The Alpha's Cursed Virgin Bride

Blurb: The Alpha's Cursed Virgin Bride They told her she was born wrong. Not broken, not wicked-but dangerous. A girl who shouldn't be touched. A daughter kissed by the Moon Goddess under a cursed blood moon. A virgin to be kept, watched, traded. And one day-sacrificed. Lyra Thornveil didn't ask to be the daughter of an Alpha. She didn't ask to be hidden in high towers, whispered about in halls, or raised like an heirloom wrapped in silk. Her life has been one long silence. She knows what it means to be looked at but never seen. What it feels like to ache for a mother's hug and never get one. To sit through birthday dinners where no one touches their food because they're too afraid of her presence. She doesn't remember the last time someone held her hand. And now, at nineteen, her pack is falling apart. A strange sickness is killing their children-one by one, slow and cruel. The Elders need someone to blame. Someone expendable. Someone born under bad stars. So they choose her. They make a deal with the Alpha of Blackthorn, a man no one dares speak of unless they whisper. A man wrapped in shadows and sealed in silence. A man who once loved-and killed the woman he loved with nothing but a touch. Alpha Draven Blackthorn. The cursed Alpha. The untouchable. The myth. She's to be given to him as a bride under the blood moon. It's a marriage with no love, no future, and only one rule: Do. Not. Touch. Because if Draven touches his fated mate-if skin meets skin-she will die. Lyra doesn't fight it. She doesn't scream or beg. There's a strange calm to her. A quietness that isn't fear-it's exhaustion. It's resignation. It's the soft surrender of someone who was never really allowed to live, now being told she's meant to die. But the moment she steps over the border into Blackthorn territory, something shifts. The bond snaps. Not like a sweet spark-but like a burn. A wild, uncontrollable pull. She feels it like a wire under her skin, a heat curling in her bones. A raw, magnetic ache that screams one truth louder than any prophecy: He is hers. And she is his. But Draven won't look at her. Won't speak unless necessary. Keeps his hands locked in black gloves, arms stiff at his sides. His eyes are cold. Calculating. He doesn't trust her-and worse, he doesn't trust himself. Because Draven remembers the last time he fell in love. He remembers the blood. The screams. The way her body collapsed when he reached for her hand. And the Moon Goddess's punishment: to never feel love again without causing death. So he doesn't feel. Or... he tries not to. But Lyra is not quiet. Not like they expected. She's soft-spoken but not weak. She is terrified-but not willing to be forgotten again. She's curious, and brave in small, tragic ways. She asks him why he wears gloves. Why he never sleeps. Why he flinches when she gets too close. And when he doesn't answer, she doesn't give up. Because no one ever tried to understand her either. And now she sees it in him-that same haunted silence. That same hunger to be known. And slowly, painfully, something starts to change. Not with magic or prophecy or fate. But with small things. A look held too long. A dream where they meet-not in body, but in soul-and wake up breathless, shaken. A gloved hand offered during a storm, when Lyra thinks she might collapse. A whisper in the dark: "I'm not afraid of dying," she tells him. "I'm afraid of never being touched before I do." And still-he keeps his distance. Because Draven is terrified. Not of her. Of himself. He's seen death take love before. He won't let it happen again. But the truth is: he's already touching her. In her thoughts. In her dreams. In the way she no longer feels cold when he's in the room. In the way her body aches when he's near-but not near enough. And Lyra? She starts to change too. She stops believing she's cursed. She starts wondering if it was all a lie. Why can she feel his heartbeat in her dreams? Why can she hear his voice when she bleeds? Why does the pain feel more like a prison than fate? And then she uncovers it: The curse was never real. Not in the way they said. Not divine. Not holy. It was put on her. Bound in blood. By someone she trusted. To stop her from loving him. Because the union of Thornveil and Blackthorn? It was never meant to destroy the world. It was meant to save it. But the Elders lied. To keep their control. To silence her power. To break Draven's spirit. And now-now that she knows-there's only one thing left to do. Break the rule. Just once. To touch him. To test the curse. To see if it was real-or just another cage built by people too afraid of what love could become if left unchecked. What happens next? Blood. Heat. Fire. Truth. Draven's gloves come off. Lyra's red thread breaks. And everything-everything they were told to fear-comes crashing down. But in that destruction? There's freedom. And maybe a chance of love that doesn't end in death