🪷🪷 CHAPTER FOUR

“You lied to me.”

I didn’t bother turning around when his footsteps echoed in the doorway. I’d been sitting at the cracked window since dawn, staring out at his dead kingdom and nursing my rage like a flame.

The bond hummed between us, carrying his hesitation, but I refused to acknowledge it.

“Sena—”

“Don’t.” I finally faced him, letting him see the fury blazing in my eyes. “Protection, you said. The bond was for my protection. But that’s not the real reason, is it?”

I’ve been thinking about it all. From the moment he arrived at the auction house to how he was in such a hurry to bind us together.

Surely that isn’t because someone like him was solely concerned about my safety.

He’s a monster.

No way in hell did he do that with my safety in mind.

Kael stood silhouetted against the morning light, his silver eyes unreadable.

He’d changed from yesterday’s travel clothes into simple black, but nothing could make him look ordinary.

Power clung to him like smoke, and through our cursed connection, I felt the weight of his guilt pressing against my consciousness.

“I wanted to protect you, Sena. But that’s part of the truth,” he said finally.

“Part?” I shot to my feet, weeks of suppressed terror and betrayal exploding outward. “Part of the truth? What’s the rest, then? Why don’t you tell me exactly why you really bought me like livestock and forced this bond on me?”

His jaw tightened, but he didn’t flinch from my accusation. “Because I need your help.”

“My help?” The words came out as a bitter laugh. “With what?”

“Breaking my curse.” His voice was steady, matter-of-fact, as if discussing the weather. “Your bloodline carries the power to heal magical corruption as heavy as mine. I couldn’t risk you escaping or trying to kill me before the work was done.”

The casual admission hit me like a physical blow. “So the mate bond—”

“Ensures your survival is tied to mine.” He stepped closer, and I caught the scent of cedar and starlight that seemed to follow him everywhere. “If I die, you die. It was just perfect insurance policy.”

I stared at him, speechless. The sheer calculating coldness of it stole my breath. He’d trapped me as completely as any cage, using my own life as leverage.

Perfect insurance policy.

He’d claimed me, tied my life to his life… as if I was just..

Before I could think of stop myself my hand darted out to give him a resounding slap that echoed through the room.

“You bastard.” The words scraped my throat raw. “You manipulative, selfish bastard.”

“Yes.” No denial, no attempt at justification. Just that single, damning word.

“This is MY LIFE. You had no right! You had absolutely no right to…”

“I paid a huge sum for you Sena. That gives me every single right over you so that fucking means I do what i please with you. So in case you didn’t get the gist..YOU ARE MINE. Mine to use, mind to kill when I want. Your life belongs to me! So if I decide that I want to bind it with mine I sure as hell do not need your permission you little slave!”

My breath caught in my throat as his words drove into me like a double edged sword.

“You want my help?” I took a step toward him, my hands clenched into fists. “I do not care about whatever twisted right you think your gold gave you over me but I Sena Thorne do not belong to any man. And you are insane…completely utterly insane if you think I’ll lift one finger to help you.”

His hard expression shifted to something like remorse but I didn’t care.

“Sena—”

“No!” The word exploded from me with enough force to rattle the cracked windows. “I don’t care if you’re cursed. I don’t care if you’re suffering. I don’t care if every demon in hell is clawing at your soul!”

I was close enough now to see the silver flecks in his eyes, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin.

The bond thrummed with his emotions—pain, desperation, something that might have been regret—but I shoved it all away.

“I’d rather die than help you,” I spat. “Find another way to break your curse, because I will never willingly aid the monster who destroyed hundreds of innocent lives.”

For a moment, something flickered across his face.

Pain, maybe.

Or disappointment.

But it was gone so quickly I might have imagined it.

“So be it.” He turned toward the door with that fluid grace that marked him as predator. “You know where to find me when you change your mind.”

“I won’t.” But I was talking to empty air. He’d already gone.

The silence that followed felt suffocating. I collapsed back into the window seat, my hands shaking with residual fury. Through the bond, I could sense him moving through the castle like a restless shadow, but I closed my mind against the connection as much as I could.

