★Nuel's pov★
My eyes snapped open as I stared wildly around me.
"Alpha…" a man's voice called, steady yet laced with concern. I turned toward him from the ground where I lay, his gaze fixed on me with an intensity that sent unease crawling beneath my skin.
I didn't know who he was, nor why he was calling me Alpha. The uniforms of the warriors behind him were strange to me too and the sigil painted across the carriage I had fallen from was unfamiliar as well.
I tried to stand, but my body, my joints, my very flesh, all of them wouldn't obey.
What is happening? I whispered to myself, fear tasting bitter on my tongue.
The man who had spoken stepped closer and extended his hand, offering to help me rise. I reached for it instinctively. But when I did, my hand didn't meet his. It slipped through, as if touching nothing but air.
I froze. My chest tightened.
Again, I tried, desperate to feel him, desperate to prove my doubts wrong. But no matter how many times I reached, I couldn't grasp him. My touch slid through his palm as though I didn't exist at all.
Panic rippled down my spine, a cold shiver tearing through me. The last thing I remembered was being pinned to the floor by Alpha Noca's wolf, his weight crushing the breath from my lungs. So how had I ended up here? In this strange wilderness, with strangers calling me Alpha?
It took what felt like an eternity before I managed to stand on my own. I ignored the hand he still held out.
What unsettled me most was this: he could see me, he could speak to me, yet it didn't feel like he truly saw me. It was as though I were trapped in some distorted play—watching events unfold through the body of another, speaking words that weren't mine, doing things I didn't will and yet being powerless to change any of it.
"Alpha Fenric of the Ironclaw Pack asks for your cooperation with his proposal, Alpha," the man said as I moved back toward the carriage I had tumbled from. His tone carried weight, but my mind was clouded. I couldn't even recall why or how I had fallen in the first place.
"Return words. I am not interested," I answered sharply, not sparing a thought before dismissing him.
In truth, I wanted to linger on his words, to weigh them carefully, if only to ground myself in this alien moment. But this Alpha—this self I inhabited—did not waste time brooding. He was decisive, abrupt, moving to climb back into the carriage.
Then I stopped. My body stilled.
"Alpha, Fenris of Ironclaw Pack has also invited you to his—"
The report died in my ears as a sudden pain ripped through my chest, sharp and merciless. Fire surged beneath my ribs, stealing my breath. I staggered, my vision trembling as though the world itself had cracked. My knees buckled and I would have fallen from the carriage again if not for the hands of my men catching me just in time.
"Alpha!" The man who had been reporting cried out, rushing forward. His voice carried authority, not the blind obedience of the others. His stance was firm, his presence commanding—he was no ordinary warrior. He had to be the Beta.
"Stop it. Stop it," I whispered, clutching my chest as the pain tore deeper with each second. It was as if my very soul was being bound—tied to something unseen, forced into a container far too small to hold it. A vessel meant for two when there was barely room for one. A mate bond.
I snapped. My sharp teeth forced their way out, my claws tearing through my skin as I lost control of my wolf. Muscles snapped, tendons strained and the royal robes that had clung to me split at the seams. Within moments, my body surrendered to the inevitable and I shifted—my wolf bursting free, shaking the night with a howl that clawed at the moon.
The moon loomed high above, pale and merciless, bearing witness as I cried into the silence. My men called after me, voices frantic, their cries drowned in the thundering of my paws as I bolted into the wild. They thought I had abandoned them. But when another wolf—a stranger, fierce and relentless—rushed out of the shadows to pursue me, they shifted as well and followed, howls rippling across the cursed night.
I ran. I ran until the earth blurred beneath my paws, until branches whipped against my body and thorns tore through my flesh. Mud sucked at my legs, trying to drag me down, but nothing could hold me back. I couldn't stop. I couldn't rest.
And the truth was—it wasn't even me running. This body, this wolf, felt foreign. Wrong. I had no wolf. I had never had one. Only my twin sister did. I kept on reminding myself incase I was loosing my memories.
All my life, I had performed the rituals, the sacrifices, every rite possible to sever myself from the mate bond. I wanted no part of it. I wanted no tether to the moon goddess's cruel joke, no strings tying my soul to another in the name of fate. I had succeeded. For years, I had lived free. Untouched and untethered just like i wanted.
So why now? Why, after all my defiance, was I suddenly being hunted by a wolf whose bond I did not choose?
I leapt, soaring high, claws sinking into the bark of an ancient tree. I climbed until the branches cradled me in their shadows. Hidden, I crouched, waiting, my breath steadying as I fought my wolf from within. He raged, snarled and thrashed, demanding I climb down, demanding I stop resisting, demanding I yield to the pull of the bond. But my will was iron and though he clawed at my mind, I held him at bay.
The forest thickened around me. My scent had grown faint, concealed by the deeper, darker part of the wild I had crossed into. The howls of my pack faded one by one until the night grew silent. They had stopped at the boundary. They dared not follow me further.
And I knew why.
This was no ordinary forest. This land was cursed—feared even by the most powerful alphas. Legends whispered of wolves who entered, never to return, their bones left to rot in the soil. Others who stumbled back alive carried curses etched into their flesh, unseen sicknesses that ate them alive for the rest of their days.
But I didn't care.
The only thing I cared about was escaping the bond. Escaping the chain I had spent my entire life refusing.
But as I was still drowning in my thoughts, a sharp scent sliced through the air around me. My wolf lifted his head, ears twitching, but before I could turn to find its source, movement blurred in the corner of my vision.
The wolf.
It leapt toward me, landing on the branch where I had hidden, its weight knocking me from my perch. I hit the ground hard, the impact rattling through me and before I could gather myself, its jaws sank deep into the side of my neck.
It wasn't a bite to kill.
It was possession.
A mark.
My eyes snapped open with a gasp. I shot upright, my body trembling. But I wasn't sprawled on the forest floor, nor did my back scream with pain from the fall. There were no thorn cuts gouging across my skin, no gashes from wild branches tearing me apart. Only faint red marks lingered across my body. Fading with herbs that had been applied to them. And then there was the searing pain.
The fire in my neck.
Exactly where the wolf had bitten me. Exactly where the mark now burned.
My hand shot up, pressing against the ache. I shuddered as realization sank in. It was where Alpha Noca's wolf had marked me.
I panicked.
I wasn't boiled alive in a cauldron of oil, nor shackled in an iron cage awaiting death. I wasn't a prisoner. I was… free. Free, lying on a bed, covered in soft sheets, in a place where death should have awaited me.
"How?" I whispered, confusion choking my voice.
"Are you alright?"
The question made me flinch. I spun around, my gaze locking on the owner of the voice. An elderly woman stood behind me, her eyes sharp and full of knowing. She studied me from head to toe, her stare lingering as if searching for something out of place, something I didn't want her to find.
I hadn't noticed her presence. I hadn't realized she'd been there the whole time I was trapped in my daze. Yet there she was. And ever since I had come here, she had been one of the few who showed me kindness.
"You've been unconscious for days now," she said softly, her voice lined with concern. "Are you alright?"