulled, their pack bonds frayed. The healers were useless. They could not fight a magic that came from within. The curse, born from the severed bond, was slowly, methodically, killing us all.
I sat in my study, the very room where I had made that first, desperate call to the Genesis Corporation. My hands were buried in a pile of parchment, my mind lost in the hopeless task of managing a pack that was falling apart at the seams. My face was a mask of cold fury, but it was a mask I had worn so long it had become my true face. My heart, a lump of cold, dead stone in my chest, was a constant, searing reminder of the one I had lost.
I had ordered Elara's death to protect her. A fool's errand, I knew now. Marcus, my most loyal guard, had returned a week later with the report that she was dead, torn apart by a monstrous cave bear, the scent of her blood too faint to follow. He had lied for me, to make her death seem a merciful end, a quick, clean kill. A lie that had haunted me every single night. The curse only worsened after her reported death. It was a cosmic punishment. I was a tormented king, ruling a dying land.
My gaze drifted to a hidden corner of the room. Behind a tapestry, I had tucked away the only true weakness I had. A portrait I had painted myself. It was crude, an amateur's work, but it was a flawless recreation of her face, with those beautiful, silver eyes full of the desperate hope I had so brutally extinguished. I would trace the lines of her face with my finger in the dead of night, a tormented ghost mourning his own handiwork.
Selena. My Luna by name only. She was a constant, shrill reminder of my failure. She blamed my obsession with the 'dead Omega' for our pack's decline. She was right. The pack was dying because of me. My curse. My choice.
A knock on my door, followed by a soft, respectful cough, broke my reverie. My Beta, a loyal wolf named Elias, entered, his face grim.
"Alpha," he said, his voice laced with the fatigue that permeated the entire pack. "A scout from the border just returned. He is badly infected with the plague, but he has brought back a report. One of our patrols was ambushed by a pack of feral rogues near the border of Stormwind territory."
My heart leaped in my chest. Feral rogues? It was a phenomenon that was becoming increasingly common as the curse weakened our pack's defenses.
"Were there any survivors?" I growled, my voice a low, dangerous rumble.
"Only one," Elias replied, his expression somber. "He has passed, but not before delivering his message."
Elias hesitated, then continued, his voice lowering to a hushed, awe-filled whisper. "He said that they were dying, their wounds festering... when a woman appeared. She had hair like spun silver and eyes like the moon. He said she touched them, and their wounds glowed with a soft, warm light. He said that she healed them. All of them. He said… he said her power was a gift from the Goddess herself."
The words hit me like a physical blow. Silver hair... eyes like the moon... healed them... gift from the Goddess. It was all him. Every word.
I closed my eyes, a single, furious, impossible image flashing through my mind: Her face. Elara.
A bitter, humorless laugh tore from my chest, half a sob, half a desperate roar of a dying king. It was a trick. A lie. A final, cruel joke from the Goddess. She was dead. I had ordered her dead.
And then Elias delivered the final piece of the report, the one that shattered my carefully constructed wall of grief.
"He said she was the healer of the Stormwind pack, Alpha. He said... he said he saw her with Alpha Lucian."
The world stopped.
She was alive.
She was alive, she was powerful, and she was with my greatest rival. The truth hit me with a force that sent me staggering back. She hadn't died. She had fled to my enemy's arms, and she had thrived. The rage I felt was so pure, so all-consuming, it eclipsed everything else. The grief, the regret, the curse… it all vanished, replaced by a singular, blinding purpose.
I would have her back. I would bring her home. And if Lucian thought he could hide her from me, he would learn what a true storm of an Alpha's fury could unleash.
I had been a king mourning a ghost. Now, I would be a warrior going to war for his queen.