Chapter 2 The Curse.

Bryan

As I stared at myself in the mirror while fixing my tie, I could see an exhausted wraith looking back at me. I had dark, nearly black circles under my eyes from years of little to no sleep piling up against me.

It had been a long five years since I took the throne from my father, and there was still so much left to do. There was always something to address. For every item I crossed off my list to build the pack in the way I envisioned, fresh, new hellish problems emerged that I had to deal with-problems that haunted me every night, issues that plagued my thoughts on repeat, attacking my weary mind. For me, sleep meant worry, not dreams.

Between creating the patrol charts, organizing the schedules, and overseeing every other detail while running the pack, my job never seemed finished. Yet, the urge to find my mate grew.

I tried to dismiss it, as finding a mate felt like a distraction from getting the real work done, but I could never fully suppress the urge of the beast inside me.

So, I made time to look. I visited many packs throughout the kingdom over the last five years in search of her. My lycan, Shawn, constantly paced within me, making me feel like a caged animal desperate to find her.

A mate could ease the growing tension between Shawn and me. As much as I understood the need to find my mate, I didn't want to feel chained to someone for the rest of my life just yet or to burden someone else with my mountain of problems.

My father always said it was better to be with a mate than with other females, but I was still young. Thirty is young for a lycan. It isn't until someone reaches over one hundred that anyone starts to call a lycan old. I still had time to find her.

Maybe I should take a break from this distraction and refocus on my work. I needed to get into a better headspace to find a mate.

My eyes flashed blue as Shawn surged to the surface to confront me. No. Find a mate now. End the curse.

It always annoyed me when he chose to do this. The constant push to find my mate only frustrated me. Shawn acted like one of my annoying advisors or needy subjects, but I couldn't shut myself away from something that could boil up inside me. I could see the redness of my skin creeping up my neck as I contemplated throwing my lycan into a mental cage just to make him stop.

Unfortunately, most of the time, that didn't work either.

The anger grew as I realized what Shawn had mentioned: the curse. That fucking curse.

Following my father's sudden death and my subsequent ascension to the throne, I began casually dating to find a mate. Nothing ever serious, but at least a few months to find someone to choose as my luna, in case I never find my mate. Not everyone finds their fated mate in this world, and I refused to believe I would find mine.

It was only a year or so ago that the other alphas in the neighboring kingdoms found their mates. Alaric's mate, Tala, turned out to be a white lycan, bringing peace to their kingdom like nothing I had ever seen before. If only there were more females like her, then I would be on the hunt daily to find mine. But alas, there is only one white lycan. Even Talon found his mate, but that's only recently been solidified. It took them a few years to find theirs, so I knew there wasn't much of a chance I'd find mine within a short time frame.

So casual dating became, and it led me to being cursed.

Witches weren't common throughout the kingdoms, but they existed. There were far fewer witches than lycans, and sightings were rare. Some didn't even believe they existed. Yet I found one at a tavern during one of my trips to visit a pack. That woman must have bewitched me because I couldn't stop myself from taking her to my bed. I heard rumors that witches were wild in the bedroom, and those rumors were true. I spent two months with the witch before I realized it was nothing more than sex and that it distracted me from my pack duties. I called off the relationship.

She was a witch, not a lycan. I couldn't mark her even if I wanted to.

And then the bitch turned around and cursed me in a language I didn't understand. Whatever details there were about what she did to me were known only to her.

Since then, my hunt for a mate and my sex life had become painfully slow. Every female I met felt off-putting. Grating. Nothing about them made me want to bring them to my bed for some fun after realizing they weren't my mate. It frustrated me to no end, with the witch's laugh echoing in my mind each time I turned down a female.

I pulled out the hair product to slick back my dark blond hair when I caught the sound of approaching footsteps inside my room. The growl ripped through me, as everyone in the pack knew I preferred my privacy. The outline of my beta's lean build came into view first before his citrusy scent hit my nose. I tapered down my growl and returned to looking in the mirror.

"What do you want, Gunner?"

He chuckled. "Looks like not getting any lately has really messed with you. Maybe you should apologize to that sexy witch of yours so you can get laid."

Another growl emitted from my throat as I sprayed the mousse into my hand and threaded my fingers through my hair. "Annalise is long gone. Not sure if that hag is even lurking around in our kingdom anymore. She knows I've sent scouts out to find her."

