“You’re already changing,” Reeyan points out, reaching across the console. “Already becoming someone different from the woman who left Llewelyn. That’s not the curse breaking or the bond overwhelming you. That’s you discovering who you really are without magical chains suppressing everything.”
I stare at his outstretched hand for a long moment. Taking it feels like accepting something I’m not sure I’m ready for. Admitting that he’s right. That the woman I’m becoming iswho I was always supposed to be, and the reserved Llewelyn archivist was just the curse’s version of me.
I take his hand.
The mate bond warms between us. Not overwhelming or demanding. Just there. A constant reminder that I’m not facing this alone.
“My aunt is going to lose her mind when she finds out.” I lace my fingers through his. “The matriarch’s niece bonded to a Grayhide wolf, investigating a curse that undermines everything Llewelyn claims to value. She’ll see it as betrayal.”
“Or she’ll see it as exactly what your pack needs.” Reeyan’s thumb rubs circles on the back of my hand. “Someone brave enough to challenge the status quo. Someone willing to sacrifice her own comfort to free future generations.”
“That’s a generous interpretation.”
“It’s an accurate one.” He pulls his hand back to navigate a turn, and I immediately miss the contact. “You could have run back to Llewelyn the moment you learned about the curse. Could have told your aunt and let pack leadership handle it and stayed safely behind your walls, and let someone else take the risk.”
“Instead, I stayed in Grayhide and slept with a man I barely knew. Really living up to Llewelyn values there.”
“You stayed because the investigation required it. You bonded with me because the mate connection was real, and you chose to act on it. Stop letting three hundred years of curse conditioning tell you that wanting something makes you weak. That needing someone means you’ve failed. Those are lies the curse wants you to believe.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But knowing something intellectually and accepting it emotionally are completely different things.
The desert landscape opens up around us. Flat scrubland dotted with hardy vegetation that somehow survives despite the harsh conditions. It’s beautiful in its own way—stark and unforgiving, but alive. Thriving despite everything working against it.
Maybe that’s what I need to be. Hardy vegetation in hostile terrain. Thriving despite the curse trying to strangle me.
“You’re quiet again,” Reeyan comments. “Different kind of quiet this time, though.”
“Just thinking.” I watch the landscape pass. “About survival. About what it takes to keep going when everything is working against you.”
“That’s something I understand.” His voice goes softer. “You know, my parents died in a territorial dispute when I was twelve. Rogue wolves from outside the valley trying to claim Grayhide land. My father was part of the patrol that intercepted them, and my mother went as backup when things escalated. They were both killed defending territory that the rogues abandoned two days later anyway.”
I adjust myself in my seat to give him my full attention. He’s never mentioned his parents before.
“I’m sorry. That must have been awful.”
“It was.” He keeps his eyes on the road. “I spent months afterward trying to understand why it happened. Why anyone would kill for a strip of borderland they didn’t even want to keep. Oren’s father—the alpha at the time—couldn’t give me answersthat made sense. Just said sometimes violence happens for no good reason.”
“But you didn’t accept that.”
“No. I buried myself in historical records instead. Started studying patterns in pack conflicts, looking for the logic behind territorial disputes and why some escalate while others don’t. Turned out those rogues weren’t random at all. They were scouts for a larger group testing our defenses. My parents’ deaths gave them intel about our response times and patrol patterns before they decided the valley wasn’t worth the effort to conquer.”
“They were gathering intelligence,” I surmise. “Looking for weaknesses.”
“Exactly. Which means violence that looks random often isn’t. There’s usually a pattern if you know where to look. I’ve spent years studying those patterns, trying to predict conflicts before they happen. Trying to make sure no one else loses their parents because we failed to see the warning signs.”
The weight of that drives home just how long he’s been preparing for threats like Thornridge. How much of his life has been shaped by trying to prevent what happened to his family from happening to others.
“Is that why you became a historian? To understand the patterns?”
“Partly. Also, because I was terrible at the things most wolves excel at—combat, leadership, social dynamics. I learned all of that later, out of necessity, but it never came naturally.But pattern recognition? Historical analysis? That I could do. Oren’s father recognized it. Gave me access to the pack archives and let me study instead of forcing me into roles I was never suited for. By the time Oren took over as alpha, I’d become useful enough that he kept me on as strategic advisor.”
I scoff and reply, “You’re more than useful. Your research is the only reason we know about the curse. The only reason we have any hope of breaking it.”
“Maybe. Or maybe the universe just needed someone obsessive enough to connect three-hundred-year-old dots. Either way, I’m glad I was in the right place at the right time to save you on that road.”
The sincerity in his voice makes my throat tighten. This man, who lost his parents and spent his life studying violence to prevent more loss. Who sees patterns no one else notices. Who recognized me as his mate and has been fighting to keep me safe ever since.
“I need to talk to Caelan.” The realization hits suddenly. “My sister deserves to know what’s happening before I attempt breaking this curse. She deserves the truth about the curse and why I’ve been lying to her.”
