THE ALPHA'S CURSED MATE

NoTurning back

DANTE’S POV

I wasn’t known as someone who often changed his mind or could never make up his mind about something and yet right now I couldn’t make up my mind on what I wanted to do next. I wanted to go in there and speak to Selene but at the same time I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. I had lost count of the number of times that I hadngone down to the cell that was holding her and back up to my office. I hwated what this mate bond was doing to me and turning me into. I finally decided to just go and see her and get it over with because I would have to see her sooner or later.

I shouldn’t have been there, I shouldn’t even have brought her back home with me. I should have just ended her there or at east allowed the other female wolves that were hungry to be by my side to end her. However, I hadn’t made that decision. Instead I had brought her back home despite what my instinct had told me. I had always listened to my wolf whej making decisions but this situation showed me that I could only rely on his when it came to things that convcerned war but never things that concerned…her. He was always going to pick her no matter what the situation was and this was something that I now had to live with, for now at-least.

The air down here was colder, heavier — thick with the scent of fear that clung to the stones like dust. My wolves rarely came here unless I ordered it. I myself never really came down here until it was to torture someone and right now I wasn’t really sure of what I was doing down here. This was a place where I punished wolves that were disobeying me and that is why my wolf wouldn’t stop questioning me why I had left my..mate down here.

I hated hearing and even saying that word even if it was to myself. I hated acknowledging her. Acknowledging her made her even more real than I wanted her to be. It made what we were supposed to have real and harder o fight.

Once again I found mmyself contemplating going bacl to my office and pretending she wasn’t even down here. I paused halfway down the steps, gripping the railing until the wood cracked beneath my hand. I should turn back. I should leave her where she was and pretend none of this had happened. In a few days, the bond might weaken. Fate could be ignored if I starved it long enough. That was what I was now trying hard to convince mysekf of.

My wolf pushed me forward with a mixture of worry, and possesiveness that made my skin crawl. This wasn’t the life that I wanted to live, I was just going to allow him to have his way this one time but I would take control and stop this from gorowing into something that I didn’t want it to be.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped again. The corridor was dark except for a single lantern burning near the last cell. Her cell. The light flickered wildly, as if it sensed the storm inside me. My heart — a thing I thought I’d buried years ago — thudded once, hard, like it was trying to claw its way out of my chest. This was afeeling that I could never get used to.

I took one more step. Then another.

The closer I got, the more I could smell her — a soft, fragile scent buried under the cold stone and fear. It hit me like a fist. My wolf whined low, the sound vibrating in my skull. I wanted to snap at him, tell him to shut up, but the truth was ugly: part of me agreed with him.

She didn’t belong in a dungeon.

But she didn’t belong with me either.

Her scent changed as I approached — a spike of anxiety, a whisper of panic. She knew someone was here. She could probably feel the bond tugging at her the way it clawed at me. That pull was the only reason I was standing here. I stopped just outside her cell. I didn’t look inside yet, I couldn’t.

I rested my forehead briefly against the cold metal bars, trying to steady myself. It didn’t work. Everything inside me was spiraling — anger, fear, something dangerously close to guilt.

I hated guilt.

I didn’t do guilt, guilt meant regret and I prided myself in never making a decision that I would regret later. I had never made a decision I regretted later until her. For her… it lingered like unwanted smoke in my lungs.

I closed my eyes, I should walk away, I should leave her here until I decided what to do.

But then I heard it — the smallest sound.

Her breathing, unsteady and soft.

A quiet, involuntary whimper she probably didn’t even realize she’d made and something inside me broke something old, rusted, and sealed shut for years. I exhaled sharply through my nose and finally forced myself to look.

She was curled on the stone slab, arms wrapped around her knees, eyes wide and shining in the lantern light. She looked up at me the second our eyes met — not with hope, not with fear… but with resignation. As if she’d already accepted that whatever came next would destroy her.And for the first time in my life, I wished I were someone else. Someone who could look at her without wanting to run — or reach for her.

I gripped the bars to stop my hands from doing either.

“Selene,” I said, and my voice cracked in a way it hadn’t in years — raw, low, and far too human.

I swallowed it back. I needed control. I needed distance.

I needed anything but this, but at the same time my wolf told me it was her that we needed. But as she blinked up at me, trembling and brave and painfully small…

I knew I wasn’t turning back.

Not tonight at least.