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EVE

I wasn’t sure if I was about to shift, collapse, or throttle the old woman right here on the Moonstone Plateau. A biting wind rose, making my loose hair fly around me, and I was momentarily blinded.

My wolf stirred beneath my skin, a faint hum that spread through my limbs. It wasn’t strong—more like a distant drumbeat—but it was enough to make my head spin. The kiss, Logan’s promises, and this witch of a woman, standing here threatening everything I didn’t even realize I wanted until now—it was too much.

“Seeing as the alpha is already showing rather a lot,” she said, gesturing to Logan’s nakedness, “how about I start with a tell?”

I forced myself to breathe, to focus. “You are such a fucking bottom-feeder, Mariyah,” I snapped. “You always have a motive, so why don’t you spit it out already?”

“Feisty today! His alpha energy has emboldened you, hmm?” She turned to Logan. “I can tell she hasn’t told you,” she said, with mock pity dripping from her lips. “Dear Alpha, you don’t understand how curses work, do you?”

Logan stiffened beside me, his jaw tight. “Enlighten me,” he growled.

She spread her hands as if addressing an audience. “It’s simple, really. There are those who speak a curse, and then…” She tilted her head toward me. “There can be one who is the curse herself.”

Her words sent a chill down my spine. Logan’s head snapped to me, but I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t bear to see any doubt in his face.

“I tried to help you see the light,” Mariyah continued, addressing Logan. “To guide you toward salvation. But the Heraclids… well, they’re not patient folk. My hand is being forced, and now…” She sighed dramatically. “All your forefathers built, all the alphas of Orion fought for, will be snuffed out like a candle.”

Logan stepped forward, towering and commanding. “If you think I’m going to let you or the Heraclids take what’s mine?—”

“Yours?” Her laugh was high-pitched and brittle. “Oh, Alpha, possession doesn’t equate to righteousness.”

Back and forth they continued. I couldn’t focus on their words anymore. My wolf was scraping at the walls of her cage, desperate to get out.

Something was stirring, something that began to explain parts of my past. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more.

“The truth is awakening in you, little dove. I see it on your face.” There was a glint in her eyes that showed how pleased she was to see my suffering. “What I’m about to say will come as no surprise.”

Don’t. Don’t. I prayed that anything but what I felt would fall from her lips.

“You are a curse, Eve. You .”

I couldn’t look away, even though I wanted to. She held me captive, like she was peeling away layers I’d spent years building to keep myself safe.

Logan growled, a low rumble beside me, his wolf barely held back. I knew he was in a protective stance even without looking at him, the heat radiating off his body like a shield.

“I’m not.” I took a deep breath and stood straighter. “I’m not.”

The old woman clicked her tongue, shaking her head as if disappointed. “Still lying to yourself. You always were good at that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do,” she countered, cruel satisfaction in her eyes. She stepped closer, oppressive, filling the space. “Every vision you’ve ever given, every single one, carried that curse with it. Every. One. ”

My head spun, memories rising up of visions that foretold of everything from illness to investments to wars.

“Think about it,” she said. “Why do you think your visions bring nothing but pain and ruin? Can’t you see why the Heraclids were so desperate to keep you locked away, spitting out prophecies like a broken puppet?”

My stomach churned as the past clawed its way to the surface—visions I’d buried because they hurt too much to remember. Packs torn apart by their own claws. Alpha bonds splintered. Wolves consumed by grief or rage, and always, always the same hollow truth: my visions didn’t save anyone. They destroyed them. Every time.

Was it true? The question pulsed through me, a wound ripped open. I had always thought the darkness in my visions was a reading of fate.

But now…

Had I foretold their ruin… or caused it?

“You see, every time you opened your mouth to speak, every time you told those Heraclid monsters what you saw, a curse followed. It seeped into every word, every image. You didn’t just predict destruction, child—you brought it.”

My knees threatened to give out beneath me. I felt Logan’s hand on my arm, steadying me. I still couldn’t look at him.

“You said it yourself, didn’t you?” Mariyah continued, and if I hadn’t known better, I’d have said there was pity in her tone. “You saw him in your visions. You thought it meant he’d save you. That he was your knight in shining armor, come to rescue the poor little oracle.”

I swallowed hard, my throat dry. The image of Logan, fierce and unyielding in my visions, burned in my mind.

“Even then,” her words seeped like poison, “you cursed him. Before you ever met him, before you even knew his name, you were already his undoing.”

Logan growled. His voice cut through the suffocating weight of her words. “We have no reason to believe you with the havoc you’ve caused,” he snarled, his wolf flashing in his eyes.

“She’s a danger to everyone around her,” Mariyah snapped. “Even you, Alpha Logan. Or haven’t you noticed? Your pack, your people—the division that has settled in what used to be the most unified pack under the Shadow Moon. She’s not the first and she won’t be the last oracle wolf to cause such trouble for your pack.”

“Just because the Heraclids manipulated her doesn’t mean she’s responsible,” Logan said, like he believed it. “It’s not because of this supposed curse you won’t stop throwing in our faces.”

