The Curse

by Harper A. Brooks

  Erec pressed his face between the bars. “Go!”

  Behind her, Kalle was calling her name in a frantic whisper. The footsteps were getting closer.

  As much as her heart told her she couldn’t, her sense was telling her she had to go. If Jerrick caught her, too, then all was lost. She ripped herself away from the cage and forced her feet to step backward. Her body was heavy, each movement weighed down by her regret to leave him behind like this.

  The farther she got, the more the fear of never seeing him again crashed into her. What if this was the last time they were together? What if he never knew how she felt about him? Pain twisted in her chest.

  “I—I—” The shadows moved beyond the cage, locking the words she so desperately wanted to tell him in her throat.

  “Jerrick plans to attack the morning after the Blue Moon,” he said, the words jumbled and rushed. “Tell Filip.”

  The half smile he gave her was somehow sad. Was he thinking the same thing? Could this really be the end for them both?

  When Astrid reached the bush where Kalle and Bec were hiding, she glanced at Erec one last time, taking in as much of him as she could in those seconds. She engraved the image of him into her memory—the stormy color of his eyes, the strong lines of his jaw, and the wheat color of his hair. She wanted to remember every detail just in case…just in case…

  Her eyes stung as tears rushed forward. But before she could linger long enough to change her mind, she spun and followed Bec’s wolf farther away from the cage and Jerrick’s camp. With every step, the pack bond between her and Erec stretched thinner, until finally, his sorrow and worry became nothing more than a heaviness she carried in her heart.

  Chapter Twenty

  The moment Astrid disappeared into the trees, the approaching figure broke free of the shadows. It was Eva. And she was carrying a large quilt in her hands.

  If she had caught Astrid’s scent on the breeze, her expression held no sign of it. Erec let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, but the tension in his muscles didn’t ease. Eva was better than Jerrick or any of his men, but he didn’t know what this woman was capable of. He didn’t know her at all. And with Astrid’s flowery scent still riding the wind, who knew if Eva had sent someone to investigate or follow the trail.

  When Eva came to the cage, she was silent, but she gave him a smile that appeared kind-hearted and genuine. With her so close, Erec found even more similarities in her features, right down to the curves of her mouth when she grinned. It was unsettling, like staring at a reflection rather than a stranger. But that’s exactly what this woman was—a stranger. And mated with the enemy.

  “I brought you a blanket. I figured you’d be cold out here.” Her tone was inviting yet careful as she pushed the dirty brown quilt through the bars.

  Erec only stared at it cautiously. The pink in her cheeks, the sweet nature of her smile, the brightness to her eyes…they were all part of a welcoming disposition, one that spoke of a trustworthy person, but he wasn’t ready to fall for any charade this woman was putting on. Mother or not.

  When he didn’t reach for the blanket, Eva tilted her head to the side. “It’s the warmest one we have…” she said. “At least until the moon rises and you can wear your wolf again.”

  The wind bristled, changing direction, slapping against the exposed skin on his face and arms. It was deadly to be out in the open during a storm such as this. His fingertips were already numb, and it was still hours before nightfall. How would he be able to survive that long in this icy snow and relentless wind? He eyed the blanket, his entire body shaking.

  “Here,” she crooned. “Take it.”

  He did and quickly wrapped the thing around himself. The fabric was scratchy against his skin but so warm, he almost moaned. When he inhaled, a surprising scent tickled his nose. The blanket smelled bitter and sweet, like blackberries picked right off the bush, ready to be eaten. The strangest thing of all was that he recognized it.

  It was her scent—somehow he knew it was. Breathing it in again had stirred something from his memory, something from a long time ago. But no matter how hard he tried, he still couldn’t drudge up a simple instance of her in his life before this. The only recollections he had of his childhood were of Mikel. No one else.

  Yet some base part of him knew her smell.

  How could that be? Unless…she really was his mother.

