The Cursed King

Four

Despite hearing every single chaotic thought tearing through my brain, the beast didn't react at all. He didn't tense up, he didn't snap, and he didn't threaten to drop me. For that, I was profoundly grateful. I have a chronic tendency to overthink literally everything, and if my mental rambling was going to constantly provoke a seven-thousand-year-old apex predator, my lifespan here was going to be measured in seconds.

I never thought my life would be put at risk just because I couldn't shut my internal monologue up.

For the rest of the trek to the castle, a heavy, mutual silence settled between us. I purposely locked down my curiosity, refusing to ask any more questions. As a detective, I knew when a suspect- or a host- was carrying raw, unhealed trauma. The last thing I wanted to do was accidentally poke at an old wound better left buried in the dark.

But when we finally crossed the threshold into the ruined fortress, my jaw completely dropped.

It was utterly breathtaking, even in its advanced state of decay. The sheer scale of the architecture was dizzying, though the violence of its past was carved into the very walls. Massive breaches tore through the thick stone, looking less like the erosion of time and more like someone had violently punched through solid rock with their bare fists.

And given the crater I had just seen outside, I had a pretty solid guess as to who that 'someone' was.

Moving past the shattered gateway, which honestly shouldn't even be called a gateway since the doors had been completely obliterated into splinters, we stepped into a colossal, circular grand hall. Branching off from the center were dozens of dark hallways and sweeping stone staircases that curved upward into the shadow.

But the absolute focal point of the room was a towering statue carved dead center in the hall.

The monument was easily thrice my height, depicting a woman who could only be described as ethereal. Behind her sculpted head, a faint, impossible aura pulsated, radiating a soft, continuous luminescence that effectively lit up the entire cavernous room. Her hair was carved in sweeping, endless waves that pooled on the stone floor like thick skeins of yarn. Even though a draped cowl shadowed half of her face, the marble couldn't conceal her devastating beauty.

This statue was the only thing in the entire fortress that remained perfectly untouched, free of a single chip or scratch. It was glaringly obvious that whoever this woman was, she held a sacred, fiercely protected space in his heart.

"She is my mother, Selene," the beast rumbled softly from beside me, noticing my wide-eyed stare and answering the unspoken question echoing in my head.

"She's beautiful," I murmured, and I meant it. If your mother is the literal personification of the moon, she's bound to be spectacular.

"The light has diminished," he whispered under his breath, his dark eyes fixed on the glowing marble with a profound, aching sorrow.

What light? I wondered privately. But before the thought could fully form, the beast turned away, his massive paws heavy against the stone as he began to ascend the central staircase. I didn't waste a second; I bolted right after him. With dozens of twisting, identical hallways bleeding off this hall, it wouldn't take more than a minute for me to get hopelessly lost in this labyrinth.

We climbed the sweeping stairs until we emerged onto a high, double-story stone balcony that looked out over a vast, sweeping valley. Sprawled out beneath us lay what looked like a massive, abandoned ancient city.

Every single structure, from the grandest estates to the humblest dwellings, was entirely overtaken by the same bioluminescent flowers I had seen in the meadow. Their vibrant, pulsing glow knit across the stone, illuminating the entire valley in a soft, ghostly violet light. But while the flowers added an undeniable, haunting beauty to the landscape, the crumbling infrastructure, caved-in roofs, and the suffocating darkness lingering in the alleyways made the entire city look deeply eerie.

"There is no other place for you to stay except here," the wolf-man spoke up, his deep voice slicing through the quiet air.

"Hey, this is more than good enough for me," I said, trying in vain to inject a little casual lightness into the heavy atmosphere. "Until I figure out the cosmic physics of getting back home, I'll just pretend I'm renting a luxury villa."

He didn't bite at the joke.

"Um, but if I am staying," I continued, glancing down at my ruined clothes, "can I at least get something to clean up a room? Maybe some spare cloth for a change of clothes, and something I can use as a makeshift mattress?" I paused, suddenly feeling self-conscious. "Am I asking for too much?"