Gunner's shaggy black hair and gray eyes came into view while he wore a smirk. The asshole was far too laid back for a lycan, in my opinion. The dominance in him could rival my own if he found his mate before I found mine, and I didn't have the power of all the lycans in the kingdom tied to me. Dominance equaled power. Power made lycans crave violence. Yet Gunner was the least violent person I knew. He could wipe the floor with anyone who challenged him, but he also never sought a fight. There were times I purposely stirred the pot in a bar just to fight. Not Gunner, though.

"Seriously, dude. I just think you need to get laid."

"If only that could happen, but Anna's curse makes every female repulsive to me. At least, that's what I think the curse did to me."

"You told a witch you didn't love her, after she confessed her feelings. It sounds like the perfect excuse for her to curse you, so every female looks hideous to you."

I sighed. That could be it, but something I hadn't told my beta was that females still looked sexy to me. That was the problem. I had the appetite, and I wanted nothing more than to take them to my bedroom and make them scream my name. However, the urge to actually act on these impulses and desires wasn't there. It was as if the witch made my dick stop working. That was a problem for a lycan. We craved touch, craved sex.

Not me.

Not anymore.

Anger surged inside me. "I could kill the bitch for doing this to me. She had no business cursing a king!" I gripped my sink, and I heard the crack from the marble as my anger coursed through me. This was why I didn't think about Annalise. Thinking about her made me want to tear everything apart.

Another reason to have the scouts looking for her. Over the years, I had delved into the lore of a witch's curse and how to undo it. Most of the lore stated that only the witch could remove any spell she had cast on you. It was her magic that needed undoing, and only hers could reverse it. Considering that the use of magic was limited to magic wielders, it wasn't like I could find ingredients and perform a spell myself. That would be too easy.

If she wouldn't remove this blasted curse, then the lore said I could kill her to lift it.

Killing something right now sounded incredible. Killing Annalise sounded much better than that.

My silence must have made my beta uncomfortable. It was his throat-clearing that pulled me out of my thoughts. Bloodlust had a scent, and I must have smelled like it for Gunner to look at me the way he did. I let myself relax just enough for that look to disappear.

Gunner crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the door frame when I calmed down. "You just need to find your mate, boss."

"Like that is simple to do," I snarled.

He chuckled. "It would be if you actually planned a route through the kingdom. It would be good publicity for you as king to visit the packs. It's also a way for you to meet unmated females and find your mate."

That wasn't a bad idea at all. I had done something similar over the years, but nothing too lengthy because I didn't want to be away from the pack for long. It could take me a couple of months, but I could travel through the kingdom to find my mate.

Gunner wasn't mated, either. If I found my mate and brought power into the kingdom and pack, it would be even better to have a mated beta as well. But there was the concern about leaving the pack without an alpha or a beta. I'd have to leave the kingdom and the pack in the hands of my third. The man was good as a gamma, but he didn't have the experience running the pack like Gunner did during the last time I left for a few weeks.

"Before you try to back out of that kind of plan just because you don't want to leave everything to Eric, stop."

I looked over at my beta, and his gray eyes hardened at me.

"You are a king. If you want the kingdom to thrive, you need your queen at your side."

That was a sobering thought. A mate was about to bring balance to the lycan, and mine was throwing himself at the cage to be let loose to run. He didn't like the idea of not adventuring through the kingdom to find our mate. Maybe if I did this and found her, I could finally get some rest.

"What would be the best route through the kingdom?" I asked Gunner.

He smiled, and I could scent his happiness. Gunner seemed to have hoped I would ask that question from the look on his face. "If that means I get to plan the trip because I'm coming along, I'm in. My lycan has been craving a mate for the last few months. No one in our pack has caught his fancy."

This was why I figured I'd be leaving everything to Eric, my gamma, while we were gone. Wherever I went, Gunner followed. That's how it had been since we were kids, and it hadn't changed. I chuckled. This was why I needed Gunner as my beta. His laid-back energy and jokes made the day breeze by. "Sounds like a plan. Want to talk about it after we go for a run?"

He smiled. "Fuck yeah! Let's let the lycans out and then plan our way through the kingdom. Maybe during the trip, you can get laid to settle down."