Chapter 4 The Beast Without a Wolf

Ava's POV

The air in the Ironwood Forest was a physical pain. It was sharp, freezing, and smelling of ancient pine and snow.

We'd been riding hard for hours, putting as much distance as possible between us and the burning palace. Caeser finally slowed the weary warhorse to a trot, guiding us through a dense thicket until we reached a shallow cave tucked beneath a heavy cluster of exposed roots.

He slid off the horse first, then gently lifted me down. My legs felt so numb, my body shaking violently from the cold and the adrenaline dump.

"We stop here," Caeser said, his voice flat and strained. He unsaddled the horse, giving it a heavy pat before shooing it off into the deeper woods. "It's safer if it's not tied down."

I sank against the cold, damp stone of the cave wall, pulling my thin tunic tighter.

With all the running and everything we'd been doing, it was only normal that I felt as exhausted as I did.

I watched him work. He was practical, focused, gathering dry leaves and snapping dead branches with unsettling strength.

What kind of wolf was he?

The contradiction was jarring. He was undeniably an Alpha-the sheer, crushing power, the way he moved, and commanded people.

But something was fundamentally wrong.

Every wolf, no matter how strong, carried an aura-a subtle, unique scent that communicated their rank, their mood, their very identity.

A strong Alpha's scent could dominate a room.

Caeser Varyn had nothing.

I had been pressed against him, wrapped in his arms for hours, and there was no scent. Not a drop of musk, earth, or leather.

He smelled like cold stone and the faint, coppery scent of the blood he'd spilled. He was a vacuum of scent, an Alpha ghost. It was terrifying.

"You're staring," he murmured, crouching over the meager fire he'd brought to life.

"You're bleeding," I countered, the words shaky. "From the fight in the hall. You took a blade to the ribs."

During the confusion, one of the guards had managed a shallow strike. I hadn't seen the severity until now.

He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "A scratch."

"A scratch that needs stitches," I insisted, pulling myself closer. I reached into the small, dirty pouch I always kept tied to my waist-the remnant of my life as a glorified slave who sometimes gathered healing herbs for the cook. I pulled out a handful of crushed feverfew and a strip of torn cloth. "I know how to clean wounds. It's what I did in the scullery."

He hesitated, the firelight catching the sharp, scarred planes of his face. He seemed to be fighting an invisible battle. "Be quick, then."

I pulled the tunic away from the wound. It was a deep, ragged slice, but what made my breath hitch wasn't the depth. It was the color of the blood.

"Alpha Caeser," I whispered, my voice thick with fear.

"Caeser," he corrected.

"What?"

"You're to call me just Caeser. Drop the title," he mumbled, looking away from me.

Oh....

"Uhm...okay then. I just wanted to say, your blood... it's silver."

It wasn't a mistake. The thick, viscous fluid oozing from the cut was the color of tarnished sterling.

"I told you," he said, his voice hard. "I'm cursed."

I ignored the color, focusing on the task. I pressed the herbs to the wound, trying to ignore the pulsing heat of the mark on my wrist, which was now throbbing in rhythm with my mate's close presence.

As my fingers, still stained with dirt, made contact with the skin around his wound, the ground shook.

A violent surge of energy-like a lightning strike hitting wet earth-slammed into me. My eyes flew open in shock.

The fire in the pit roared up instantly, a pillar of hungry, blue-tinged flame, and the crescent mark on my wrist felt like it was going to tear my skin apart.

Caeser yelled. Not a yelp of pain, but a deep, guttural sound of pure, raw anguish. He slapped my hand away so violently I cried out, clutching my throbbing wrist to my chest.

He was breathing hard, his chest heaving, silver blood now staining his tunic near his neck where a vein pulsed visibly. The sudden, terrifying energy had died as quickly as it came, leaving the fire normal and the air smelling faintly of ozone.

"Never do that again," he warned in a low, fierce snarl as his silver eyes blazed with a mixture of pain and serious warning. "Don't touch me like that. Not while the bond is new. Your touch... it ignites something. It's too much."

I backed away, terrified, curling into a ball against the stone. "I was just trying to help you heal."

"Your 'help' almost fractured my control," he spat out, pulling the tunic back down over the wound, uncaring about the bleeding. "Don't think your bond makes you exempt from the danger I pose, Ava. It makes you a conduit for it."

The cold words stung more than any blow. I didn't try to speak again. I just lay there, shivering, watching the flames.

Sure, he was a monster, but he was my monster.

Eventually, exhaustion claimed me. I drifted into sleep, a restless, dark place filled with the smell of smoke and silver blood.

I dreamt. I was standing on a mountaintop under a black sky. A massive silver wolf, shimmering with an unearthly light, stood before me.

It wasn't the natural grey of a regular wolf; it was molten silver, scars marring its flank, its eyes glowing white. It threw its head back and let out a long, desperate howl that was undeniably my name.

Ava. Ava. Ava.

The howl was sorrow, fury, and utter longing all wrapped into one sound.

I woke with a gasp, sweat slicking my skin despite the cold air. The fire was almost dead.

And Caeser was gone.

My heart leaped into my throat. Panic, cold and fear threatened to overwhelm me.

He left me. He ran. He decided I wasn't worth the fight after all.

I scrambled out of the cave, my bare feet hitting the frozen ground. Snow had begun to fall, a light, dusting layer. But it hadn't fallen long enough to cover the tracks.

Caeser's boot prints led away from the cave, heading deeper into the Ironwood. He hadn't been running; the steps were slow and heavy. He'd left me, but he hadn't abandoned me entirely.

Why leave? He was just healing. He was wounded.

I followed the tracks, my bare feet burning on the frozen ground. I didn't think about the cold, the risk, or the fact that I was running after a man who bled silver and radiated cold power.

I just knew I couldn't be alone again. Not now. Not when the Moon Goddess had finally, brutally, given me someone to belong to.

The tracks led to a small clearing dominated by a single, still pool of water, illuminated by the high, pale crescent moon.

And there he was.

He was kneeling at the edge of the water, his tunic ripped open at the chest, revealing the thick, knotted scars that crisscrossed his torso. He was staring into his reflection.

And he was screaming.

It wasn't the angry snarl from the hall or the grunt of pain from the cave. It was a raw, primal noise, a sound of agony and rejection that was identical to the howl from my dream.

He was gripping the edges of the pool, his knuckles white, his head thrown back to the sky.

I crept closer, hiding behind a thick, ancient pine. I peered over the edge and looked into the moonlit water, searching for the source of his terror.

Caeser Varyn's reflection was not Caeser Varyn.

In the still water, his face was obscured by shadow. His body was not the massive, scarred figure of a man, but a terrifying, shifting monstrosity-a creature of total shadow and twisted bone, with eyes that glowed not silver, but a hollow, malignant yellow. It was a figure of corruption, a wolf that had been broken and rebuilt into a beast.

It was the fulfillment of the King's seer's prophecy. It was the curse.

He suddenly stopped screaming, his head snapping up. He hadn't heard me or smelled me, but he knew I was there. The bond was a razor-sharp line between us.

He slowly turned, his eyes red-rimmed and filled with a despair so deep it was an ocean. He didn't try to hide his ruined appearance. He didn't try to comfort me.

He simply gestured to the moonlit pool, his voice stripped bare, laced with deep self-hatred.

"This," he said, his eyes drilling into me, "is the curse you just bound yourself to."