  “Why are you here?” he asked, the question nagging at him. “I thought Jerrick wanted me to freeze in here because I refused his offer to be a part of his deranged scheme.”

  “I snuck away,” she whispered, her voice barely audible against the storm. “I don’t have much time before he discovers I’m gone.”

  “Why take the risk?”

  She paused. “Because whether you want to believe it or not, Erec, you are my son. I lost you once. I don’t want to lose you again.” There was a sadness in her stare that spoke of truth. Her eyes glistened with tears. “These past years have been torturous. For the longest time, I thought you were dead. I just…I can’t believe you’re here.”

  Erec tried not to be swayed by her sorrow, but still his chest clenched. “If I am your son, like you say, why did you abandon me? I grew up thinking my parents were dead and that I was an orphan. Why?”

  Eva let out a long sigh before speaking. Pain etched across her features. “Jerrick always had harder, more aggressive tactics when it came to certain things. He’s impatient.” She glanced over her shoulder, as if she was expecting him to pop out of the shadows at any moment. When she confirmed they were still alone, she turned back to Erec. “You were an independent and rambunctious little boy.” She smiled briefly, as if remembering something Erec couldn’t. “You didn’t like to be told what to do.”

  Curious, he waited, listening.

  “Jerrick was always so hard on you. I never understood why. You were just a child. A baby still…” She sniffed. “He’s had this dream ever since I’ve met him, and no one was going to slow him down or hold him back from it. No one.”

  “Not even his own son.” Erec finished her thought, unable to keep the bitterness from his tone.

  She shook her head. “No…no one. He hates disobedience of any kind. One night, he snapped. I couldn’t control him that time. He made the pack leave you alone in the woods. He wouldn’t let me take you back. I tried—”

  So he had been abandoned, forced to survive most of his life thinking his parents were dead, all because Jerrick had lost his temper? Erec ground his teeth until pain shot up his jaw to his temples. If it had been anyone else, he wouldn’t believe a person could be so cruel and cold-hearted, but Jerrick wasn’t a normal man. He was psychotic.

  “I snuck away the next morning to find you, but by then, you were gone.” Eva’s voice shook. “I blamed myself for years. I still blame myself…” She walked over to the cage and pressed her face between the bars. She reached out a hand toward him and smiled. “But you’re alive. I can’t believe you’re here again.”

  “In a cage,” Erec replied drily, only staring at her stretched-out fingers, “as Jerrick’s prisoner.”

  Her arm fell to her side, and her smile vanished. “I know. I’m trying to convince him to let you out. After he found you in Mikel’s pack, it took me some time to get him to agree to keep you alive and bring you back here. Now, he wants you to rule the pack by his side. As his son.”

  “And that’s a good thing?” he snapped. “I will not help him hurt or murder another innocent soul.”

  “You can’t keep fighting him, Erec!” Her voice shook as it rose. “He’s too powerful. Please. Just do what he says. I don’t want to lose you again.”

  “I’m going to stop him. I have to. Whatever that means I have to do, I don’t care.”

  Eva pressed her lips together as a tear slid down her cheek. For a few breaths, she said nothing, only stared at him. Then her voice lowered but stayed just as urgent. “What if I can promise you the woman won’t be touche
d? The one with the red hair? What if I can get Jerrick to allow her into our pack, so that you can save her from the curse and be together?”

  Erec’s heart plummeted. She’d seen Astrid. She knew she had been here.

  “You love her,” Eva continued against his silence. “Your father has a different idea about the curse, but I know it takes true love to break it.”

  “Don’t call him that,” Erec growled, his anger spiking immediately. “He’s not my father.”

  Eva’s gaze locked with his, silently pleading with him. “I know she’s the one for you. If I can get Jerrick to promise to leave her unharmed, will you let this animosity go?”

  He was about to shoot back a rejection, but Astrid’s face floated into his thoughts, making him pause. He had a chance to save her from the Blue Moon and from Jerrick’s next attack. They could be together again, safe from Jerrick’s destruction.

