Page 10 of The Fated Hunter Wolf
I inhaled deeply, steadying my breath. The air in the hospital was sharp with antiseptics and the faint coppery tang of old blood. I let it fill my lungs, cooling the fire inside me. My wolf shifted, restless but listening, retreating enough for me to focus. My fists unclenched, and the tension in my shoulders eased.
“Better,” Raina said. “Come on. He’s waiting.”
She turned and led the way down the narrow hallway. I followed, scanning the space as we went. The makeshift hospital wasn’t large, just a repurposed community building from when this town had been alive, but it had its share of corners and shadows. My eyes flicked to every doorway, every movement in the periphery. A Heraclid nurse walked by, her hands full of supplies, and I tracked her until she disappeared through another door. Just in case. I knew many Heraclids were relieved to be here, but clearly there were more than a few who were ready to spill blood despite our union.
The door to Blair’s room was slightly ajar. I stepped ahead of Raina and pushed it open, my senses stretching as I entered. The air was heavy with the scent of healing herbs and sweat. Nothing else stood out. No hidden threats. No unwelcome visitors.
Blair was tucked into the single bed, his face pale but his eyes open. He looked up at me, his expression full of guilt and exhaustion. “Rhys,” he said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. It’s like… it wasn’t me. Like something invaded my head and made me lash out. I couldn’t let him walk away after what he said.”
Raina and I exchanged a glance.
Blair had said almost exactly what Raina had just said to me. That we didn’t feel like ourselves. I straightened, my mind already moving ahead.
The curse.
If Blair’s temper and my distraction were tied to the curse on Orion, we had to get on that shit, and fast.
The thought of the curse took me right back to my brothers.
It was like they lived in my chest, two steady heartbeats just slightly out of sync. A life force that wasn’t mine but had rooted itself there anyway, refusing to let go. Nash and Wyatt. The twins. My younger brothers.
I didn’t care what the rumors said.They were alive.
Some nights, I could almost feel them—distant but real, a flicker of light on the horizon that refused to go out. Maybe they had been captured, held by some pack with too much ambition and too little soul. Maybe they were injured, waiting for a rescue that hadn’t come. Maybe they were feral by now, lost to the wild, running on instinct because everything else had been stripped away.
But they were out there.
The twins had been the glue that held us together after we lost our parents. When Logan and I didn’t know how to keep the pack from splintering under the weight of everything we’d lost, Nash and Wyatt had been there, their loyalty and confidence in our brotherhood unshakable. They’d believed in us when we didn’t believe in ourselves, sure that we could bring the Orion pack back to what it once was: a leader of all the Shadow Moon packs.
And I’d let them down.
The guilt crept in, settling in the hollow space behind my ribs. If it hadn’t been for me, they never would’ve gone to that Southern Council meeting. If I’d been stronger, smarter, less rash, I would have been the one to go, not them.
Everything was fresh in those days. Mother and Father dead. Logan had taken Alaric as his beta. I hadn’t found a place for myself in this new pack configuration and was salty with Logan for thinking he was protecting me by not selecting me as his second.
So when Logan asked me to go and sway the Southern Council to back us, to see the Orions as more than a fractured pack licking its wounds, I’d refused.
“How about you send your beta, huh?” I’d famously said, like a fucking idiot.
“It has to be our family.” Logan was right—of course he was. But I’d stuck my nose in the air and acted like I hadn’t heard. “I don’t want to command you,” he’d said, “because they will scent my command and your apprehension like a month-old corpse.” He’d turned to the twins. “Are you ready to do this?”
They’d nodded in unison.
And they never came back.
Every step I’d taken since that day had been haunted by the weight of that failure. If I’d listened to Logan’s caution instead of my own ego… if I’d trusted my instincts instead of my pride…
Visions of them crept back in. Visionsshehad planted there. Sable was somehow mixed up in this. Maybe conspiring with that wretched witch, Mariyah. Or maybe she was playing her own game.
I exhaled slowly, rubbing my eyes.
The curse wasn’t just on the pack. It was on me, too, constantly reminding me of what I’d lost—and what I’d do to make it right.
Because I would find them. No matter how long it took, no matter how far I had to go, I’d bring Nash and Wyatt back. Or I’d die trying.
“Beta?” Blair looked up at me, helpless in his hospital bed.
I blinked and gave him what I hoped was a reassuring nod, but my mind was already elsewhere. I reached out through the bond, searching for Logan. He wasn’t far.
