I want to say something. To offer comfort or reassurance or anything that might make this easier. But what words exist for learning that your entire identity is built on someone else’s revenge?
“Sera—”
“Don’t,” she cuts me off without looking up. “Just drive. Please.”
So I do.
We leave Hysopp territory in silence, the forest releasing us as reluctantly as it let us enter. The haze follows us for miles before finally dissipating, revealing familiar desert landscape and the late afternoon sun.
Sera clutches the folder like a lifeline, and I watch her from the corner of my eye as I drive. My mate. The woman who might be strong enough to break a three-hundred-year-old curse, or might die trying.
Chapter 11 - Sera
Everything I thought I knew about myself is a lie.
The realization sits heavy in my chest as Reeyan drives us back toward Grayhide territory. Desert landscape races past the windows, but I barely register the changing colors of sand and rock. All I can see is Evangeline’s pale eyes as she explained how a witch’s revenge three centuries ago turned my entire pack into something less than what we should have been.
Moira Ashwood cursed us because one man rejected her. One cruel, thoughtless man who humiliated her in front of both packs. And instead of directing her rage at him, she punished every woman who came after. Made us incapable of the deep emotional bonds that give life meaning. Stripped away our ability to love freely, to trust completely, to feel without restraint.
Three hundred years of women living half-lives because of one witch’s broken heart.
The injustice of it makes my hands curl into fists in my lap.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Reeyan asks, breaking the silence.
“No.”
He doesn’t push. Just keeps driving while I stare out the window and try to process what breaking this curse would actually mean. Every Llewelyn woman I know—my aunt, my mother, my sister Caelan, my friends—all of us have lived under magical suppression our entire lives. Believing our emotional distance was a strength when it was really imprisonment.
How many times did my mother struggle to tell me she loved me? How many times did I see something in her eyes, some emotion trying to surface, only to watch it get swallowed by that terrible reserve we’re all trained to maintain?
Except it’s not training. It’s not cultural adaptation or learned behavior.
It’s a curse. A binding. Magic designed to make us less than we should be.
The sun is setting by the time we pull up to his house. I climb out before the truck fully stops, needing to move, needing to do something with the restless energy crawling under my skin.
“Sera—”
“I need to be alone right now.” I don’t look back as I head for the front door. “Please.”
The mate bond pulls at my chest, wanting me to turn around. Wanting me to seek comfort in his arms. But I can’t. Not when I don’t even know who I am anymore. Not when everything I thought made me Llewelyn turns out to be magical manipulation.
I lock myself in the guest room and lean against the door, breathing hard like I’ve just run a marathon. The folder from Evangeline is full of documentation about the curse that’s been strangling my pack for generations.
I should read through it. Should study the spell work and understand exactly what was done to us. But I can’t bring myself to look at those pages right now. Can’t face more evidence of how thoroughly we’ve been violated.
Instead, I strip off my clothes and climb into the shower, letting hot water pour over me until my skin turns pink andtender. The heat doesn’t wash away the knowledge. Doesn’t make the truth any easier to bear. But at least it gives me something to focus on besides the screaming in my head.
When I finally emerge, wrapped in a towel with my hair dripping down my back, I catch sight of myself in the mirror. Same silver-blonde hair. Same blue eyes. Same face I’ve seen every day for twenty-four years.
But underneath, something is different. The curse is weakening. I can feel it in the way emotions surface without the usual dampening effect. Anger doesn’t get smoothed into mild annoyance. Fear doesn’t get rationalized away. And desire…
I press my hand to my stomach, feeling the low ache that’s been building there since we left Hysopp territory. An ache I’ve never experienced with such clarity before. Want. Need. Hunger for something I’ve never allowed myself to truly feel.
This must be what it feels like to be free.
It’s terrifying.
