The curse Alpha Mate

Alpha Asher

I stood inside the royal infirmary, my hands clenched so tightly into fists that my knuckles turned white.

Around the central treatment bed, four of our best healers worked in hushed, panicked whispers. Aster lay pale and completely motionless under the harsh lights, his broad chest covered in thick, clean bandages. On a silver tray nearby sat several glass bowls filled with blackened, bloody water and jagged pieces of silver that had just been pulled from his body.

Watching my twin brother’s chest rise and fall in shallow, weak breaths, a crushing weight of fear and guilt settled into my chest.

I never should have let him go alone.

Aster had insisted on personally riding out to negotiate a private territory deal near the border of the Free Man’s Land. I wanted to send an entire unit of royal guards with him, but Aster had refused. He argued that arriving with an army would make the other party think we were coming for war.

I had eventually given in. He was an Alpha King, after all—stronger and faster than almost any wolf alive. I believed he could handle himself.

Now, staring at his lifeless face, I hated myself for agreeing.

Earlier tonight, a sudden wave of agonizing pain and suffocating weakness had ripped through the invisible link we shared as twins. Before I could even reach out to him in my mind, Aster’s panicked voice had cut into my head: Ambushed... silver...

Then, the connection went completely dead.

I had assembled our elite warriors and raced into the Free Man’s Land, following his fading scent through the storm. I had mentally prepared myself to drag him out of a bloodbath. I had expected to find piles of dead enemies.

I had not expected to find my brother dying on the floor of a cold cave, with an unknown, blood-stained woman leaning directly over him.

If Aster died because I let him ride out alone, I knew I would never forgive myself.

Healer Myron finished wiping dark blood from Aster’s chest and walked over to me, his face lined with deep worry.

"How is he?" I snapped, my voice harsh with restraint.

"He is stable for the moment, Your Highness," Myron said quietly. "The weapons used against him were coated in a concentrated form of liquid silver. Some of it entered through the puncture wounds, but the poison had already started flowing through his bloodstream. It was enough silver to kill a dozen ordinary wolves."

"Will he survive?"

Myron hesitated. "His heart is weak, and the silver has heavily suppressed his natural ability to heal. He is extremely vulnerable right now. We are doing everything we can, but..." He paused, frowning slightly. "There is something about his condition that doesn't make sense."

"What do you mean?" I demanded.

"According to the sheer volume of silver we extracted, King Aster should have died hours ago—long before you ever found him in that cave," Myron explained. "His wolf’s healing factor should have completely failed. Yet, somehow, his body kept fighting."

My mind immediately jumped back to the cave. "The woman," I said, gesturing toward a bloody, torn piece of gray dress lying on a side counter. "She claimed she found him, pulled out one of the silver fragments, and wrapped his wound with her own dress."

Myron nodded slowly, picking up the piece of cloth. "Simple first aid wouldn't have been enough to stop concentrated silver poisoning. But look at this fabric, Sire. It is soaked in her blood and her scent. When we first brought King Aster in, I noticed something strange. Every time this cloth was held near his chest, his heartbeat grew stronger."

I stared at the healer in disbelief. "What?"

"We tested it," Myron continued, his eyes wide. "When we removed the cloth to clean the wound, his heart rate dropped dangerously low and his fever spiked. The moment one of my assistants placed the cloth back near his face, his breathing steadied. Something about that woman’s physical presence—her blood, her scent—is forcing Aster’s wolf to stay alive."

A heavy silence filled the room.

My mind raced back to the cave, remembering the exact moment I had walked in. Aster had been holding the woman’s wrist tightly. He had pulled her close, inhaling her scent right before he passed out. And I remembered the look on his face—not anger or fear, but complete, utter shock.

A thought I had buried deep inside years ago suddenly surfaced.

"Myron..." I lowered my voice, stepping closer to the healer. "Do you think... she could be his?"

I didn't need to finish the sentence. Myron understood.