Hours passed. I explored my prison—a suite of rooms that had once been beautiful, now marked by the same decay that claimed the rest of the castle. Tapestries hung in tatters. Furniture lay overturned and broken. Everything bore the psychic scars of that terrible night three years ago.

By evening, exhaustion had replaced rage. I was picking at a tray of food someone had left outside my door when footsteps approached—different from Kael’s predatory stride. Lighter. More hesitant.

“Miss Thorne?” The voice was unfamiliar, carrying a warmth I hadn’t heard since leaving my old life behind. “May I come in?”

I opened the door to find a man I’d never seen before. Tall and lean, with brown hair touched by silver at the temples and eyes the color of aged whiskey. Kind eyes, but sad. Everything about him spoke of weariness that went bone-deep.

“I’m Thane,” he said, inclining his head slightly. “Kael’s beta. His oldest friend.”

“Come to convince me to help your precious Alpha?” I stepped back, letting him enter. “You’re wasting your time.”

“I know you hate him.” Thane settled into one of the less damaged chairs, his movements careful and deliberate. “I don’t blame you. What he did to bring you here was wrong.”

I blinked, surprised by the admission. “Then why are you here?”

“Because before you condemn him completely, you should know the whole story. The one he’ll never tell you himself.”

Despite myself, I was curious. “What story?”

Thane’s hands clasped together in his lap, knuckles white with tension. “Kael wasn’t always what he is now. Three years ago, he was the kind of ruler people wrote songs about. Just, merciful, beloved by his people. This kingdom was a sanctuary for supernatural beings fleeing persecution.”

“Hard to believe,” I muttered, but something in his voice made me listen.

“He was to be mated to Elena Silvers. Beautiful, intelligent, seemingly devoted to him. They’d known each other since childhood, been betrothed for years. The wedding was meant to unite two of the most powerful supernatural bloodlines.”

Thane’s voice grew heavy with old grief. “Three days before the ceremony, she came to him with concerns about a rival pack’s movements. Asked him to meet her in the old grove at midnight to discuss strategy.”

“Let me guess,” I said bitterly. “It was a trap.”

“The worst kind.” His whiskey eyes met mine. “Elena had been working with our enemies for months. That night, she performed a forbidden ritual—blood magic of the darkest kind. It was meant to weaken him, make him easier to overthrow.”

I felt my anger wavering despite myself. “What went wrong?”

“Everything.” Thane’s voice cracked. “The curse didn’t just weaken him. It corrupted his protective instincts, twisted them into something monstrous. Made him see every living thing as a threat that had to be eliminated.”

The words hit me like ice water. Through our bond, I felt an echo of Kael’s anguish—three years of guilt and self-loathing compressed into a single moment of shared pain.

“By the time the curse burned itself out,” Thane continued, “three hundred and seventeen people were dead. Including Elena herself.”

“He killed his own mate?”

“He killed everyone.” Thane’s hands trembled slightly. “Men, women, children. People who’d trusted him with their lives, who’d looked to him for protection. When he regained consciousness, he was surrounded by their bodies.”

The image seared itself into my mind. I tried to push it away, but the bond made it impossible to ignore Kael’s emotions—the crushing weight of guilt that never left him, the desperate need for redemption.

“Why are you telling me this?” I whispered.

“Because he’s been searching for a way to break the curse ever since. Not for himself—he thinks he deserves the suffering. But for them.” Thane gestured toward the window, toward the ruined kingdom beyond. “He believes their souls can’t rest while the curse remains active.”

“That’s not my problem.”

“Isn’t it?” Thane stood, his sad eyes holding mine. “You’re bonded to him now, Miss Thorne. His pain is your pain, whether you acknowledge it or not. And somewhere in this castle, three hundred and seventeen innocent souls are waiting for justice.”

He left me alone with that thought, and I spent the night wrestling with emotions I didn’t want to feel. Anger warred with unwanted sympathy. The bond pulsed with Kael’s grief, his desperate hope, his bone-deep exhaustion.

As dawn painted the sky silver, I finally understood what I had to do.

Not for him. Never for him.

But for the children whose laughter had once filled these halls.

For the people who’d died believing their protector would keep them safe.

So I walked out of the room to look for him.

I will help him break the damn curse but it will not come for free.