All Chapters of THE SCENT OF MY CURSE: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Elara's POV"We need to go to the town meeting," my grandmother said, grabbing her coat.I stared at her like she'd lost her mind."What? No. We need to leave. Pack our things and get out of Black Hollow. Now."She shook her head, already heading for the door."Running won't help. If we run, they'll think we're guilty. We need to show our faces. Let the town see we have nothing to hide.""Grandma, someone just threatened to kill me!" I pointed at the bloody message still dripping on our floor."That dead rabbit—""I know what I saw." Her voice was firm. "But the whole town is gathering for an emergency meeting. Three more bodies were found this morning. If we don't show up, people will talk. They'll say we're hiding something."I wanted to argue. Wanted to scream that I didn't care what people thought. But my grandmother was already out the door, walking toward her old truck.I had no choice but to follow.The town hall was packed when we arrived. Every seat was taken. People stood al

Elara's POVThe feral wolf lunged at me with its jaws wide open.I screamed and stumbled backward, my knife raised uselessly. The creature was too fast. Too big. I was going to die.But Kael moved faster.He shifted so quickly. One second he was human, the next he was a massive black wolf standing between me and the feral. His silver eyes blazed with fury.The feral slammed into him instead of me. They crashed together in a tangle of teeth and claws. The sound was terrible. Growling. The wet sound of teeth tearing into flesh.I pressed my back against a tree, frozen with terror. I couldn't move. Couldn't think. Could only watch as Kael fought the monster trying to kill me.More ferals emerged from the darkness. Five. Six. Seven. All with those horrible red eyes and foam dripping from their mouths.They circled us slowly. Waiting. Watching.Kael managed to throw the first feral off. It hit a tree and fell to the ground, whimpering. But it got back up immediately, ready to attack again.

ELARA’S POVThe morning sun woke me up and the breeze blew through the window. Wait… the window. I don'tremember opening the window yesterday. As a matter of fact I don't remember anything at all. I searchedthrough my memories of yesterday and the last one I remember was rejecting Kael.My heart twinged at the memory. But I wasn't going to think about it today. Maybe I went to drink.Every muscle in my body ached a deep, dull pain that settled into my bones. My limbs felt heavy, my eyesheavy, like I hadn’t slept at all. I lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember thenight before. Nothing came to me.Not even a dream. And I don't remember falling asleep. My throat tightened.I pushed myself up slowly, wincing as pain shot through my shoulders. That was when I noticed myhands.They were filthy.Dirt was caked beneath my fingernails, dark and packed in like I’d been clawing at the ground. My breathhitched as I threw the covers off and looked down at myself.

KAEL’S POVThe scent of rogue blood was sharp in my nose, thick and wrong as I followed it deeper into the woods.This one had been careless and sloppy. He hadn’t masked himself well enough, and now he was payingfor it. He was trying to make ferals in the woods. But I found him on time.I found him crouched near a fallen tree, gnawing on something I didn’t care to identify. He spun aroundwhen he sensed me, eyes flashing, teeth bared and ready to attack.He jumped immediately and I didn’t hesitate.The fight was quick. If I could call it that.I ended him with a swift motion, snapping his neck and stepping back as his body collapsed into the dirt.These rogues are starting to get on my last nerve.My wolf paused. Shouting in my head.“Mate is near. Mate is near"A scent cut through the air. She is the same scent I have breathed in for the past week and couldn't get outof my head. I should leave. But my wolf did not let me.My breath hitched. Her.My wolf howled inside me, raw and fu

ELARA'S POVI didn’t go home.I told Kael I needed time, but what I really needed was answers.The symbol wouldn’t leave my mind. The curve of it. The sharp edges. The way it seemed to pulse whenI’d looked at it too long in the strategy room. I had seen it before—etched carefully into the brittle pagesof my mother’s journal, hidden beneath years of dust and grief.So instead of returning to my grandmother’s house, I slipped into the small storage room I saw on myway here and locked the door.The journal lay heavy in my hands.My mother’s handwriting filled the pages. It was slanted, hurried in some places, elegant in others. Iflipped past the pages I didn't understand and notes written in languages I couldn’t read, all the pagesworn from me reading it over and over again. To feel closer to her. Now it was helping discover who Iwas. I found it.The symbol.My breath caught.“Found you,” I whispered.Beneath it, my mother had written:The Witches of Virelyn.I swallowed and kept