"It is possible, Alpha," Myron whispered softly. "She could be his fated mate."

The thought sent a wave of cold tension through my spine.

We couldn't feel fated mate bonds. Years ago, the dark witch responsible for slaughtering our parents had placed a cruel curse upon Aster and me. The curse severed our natural ability to sense the mate bond. Unlike other wolves, we couldn't recognize our mates through scent, touch, or the instinctual pull of the soul. We could stand right in front of our fated females and feel absolutely nothing.

Over the years, we had brought healers, shamans, and powerful elders from every corner of the continent to break it. All of them failed. But one ancient shaman had offered a single grain of hope: The curse will only break when you make direct physical contact with the woman chosen for you by the Goddess.

We had never found proof that the shaman was right. Until tonight.

"If she truly is his mate," Myron murmured, "the bond might be revealing itself through healing rather than recognition. Her scent alone might be keeping him tethered to this world."

"And if she isn't?" I asked coldly, my protective instincts flaring up. "What if this is just a coincidence?"

"There is only one way to know," Myron said. "We must bring her here and see how his body reacts. But Sire... I urge you not to harm or terrify her. If she really is tied to him, causing her physical pain or distress could harm Aster while he is in this fragile state."

A sudden knot of regret tightened in my stomach.

I thought about how roughly my guards had grabbed her in the cave. I thought about the way she had been knocked unconscious when she tried to run, and how I had ordered her thrown straight into a freezing dungeon cell.

Did I just lock up my brother's fated mate?

I shook the thought away, hardening my expression. No. I can't trust her yet.

It was too suspicious. How could a lone, scentless she-wolf just happen to stumble upon an Alpha King bleeding out in the middle of nowhere? What if she was a plant? What if she was part of the ambush, sent to gain access to our palace?

"Bring her up from the dungeons," I commanded a royal guard standing by the door. "Keep her in heavy guard, but do not hurt her."

"Yes, Alpha," the guard bowed and quickly left the infirmary.

While we waited, Myron stepped back to the side of the bed and pressed two fingers against Aster’s wrist. Suddenly, his eyes went wide with panic.

"Alpha! His pulse is dropping!"

I rushed to the side of the bed. Aster’s breathing had turned into a terrifying, ragged gasp. Right before our eyes, the sickening black veins of silver poisoning began spreading rapidly back up his neck, creeping toward his throat.

"What is happening?!" I roared, grabbing Myron by his collar. "Fix him!"

"The silver is surging again!" Myron panicked, motioning for the other healers. "Bring the antitoxin! Hurry!"

They poured medicine down his throat and applied fresh salves, but nothing worked. Aster’s chest violently heaved, his heart monitor beeping in erratic, dying spikes. The black veins reached his jawline.

"It’s not working!" a female healer cried out. "We're losing him!"

Myron looked toward the infirmary doors in sheer desperation. "Where is she?! We need that woman right now!"

Just as the words left his mouth, heavy footsteps echoed down the stone hallway outside.

The double doors burst open.

Two guards stepped into the room, escorting the woman from the cave. She looked exhausted, her face pale and bruised, her hair matted with dried blood. She wore the plain gray gown of a dungeon prisoner, trembling as her wide, frightened eyes took in the room.

The second her feet crossed the threshold of the infirmary, an impossible shift occurred.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

Aster’s erratic, dying heartbeat instantly smoothed out, booming loud and strong throughout the quiet room.

Right before our eyes, the black veins creeping up his face stopped. Then, like ink being washed away by clean water, they rapidly retreated down his neck, disappearing beneath his bandages.

Every single healer in the room froze. I stood paralyzed, my breath catching in my throat.

On the bed, Aster’s chest gave a deep, sudden heave.

His eyes snapped wide open.

He didn't look at me. He didn't look at the healers. His glowing amber gaze locked directly onto the pale, terrified woman standing by the door.

He lifted one weak, trembling hand toward her and rasped out a single word before his eyes rolled back and he fell unconscious once more:

“Mate.”