“Oh, it’s a curse, alright,” the woman said, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. “One she was born with. And if her mother hadn’t abandoned her to the Heraclids, she’d have cursed the entire Crux pack into extinction by now.”

That hit me harder than anything else she’d said. “What did you say?” I could barely get the words out.

“Your mother, girl. The great alpha of the Crux pack. She knew what you were, what you’d bring down on her people. So she gave you up. Sacrificed you to save the rest of her kind.”

Images of my mother flooded my mind—the softness of her voice as she hummed to me, the strength in her arms as she carried me through the night, the love and sorrow that rolled off her the day she left.

“I was just a little kid.”

“She knew the truth about you.” Mariyah nodded. “You’re not just cursed, Evensong. You are the curse.” Mariyah stepped back, pulling her cloak tighter around her. “You can fight it all you want,” she said. “The truth doesn’t care whether you believe it.”

My thoughts cascaded in a thousand directions at once and I tried to grab ahold of any of them, to start to put the pieces together.

Something else caught my attention .

The old woman’s heart.

Her pulse was faint, but not faint in the way a weak heart would be. It was deliberate, like each beat was carefully measured, slower than any heartbeat should be. It was wrong, unnatural, and yet…

Something wasn’t right.

“What do you want?” I asked with a calmness that came from the Shadow Moon Goddess herself, because there was no way I had any idea how I was so collected.

“What do I want?”

“That’s right.” I continued sensing her heartbeat, knowing I was onto something. “What are you looking for in all of this?”

“With all I’ve revealed to you, that’s your question?”

“There’s no reason for you to implicate yourself in my life,” I spat out. “You need something out of it.”

“I need you to be under control ,” she replied quickly, nostrils flaring.

“You don’t need anything from me,” I countered.

“Oh yes, I do.” She sauntered toward me, extending her finger and lifting my chin. A vibration ran down my spine directly into the core of me, stirring my wolf and holding me in place. “Our futures are so closely entwined, I can’t sleep until you and your rogue powers are put back in their place. Little dove, I found you at last. The one who is a scourge on all packs.”

She stepped back, releasing her power over me and leaving behind a burning in my bones.

“Hopefully it’s not too late,” she murmured, gripping the edge of her cloak. “Or else it’s too late for all of us. ”

And then she ran.

Her form blurred as she shifted mid-stride, her cloak falling away to reveal a wolf so perfectly camouflaged she seemed to become a tree in the forest.

Logan moved to follow. I grabbed his arm.

“Let her go,” I whispered, watching her faded form retreat.

I sank to my knees.

Her words were crushing me, killing me. Let me be swallowed whole by the ground below. Logan dropped down beside me, pulling me into his arms.

“What she said changes nothing,” he said. I couldn’t believe him. “I swear to you, Eve.”

He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world, like we could snap our fingers and unravel the tangled mess of curses, fate, and choices that led us here.

But it wasn’t simple. Her accusations were dragging me into a despair more pervasive than any other I’d known. Something inside me had fractured. Broken pieces of myself, jagged and sharp, cutting deeper with every breath.

Logan didn’t move. He didn’t flinch.

His certainty was overwhelming, almost unbearable. I wanted to argue, to push him away, to tell him I wasn’t worth it, that whatever bond the Shadow Moon Goddess forced on us was a mistake. When I looked into his eyes, the words died in my throat.

“I promise, Eve.”

He wasn’t just saying it.

He believed it. Every word.

“I was meant to find you,” he whispered into my ear. “Whatever this is—curse, fate, or whatever—it’s ours. Forever. I know that as well as I know myself. Whatever is happening to you, I swear, I won’t stop until I’ve found what you need to heal.”

His words cracked something deep inside me. “You heard her. You know what I am. How can you still?—”

“Because you’re mine ,” he said, his words cutting through my doubts like a blade. “You are my mate, Eve. Whatever you’re carrying, whatever weight is crushing you, it’s mine too. And I will carry it.”

The certainty in his voice left no room for argument.

“Logan…” I whispered.

His hand lifted, brushing my cheek, his thumb catching a tear. The tenderness in his touch unraveled me completely, my defenses crumbling like sand beneath a tidal wave.

“I will save you.”

The dam inside me broke. For the first time in years—maybe ever—I let myself fall.

His warmth enveloped me, a pillar as the storm inside me raged.

“I’m scared,” I admitted, the words muffled against his chest. “I don’t know how to stop this. I don’t know if I can.”

“You don’t have to,” he said, firm. “That’s my job. You just have to trust me.”

Trust. I wanted to fight it, to reject it, to hold on to the walls I’d built to protect myself. I couldn’t. Because he was here.

My fingers curled into his shirt, my breath catching as I let the reality of it settle over me.

He was mine too .

“I trust you,” I whispered, the words slipping out before I could stop them.

His arms tightened around me, his breath warm against my hair. “Good,” he said. “Because I’m not letting you go.”