Page 39 of Betrayed By the Wolf

Vera tilted her head to one side, befuddled. “An eyeball?”

“Isn’t that something witches do with curses? Take a part of someone’s body and use it to, I don’t know, focus the spell?” He stepped back to let her continue her investigation, turning to face the open door. His ruff was up, and his posture was stiff,ready for an attack. It would be a foolhardy foe to attempt it on an immense wolf-like Rami.

“That’s not where I was going with it.” Vera pushed the box with her nose, sliding it an inch or so back through the dust. It was heavy. Not empty. “I think you’ve been reading too many stories.”

It wasn’t a bad guess, really, but Vera’s sense that the woman from Evelyn’s story was a victim, not a monster, screamed that it was way off. Whoever she had been, her mate had been torn from her and killed. Their love had been forbidden. She had suffered and anguished and longed for her love and, in the end, had been powerless to stop the attack. They had been ripped from each other.

Despite the attack she’d faced outside the cabin and the damage she’d seen the curse do to James, Vera couldn’t subdue the waves of sorrow she experienced while listening to the story. They thronged through her still like the echoes of a bell.I’m so sorry,she repeated endlessly to herself as she went through the woman’s cabin.Did you flee here after they murdered your love? Did you find this place a refuge, or were the howls in the woods a constant reminder of what you’d lost?

“I need hands for this,” she sent to Rami before shifting to her human form. Startled, he whipped around.

“I don’t think that’s safe!” But it was too late to stop her. The transformation was taking over, fur shrinking back into skin, teeth dulling, eyes dimming.

Rami whined and spun in a tight, agitated circle before resuming his sentry position at the door. His ears were flat to his head.

“It’ll be alright,” she soothed, reaching for the box. The metal was shockingly cold to the touch, and she drew her handback to blow warm air on her finger. “But I think I’m really onto something.”

She braced herself and reached again for the latch, twisting it open as the frost bit into her fingertips. Using the back of her knuckles, she lifted the lid and let it swing back onto the wooden vanity top with a clatter. Rami growled, so deep it rumbled through her chest. He circled again, bumping his head against her hand with an insistent whine.

“Yes, yes, I’m being careful. It’s not an eyeball.”

It was definitely not an eyeball, but Rami, in his wolf form, could likely see better than she could, which was exactly what it was. She pulled her phone from her pocket and clicked the flashlight on, shining it over the contents of the box. Red silk lined the inside of the box top and bottom, and at its center, a locket.

Silver like the box and similarly filigreed, the heart-shaped necklace shone in the flashlight’s glow. She knew at once that whoever had made the box made the necklace as well, and the craftsmanship was so alike in its excellence. Unlike the box, the necklace was pleasantly warm.

“Were you just trying to scare me away?” She murmured, eliciting another whine from Rami.

Vera flipped the locket over and found a name engraved on the back.Elena.The woman’s name, perhaps, a gift from her lover. The pulse of power was like a field she had to push through each time she touched the necklace, like sticking her hand through a wall of dense static. But she had to know. Again, she reached for the necklace, and this time, she flipped the clasp that held the locket closed.

The heart opened. A tuft of tawny fur sat at its center, tied with a single red thread. Wolf fur. She knew it at once, andRami confirmed it with a sharp nod. Her lover’s fur was kept in a locket, a secret that could cost their lives. And they had risked it anyway.

The locket was a symbol of their love, but could it also be the source of the curse? She lifted the chain from the box and set it in her palm, closing her fingers around the heart. Pain lanced through her hand, but she couldn’t drop the locket, her fingers locked in a spasm.

Rami whirled, sensing something amiss. The pain intensified, a thousand bee stings in her palm. Vera bit her lip to keep from crying out as tears streamed down her face. A new shade of darkness descended on the room, leaving her blind. She felt Rami at her hip, frantically circling, trying to find the source of Vera’s pain.

“We need to destroy it,” she gasped out the words around sobs of pain, fighting to open her hand. “It’s trapping her pain.”

And Vera was feeling it. Every ounce of hurt inflicted on that woman was being fed back into Vera through the gateway of her hand. The blackness in the room was moving. Like a carpet of beetles skittering toward her, the bedroom walls began to degrade. The floor receded toward Vera, but her feet were frozen to the ground.

Rami barked and shoved her back against the wall, edging her toward the door back to the main house, using his bulk to force her. He put himself between Vera and the crumbling structure.

Finger by finger, Vera pulled her grip free from the locket. “Your pain is tying you here, but he’s not here! You can’t get him back by doing this!”

She didn’t know if anything could hear her or if anything would care. All she knew was that the woman had never hada second chance with her mate, would never again know the warmth of his embrace, the safety she felt in his arms. Vera’s empty hand fisted in Rami’s fur, seeking strength through their bond.

He poured every ounce of himself through it. She could feel his love like a living thing, strong and bountiful, wrapping around her like a suit of armor and giving her strength. She peeled her pinky from the locket’s surface, and the necklace slipped from her fingers and onto the floor.

“Maybe somewhere out there, you’ll be with him again.”

She thought of the woman’s soul searching for her lover through all of time. Was there a thread to follow? Some invisible rope tying lovers together across many lives? Vera lifted her foot and brought the heel of her boot down upon the locket, and the metal, which had seemed flawless, crumbled beneath it.

The silver speckles joined the moldering black spreading across the floor, and Vera’s vision cleared, the darkness of the room fading away.

“We need to get out of here,” Vera cried, darting across the narrow band of floor remaining to the doorway. “Jump, Rami!” She backed out of the way, allowing Rami to leap across the gap.

She shifted as she ran, hitting the bottom of the stairs on four paws. A howl ripped from her throat, and the other wolves flooded into the kitchen, just on their heels. She spun around, counting to make sure everyone was accounted for, her eyes meeting Moira’s.

The decay of the house had accelerated, the entire top floor melting into the bottom floor as black ash floated away on the breeze. With it came the intense smell of the curse, choking the air like smoke. Vera held her breath.

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