"I don't possess any of those things," he replied simply.

"Right. Of course. Silly question," I nodded, chiding myself. Why would a seven-thousand-year-old wolf have spare linens lying around?

"Though... we can go down and search the abandoned houses for supplies," he suggested quietly.

I instantly perked up at the idea. I sure as hell couldn't survive in these blood-stained, dirt-caked clothes for much longer, and the thought of sleeping on a stone floor covered in a hands-deep layer of ancient dust was a nightmare in itself. "Yes, please. Let's do that."

"Come here," the beast said, suddenly turning to face me and opening his massive, muscular arms.

Thinking he was asking for another one of those grounding, experimental hugs, I didn't hesitate. I stepped right into his space and wrapped my arms around his broad chest.

...He froze.

And that was the exact moment I realized he should have explicitly stated his intention to carry me princess-style. If he had, I could have saved myself from yet another deeply embarrassing mental disaster.

"I meant... I am going to carry you to our destination," the wolf-man explained slowly, his deep voice tinged with a hint of awkward amusement. "The city ruins are quite far from the castle gates. If we travel at your human pace, we won't reach the first perimeter until well after evening."

"Right! Ha. Yeah. Obviously," I stammered, my face instantly burning a furious, agonizing shade of crimson. I quickly detached myself, coughing into my hand. "I was just... uh... figuring out the best angle for you to pick me up. Totally deliberate."

Oh my god, I screamed at myself internally, what cosmic deity did I offend to deserve this level of non-stop psychological humiliation? Why can't I just ask questions before throwing my body at him?

"Here," he rumbled gently, cutting off my internal panic as he easily slid his massive forearms under my knees and back, lifting me into the air.

I felt incredibly tiny in his embrace. I'm a tall woman, but wrapped in his arms, I felt like a fragile six-year-old child being carried to bed.

Though, if I was being completely honest with myself, his arms were spectacularly comfortable. The support was unyielding, and his thick fur was surprisingly soft against my skin. I could probably sleep like a absolute log right here.

He had this completely bizarre, inexplicable effect on me. The exact second our skin made contact, a wave of instant, profound serenity washed through my entire system. My racing mind suddenly quieted, my tense muscles relaxed, and a deep sense of safety anchored itself in my chest.

It was terrifyingly weird.

And then there were those sparks. The literal, crackling currents of electricity that ignited wherever our skin brushed against each other. It felt incredibly pleasant, so pleasant that a dark, dangerous part of me wanted to press closer just to keep the feeling alive.

Distraction. I need a massive, immediate distraction, I panicked, forcing my thoughts away from the sparks and his chest. He could hear every single solitary word running through my head, and the last thing I needed was for this ancient being to think I was some sort of desperate human predator.

Desperate for a mental pivot, I forced my thoughts back toward Earth. A heavy ache settled in my chest as the detective in me began to analyze the aftermath of my disappearance. What happened to the Elaine murder suspect? Did Blake or the backup team catch him? Did the department launch a full-scale rescue mission for me when they found my empty cruiser at the bottom of the gorge?

But as the questions stacked up, they inevitably bled into a much darker, much colder reality.

Who am I kidding? Are they even looking for me?

A fall down a deadly, black ravine like that left zero survivors. The police department wouldn't waste an extensive amount of valuable resources, man-hours, and rescue teams searching for a body in a treacherous valley when they knew the outcome.

And the bitter truth was... I had no family waiting for a coffin. I had no real bonds with my coworkers, and I didn't have a single close friend to scream at the captain to keep looking.

No one in their right mind wastes resources on a dead detective who leaves no one behind.

It was a profoundly hollow feeling, realizing that my life or death didn't actually impact a single soul on Earth.

I let out a bitter, silent smile, staring into the dark sky as the beast carried me down the mountain path. When I had chosen to live my life completely isolated, I had done it under the arrogant assumption that it was an act of mercy. I knew exactly how agonizing, how utterly destructive it felt to lose someone you loved with all your heart, and I had sworn I would never inflict that kind of pain on another human being. I wanted to slip out of the world without leaving a single scar behind.

