The moment before Sophie and I stepped through the gate and she whispered, "I choose trust," the air snapped like lightning across my skin.
I felt it again — the shift.
The runes in the forest, the silver pulse in her blood, the way her touch lingered longer than she realized — it was all pulling at the beast within me. Not to control it… but to unbind it.
As I stepped through the gate behind her, my bones cracked — not from pain… from conflict.
The magic didn't ask permission.
It recognized me.
Half my body surged forward, human. The other resisted, wolf. I staggered as I walked, my breathing labored, muscles stretching beneath my fur and ripping beneath my skin. My paws began to shift into fingers, claws retracting into flesh. I dropped to one knee, hiding in the thick mist, my head spinning.
Not yet. Not like this.
She turned slightly, as if she sensed something, but the mist hid my form well enough. I kept low. If she saw me like this — half-formed, cursed, monstrous — I didn't know if she'd still look at me with the same strange warmth I saw in her eyes earlier.
We moved deeper into the glowing path.
But the path didn't stay steady.
Soon the silver light dimmed and flickered, and the mist began to rise and form shapes — tall, looming, whispering in tongues no human had spoken in centuries.
"You are not welcome here, Cursed Prince."
The voice rang from all directions. Ancient. Cold. Familiar.
I knew what this was.
I'd hoped it wouldn't find me.
"Kael of the Ashen Bloodline," the voice continued, "you dare return to the Forest of Oaths, where your forefathers once broke the binding?"
Sophie turned, startled. "Kael…?" she whispered.
I forced myself to stay in wolf form, pain tearing through me like knives, hiding my face in the shadows of the gnarled trees.
A new shape formed from the mist — taller than any wolf, robed in black leaves, its face hidden behind a twisted wooden mask etched in glowing blood runes.
The Warden of the Curse.
I only heard about him many years ago, from my teacher.
According to my teacher, who told me that— since the night, The witch and the wolf that fell in love were cursed. Nobody heard from him again.
[FLASHBACK BEGINS]
Centuries ago. In the Circle of Oaths.
Kael's great-great-great- grandfather (Jeffery) was trembling before a stone altar soaked in blood.
His father, the Alpha King then, stood firm behind him.
A bound woman knelt beside the altar — silvery -eyed, silver-haired, trembling but unbroken.
Sophie's ancestor.
"You will not take her," she said with fierce pride.
"Your prophecy lies. The bond was never meant to be broken."
Jeffery father snarled.
"The Moon chose my son. Your bloodline resists fate. That ends tonight."
I had no choice.
I was forced to shift.
My beast roared free — feral, uncontrollable — and in the chaos that followed, she died.
But not before whispering a spell that lashed out like wildfire and bound me and my descendant to her descendant. A final act of vengeance… or mercy?
That descendant… was I & Sophie.
[FLASHBACK ENDS]
I came back to the present gasping.
Sophie was now looking around — confused, concerned.
"Kael?" she whispered.
"Where are you?"
Kael??? She knows my name? How did she know my name?
Before I could hide myself so she won't see the form i am, the Warden of the Curse stepped forward, lowering his mask slightly.
"She doesn't know, does she? That her bloodline cursed your bloodline. That your ancestor killed her kin. That this forest remembers… everything."
I growled, louder this time. I wanted to leap, to rip the mask from his smug face, to make him stop.
But I couldn't.
Not yet.
[Sophie's POV — Interjection]
There's something wrong. I can feel it in the trees. In the way the leaves whisper.
Kael is near… but not the same.
Something ancient is watching us. Judging.
And that voice — it's speaking to him like he's not just part of the forest… but its shame.
"What did he mean? Cursed Prince?" I whispered.
No answer.
But Kael's growl in the shadows was not the soft one I knew.
It was filled with pain. With rage. With something wild barely contained.
[Back to Kael's POV]
The Warden turned to me again.
"You want her to trust you, Kael? Then show her the truth. Let her see the blood on your claws. Let her feel the night her parents died — and remember who was hiding in the trees."
I flinched.
He was right. I'd watched. I could have stopped it. But I didn't.
Because I was too afraid of shifting. Too afraid of hurting anyone again.
Too bound by the curse and the shame.
"She must know," the Warden said. "Or your bond will rot in silence."
And then — he vanished.
I stepped forward from the shadows, finally letting the shifting begin. My bones cracked again, but I didn't resist this time.
The truth had to come.
Even if it broke her.
Even if it broke me.
Just like like that, i shifted.