Chapter Five: The Curse

"I heard you say curse. Don't you dare tell me I didn't."

Sloane stepped into the doorway before either of them could stop her, arms crossed, chin lifted despite the way her whole body still shook from the word she'd overheard. Griffin froze mid sentence. Cassian's expression shuttered instantly, careful and unreadable.

"Sloane," Griffin started.

"No." She cut him off, voice sharper than she felt inside. "I have spent an entire day getting fed pieces of a story nobody wants to finish. I almost got dragged off a street tonight. I am standing in a house full of people who look at me like I'm something dangerous. I think I have earned more than half a sentence overheard through a door."

Cassian and Griffin exchanged a look, some silent negotiation passing between them that ended with Griffin exhaling and gesturing her further into the room.

"Sit down," he said. "We'll tell you what we can."

She didn't sit. She stood in the middle of the room with her arms still crossed, daring either of them to try softening what came next.

"The mark," Griffin said finally. "It's called a bond mark. It only appears for someone connected to our bloodline, and only when that connection is real. Not chosen and not something we can force or fake."

"Connected how."

"Our family carries a weakness," Cassian said, choosing his words with obvious care. "Something passed down through generations. Without the right bond, that weakness gets worse. It has been getting worse for a long time."

"So I'm what, some kind of cure."

Neither of them answered right away, which was answer enough. Sloane's stomach twisted, the earlier hurt from that thought crashing back into her chest all over again, sharper this time now that she had more of the shape of it.

"It is not that simple," Griffin said quietly. "What the mark means, what it could mean, that's not something we understand fully either. We are not asking you to be anyone's solution."

"You said the word curse like it was something you were terrified of me finding out."

"Because there is more to it," Cassian admitted. "More than we can explain tonight, more than even we fully understand yet. We are not keeping it from you to control you. We are keeping it from you because it is not simple enough yet to explain honestly."

She wanted to push harder. She wanted to demand every remaining piece right then, standing in that unfamiliar room with strangers who somehow already felt less like strangers than they should. But something in Griffin's face, some genuine exhaustion underneath the careful control, made her hold the words back for now.

"There's something else," she said instead. "The man who grabbed me. He wasn't random."

"No," Griffin admitted. "He was sent. There is a threat out there actively looking for someone like you. We believe they have been searching for a long time."

"Looking for me specifically."

"We think so."

The room felt smaller suddenly, the walls pressing closer, the reality of just how much danger she had already been standing in without knowing it finally landing fully. 

Her hands trembled at her sides, adrenaline and fear tangled together until she could barely separate one from the other.

Dax appeared in the doorway behind her, having clearly caught the tail end of the conversation, his usual easy energy replaced with something quieter, more careful. He crossed the room and, without asking, reached out and took her hand.

The mark ignited.

It wasn't like before. Before had been sharp and sudden, painful, overwhelming. This was different, a wave of heat that spread from her palm straight up through her chest, warm instead of burning, pulling instead of striking. She gasped, and Dax's grip tightened instinctively, his own breath catching audibly.

"Whoa," he breathed, staring down at their joined hands like he could see something the rest of them couldn't. "That's not, that's never done that before."

Sloane's heart pounded for an entirely different reason now, something steadier and more terrifying than fear, spreading warm through her chest where his hand held hers. She didn't pull away. She wanted to but she didn't.

"It's stronger with all three of you," Cassian murmured, watching them both with sharp, calculating focus. "That confirms it. She's not partially bonded. This is a full bond."

"What does that mean," Sloane managed, voice barely steady.

Before anyone could answer, the door burst open. A pack member she didn't recognize stumbled in, breathless, face pale with urgency that silenced the entire room instantly.

"We just got word," he said. "Confirmed sighting near the eastern border."

"Who," Griffin demanded, already straightening, already shifting into something harder and more alert.

The man hesitated, glancing at Sloane before answering, like he wasn't sure she should hear it.

"Silas Cross."

The name dropped into the room like a stone into still water, and every single wolf standing there went utterly, completely silent.