But ironically, in my effort to keep everyone else safe from grief... I was the only one left feeling entirely sad.

"We're here," the beast's deep voice shattered my dark train of thought.

Gently, he lowered my feet back down to the earth. The moment my boots touched the grass, a violent wave of goosebumps erupted across my arms and neck. The air in this abandoned sector felt entirely different, it was heavy, static, and dripping with an ominous, suffocating pressure.

My knees instantly buckled under the weight of the atmosphere, and I stumbled heavily.

Throughout my career in forensics and homicide, I had seen the absolute worst humanity had to offer. I had stood over gruesome crime scenes, examined bodies torn into unrecognizable shreds, and dealt with an unlimited amount of raw, stomach-churning gore without blinking an eye. But none of those horrors had ever triggered the sheer, paralyzing terror that this quiet city street did.

The entire place felt like a living, breathing haunted town.

"Do not be afraid," the wolf-man said, his massive hand instantly shooting out to steady me by the waist before I could hit the dirt. "They cannot harm you."

His words did not comfort me. In fact, they made me sweat with pure terror.

See, there was one vital piece of information you should know about me: I am completely, utterly terrified of the paranormal. I can handle serial killers, cartel bosses, and corrupt cops all day long, but the moment someone mentions a ghost story, I lose my absolute mind. I can't sleep, I can't function, and my brain spirals into total childhood panic.

And that fear wasn't irrational; it stemmed from a terrifying incident during my teenage years. I had always been overly sensitive to my surroundings, occasionally feeling a strange chill or a passing shadow that I could easily write off as an overactive imagination. But one night, while sleeping soundly in my bed, I woke up to a crushing, suffocating pressure.

My eyes had snapped open, staring at the dark wall. I didn't even have to turn around to know, with absolute certainty, that someone was standing in the corner of my bedroom, watching me breathe.

After what felt like hours of agonizing paralysis, I watched a dark, towering silhouette of a man slowly walk out of my bedroom door. Right at the threshold, the figure stopped. It slowly turned its head back to look at me. I almost pissed myself right then and there. I could see the distinct shape of his clothes, his height, his hair, and even his ears, but his face was completely gone. It was as if someone had taken a digital brush and aggressively blurred out his facial features into a smooth, featureless void.

I had never experienced true terror until that night. For years afterward, I couldn't sleep without a light on. It was only after joining the academy and forcing myself through intense detective training that I slowly acclimated to working in the dark, but that featureless phantom was still perfectly fresh in my memory.

"Who... who exactly is 'they'?" I whispered, my voice trembling as I gripped his forearm for dear life.

"My pack," the wolf-man answered softly, looking out over the dark streets. "These glowing flowers... they are the remnants of their souls."

My breath hitched. "No wonder..." I murmured under my breath.

The flowers were visually stunning, but the instinctual, supernatural block that kept me from asking about them earlier suddenly made perfect sense. My subconscious had recognized the heavy weight of the dead. No matter how beautiful the bioluminescence was, it was a graveyard. And a graveyard of supernatural entities was the last thing my ghost-fearing brain needed to analyze.

"How about... how about you go inside that house and bring the things out?" I suggested rapidly, my face going completely pale as I pointed a shaky finger toward the nearest crumbling doorway. "I'll just... stand right here. In the open air. Supervising."

Seeing the sheer terror radiating off my face, the beast gave a slow, understanding nod and began to step into the dark threshold of the abandoned home. But the exact second his massive frame cleared the doorway, a sharp, loud SWOOSH echoed through the empty street behind me.

My heart shot into my throat, and a violent tremor tore through my legs.

"Wait for me!" I shrieked, completely abandoning my post. I bolted through the door, running as fast as my legs could carry me, and practically glued myself to his furry side.

Nope. Absolutely not. Graveyard flowers or not, facing whatever was lurking in the dark outside was out of the question. It was infinitely better to stay close to the giant, terrifying wolf-man than to spend even a single second alone with the dead.

~•~