  At what cost? The death of her family and the pack that took him in? He couldn’t agree to this. But if he didn’t, Eva could go back and tell Jerrick that Astrid had been here. He might move up his plans to take out the west-side pack.

  Astrid wouldn’t want the life Eva was suggesting. He knew her well enough to be sure she’d rather die fighting for her people than take the selfish way out. And so would he.

  “If you want to help me, let me out of this cage, so I can survive the Blue Moon and save her, too. Let me go.”

  “I-I can’t…” she whispered after a long moment. “You know I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can,” he replied with more force. “Jerrick wouldn’t know it was you. We can make it look like I escaped on my own.”

  She said nothing, but fear widened her eyes.

  “If you want to truly help me, let me go,” Erec said.

  “You don’t know Jerrick.” She glanced over her shoulder again to the shadows. “You don’t know what he’s capable of. He’ll know. He always knows.”

  Any hope Erec had of escaping in time was quickly slipping away. Jerrick had too much power over his mate. It seemed Eva wasn’t going to be of any help to him.

  “Please, Erec,” she begged. “Can we just be a family again?”

  She was offering him what he had always wanted—a mother and a father and a home—but instead of hope, the word brought the image of Mikel into his thoughts, followed by the gruesome memory of Jerrick snapping his neck and laughing manically.

  Fury exploded inside him. He’d had a father. Maybe not by blood, but Mikel had always been there and had given Erec a steady place to stay whenever he was tired of running from his insecurities. Mikel had believed in him, even when he had given up on himself.

  The night of the ambush, Jerrick had taken his real father away, and now he was trying to destroy the only place Erec had ever felt he belonged. His place was with the west-side pack, with Astrid.

  Mikel had been right. It didn’t take blood to be kin. Astrid, Filip, Mila, Henrick, and all the others—they were his family. And he’d be damned if he let Jerrick take them from him, too.

  “No.” Erec’s growl was ferocious, more wolf than man when it rumbled past his lips. “We were never a family. And we never will be.”

  Another tear cascaded down Eva’s round cheek. “Erec—”

  He threw the blanket at her. It hit the cage bars and landed in a heap on the floor. The wind smacked against his exposed skin instantly, causing it to tingle. Erec wanted nothing she had to offer him. Not even the warmth that could save his life from the winter storm.

  “Please, Erec. If you would just listen to me—”

  “You need to leave,” he cut her off. The rage snapping inside him was sharp and fast.

  Eva’s shoulders fell, but when she didn’t move away, Erec let out a vicious snarl, and she jumped back.

  “Leave! Like you did all those years ago! Leave!”

  Her glassy blue eyes reflected the pain his words had caused her. “I’m so sorry.” Her voice cracked as more tears fell.

  Sympathy tugged at him, but he kept it off his face. One part of him said Eva didn’t deserve any kind of leniency, especially from him, but the other part was a little sorry for her. It was obvious Jerrick held all the power, even in their relationship. How could she even have a voice with him around?

  Still, he watched her leave without stopping her. There were too many things nagging at him to let his anger go completely. She should have fought harder for him. He was her son, after all. She could have done something more to keep him. How could someone just let their son go?

  Erec cursed and walked over to the edge of the cage. He picked up the crumpled blanket and slung it over his shoulders. It reeked of her sweet and sour scent but was incredibly warm.

  Wrapping it tighter around himself, he sighed, wondering why the sky spirits had cursed him with such a poisoned bloodline.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “But the Blue Moon is tomorrow night,” Filip said, looking at Astrid with his thick brows pinched at the center. “That only gives us hours to…”

  Although she could feel her brother’s fear leeching through the pack bond, not a hint of it shone on his pale face. Still lying in bed, he appeared to be calm, more pensive than panicked, but his horror at the news of Jerrick’s plans vibrated against her aura, making her insides shake.

  “I know…” Her voice quivered, too. “We don’t have much time.”

