Bound By Alpha's Curse

The packhouse reeked of desperation and perfume.

Luca stood at the center of the grand hall, surrounded by dozens of girls—some trembling, some preening, all of them lined up like offerings. Their eyes flicked to his like moths drawn to a flame, hopeful and terrified all at once.

He felt nothing.

No tug. No shift in his wolf. No soul-stirring pull that the stories promised.

He Just felt silence. His jaw tightened as he checked the last girl.

He turned to the Beta of the Moonridge Pack. "You're sure this is everyone?"

The man nodded quickly. "Yes, Alpha. Every unmated she-wolf of age is here."

Luca's eyes narrowed. Something felt… wrong. He had felt the pull when he had entered their territory but it was slowly fading. 

He took a step forward to speak, and then the world tilted. It hit like a blade to the chest.

Luca doubled over with a ragged gasp, his hand shooting out to grip the nearest wall as his vision fractured. His bones burned. His heart roared against his ribs like it was trying to break out. The air vanished from his lungs. He felt his wolf surge forward, clawing and snarling inside his skin, howling like it had been stabbed.

Then came the fire. His spine arched. Agony bloomed behind his eyes. It wasn't physical, not entirely—it was deeper, like something sacred had been torn and stitched together in the dark.

"No," he growled through gritted teeth, blood dripping from his nose. "No—who—" the bond, his bond and his mate! His knees hit the ground.

His hands clawed into the stone floor, cracking it, leaving gouges where his fingers dug in. The scent of iron filled the air, his breath coming in broken, gasping snarls.

Around him, the girls screamed and scattered, but Luca didn't see them. He was somewhere else. The pain hit like a tsunami and he was drowning in it.

And then an eerie silence enveloped him. He could not feel her anymore. The pain snapped off like a cord cut by a knife.

Luca rose slowly, trembling. His skin burned. His eyes glowed brighter than before—feral, haunted.

He turned to the Beta again, voice like a storm just before it breaks.

"You lied to me."

The man paled. "I—I didn't, I swear—"

"She wasn't here." Luca's voice was colder than winter. "You hid her."

"I didn't—there's no one else—"

He could feel the faint pain and it only meant one thing. She had been marked by someone else. She had chosen someone else over him. She had betrayed him! 

And she didn't even know he existed.

Luca straightened, the air crackling with fury and something darker—something ancient and cold. His wolf had gone still. Too still.

The calm before the reckoning. He looked back at the Beta, eyes lit with fury.

"Find her," he said, desperate and feral, only to come up empty. 

Luca's boots echoed like war drums through the silent corridors of the Moonridge Pack.

He had already torn through five homes. Ripped apart walls. Searched closets, cellars, attics. The scent of his mate hovered like smoke in the air — faint, maddeningly elusive — but every door he opened left him emptier. Angrier.

"She was here." He could trace her smell on other wolves. Men and women alike. She had been with them. 

The bond buzzed under his skin like a curse awakened. Every nerve screamed for her. Every breath felt stolen.

He slammed open another door.

A family shrank back against the far wall, children crying, their parents shielding them. But Luca could not even see them.

He stalked through the house, scenting the air, eyes glowing with his wolf. He tore back curtains, overturned furniture, punched through drywall when the smell of her soul ghosted past a vent.

When he turned back toward the trembling Alpha of Moonridge, his voice was pure steel. "There's another house. I want it opened."

"That's all of them, I swear—"

Luca was on him in a blink, hand fisted in the man's shirt, dragging him off his feet.

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not—there's no one else!" the Alpha gasped. "We showed you everyone! Maybe she's not—"

Luca's eyes narrowed. "She was here. I *felt* her."

He shoved the man back, disgusted.

His wolf clawed at the inside of his chest, howling with loss. Luca turned away, pacing, trying to steady the fury boiling through him. His skin felt wrong. His senses frayed.

A mate bond had been forged butNot to him. To someone else.

His jaw clenched so hard it ached. That sharp, agonizing pulse he'd felt earlier — it was the moment she was marked. The moment another wolf claimed her soul. The bond was supposed to be theirs. It had been stolen from him. 

"Do you understand what this means?" Luca said coldly, addressing the Moonridge wolves gathering behind the Alpha. They all had pale faces, the pack they had built for a long time was destroyed completely.

"You've hidden her from me. You've allowed another wolf to mark my mate. And now, that mistake has cursed both packs."

Luca smiled, but there was nothing kind in it.

"If i do not get her back.." He stepped closer to the Alpha, voice low and lethal.

"Then you will burn with it."

The Alpha swallowed hard, clearly trying to hold onto what little power he still had. "If we find her—if she exists—we'll bring her to you," he explained. "We do not want war so why would we.." but Luca did not listen to him.

He scanned all of their faces in the dark light and paused at an old woman. She was looking at him with hatred and he reciprocated that feeling. 

Luca tilted his head. "No. I'll come back for her myself. But next time," he added, without looking back, "I won't knock."