  Really, she didn’t have much time. A sense of urgency ricocheted through her as the realization sank in. She couldn’t ignore what was going to happen to her any longer. It was already morning, and only one more night separated her from the rise of the Blue Moon. If she didn’t get to Erec before nightfall tomorrow, that would be the end of them both. Her pack needed to act and act now.

  I should have never left him in that cage. The spear Henrick had made for her had done a good job slicing through the lock. Maybe she could sneak back after dark and…

  She started to lift herself off the bedside and onto her feet as her plan formed.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Ash, and you can’t do it.”

  His warning stopped her mid-action. “What?”

  When she glanced at her brother, he was staring at her with the same severity she’d seen so many times before from their father. Filip’s injuries had left him looking decades older than he was, and because of it, the similarities between him and their father were more outstanding than ever before.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, his tone still holding an edge of threat despite its weakness. “You said it yourself. There were too many of Jerrick’s men and most of them aren’t bound to the curse. They live out their lives as wolves more than humans. They’re dangerous. Pure animals. You, Bec, and Kalle were lucky you got out this time.”

  She sat back on the edge of the bed and put her face in her hands, knowing deep down he was right. “Every second I’m not with him feels…wrong.” Her palms muffled her voice, but she didn’t move them away, afraid her brother might see the tears gathering in her eyes. “Like I’m not trying enough and I’m running out of time. I can’t…I can’t just leave him there.”

  There was silence for a long moment, but then Filip’s fingers wrapped around hers and gently removed them away from her face. His touch was still cold, alarmingly so, and when she looked down at their linked hands, she noticed lines of blue veins peeking through his translucent skin. They matched the curse’s ribbon-like marks weaved around her own.

  “Just because I won’t let you barge in there doesn’t mean you’re abandoning him.” Filip’s brown eyes warmed, and he gave her a reassuring smile. “We’ll get him out of there in time. You have my word.”

  She could sense his determination above all other feelings. Even over his pain, which was still a constant, agonizing throb in Astrid’s side. He was going to make sure she and Erec were reunited and both of them were saved from the curse. Even hurt, he’d figure out a way. He wouldn’t let her down; he never had and never would. She could trust his promis
e.

  “We just need to figure out what our next step will be,” he said. “We may not be able to out-muscle Jerrick, but we can outsmart him.”

  Outsmart Jerrick. It was a possibility.

  “How did we win last time?” Filip asked, rubbing the dark stubble starting to grow along his jaw. “That’s what we have to consider. Most packs don’t survive one of Jerrick’s ambushes. We did. Why?”

  “Because Jerrick wanted Erec more than he wanted us,” she replied. She still didn’t know why that was. She assumed it had something to do with Mikel’s pack or some form of revenge.

  Filip considered that for a minute. “I don’t think so… There must be more to it. Jerrick wouldn’t pass an opportunity to destroy his enemy.”

  Astrid sighed heavily, trying to think back to the fight. Everything had happened so fast. The arrows, the swarm of gruesome-looking men, the blood-painted snow. She intentionally skimmed over the memories of Filip being stabbed and Erec being kidnapped to save herself the pain of reliving it.

  Erec had said Jerrick was trying to draw them out of Svanna Rock, and the stones had protected them. Maybe that had been it. Or maybe it was because their pack had outnumbered Jerrick’s—only barely, but they had.

  Then she remembered something else Erec had said some time ago. “Jerrick works with the element of surprise, so if we can get the jump on him for once, we have a chance of winning.”

  But what could have taken Jerrick’s men off guard enough to lose a fight?

  The image of her first opponent—the skinny man with missing teeth—sprang into her mind, along with the shock on his face when she had struck back with her spear and sent him stumbling. He hadn’t expected her to be able to fight back, certainly not with accuracy or skill.

  Because she was a woman.

  Could that be it? Jerrick’s men hadn’t expected women to be part of the fight? It made sense, especially if they were so used to forcing themselves on the innocent females of the packs they attacked.