EVERYONE FAILED TO BREAK THE ALPHA KING’S CURSE — UNTIL A FORGOTTEN OMEGA KISSED THE MONSTER… AND HIS NEXT WORD SHOCKED THE KINGDOM PART 1 They sold Arth for less than the price of bread.

The journey to Blackwood Citadel was a blur of gray stone, churning gray seas, and the suffocating realization of a death sentence. Thrown into the back of an iron-barred wagon, Arth shivered in her thin shift while the guards ignored her completely, treating her less like a prisoner and more like a sack of garbage being hauled to the municipal dump.

Blackwood Citadel sat upon a jagged spire of black basalt that jutted out of the sea like a broken tooth. It was a fortress built for imprisonment, not defense—designed to keep the world away from whatever nightmare festered within its walls.

The guards hauled her through endless subterranean corridors where the air smelled of damp moss and old copper, finally stopping before a massive iron door that looked as though it had been beaten by a battering ram. The wood was splintered, reinforced with thick bands of crossed iron plates, and wrapped several times over with heavy chains secured by massive padlocks.

One of the guards shoved a key into the lock with a hand that shook so violently it scraped the iron repeatedly.

"Do not touch him," the guard whispered, his voice cracking with superstitious dread as he glanced nervously down the dark corridor. "Whatever happens... do not touch his skin. When the change starts, curl into a ball and pray to whatever gods are listening that he eats you clean and fast."

The heavy door groaned open, swinging inward with a screech of ungreased hinges.

Arth stepped across the threshold, and the moment her bare foot touched the stone floor inside, a shockwave of agony slammed into her chest. It was not a physical blow, but something infinitely worse—a tidal wave of raw, unadulterated suffering.

From the time she was a small child, Arth had possessed a strange, unnameable gift. While other children of her pack manifested strength, speed, or tracking senses, Arth felt too much. She could sense the quiet despair of a stray dog, the hidden terror of a beaten servant, the heavy grief of a mourning mother. But this... this was an ocean of pure, burning torment.

The chamber was a cathedral of destruction. Massive oak tables had been splintered into toothpicks. Heavy iron torch sconces were bent out of shape as if made of soft wax. Deep, gouged claw marks scarred the gray stone walls several feet off the ground, and dark, dried patches of blood coated the floor in a sickening mosaic.

And in the very center of the room knelt King Zepharos.

He was breathtaking, even in ruin. Bound by heavy silver chains that tethered his massive wrists and ankles to iron rings in the floor, he possessed a frame of terrifying proportions. Broad shoulders, corded muscle beneath slick skin, and long, raven-black hair matted with sweat clinging to a face of classical, aristocratic beauty.

Yet, he was horrifying to behold.

Beneath his pale skin, thick black veins writhed and pulsed like blind worms under ice. His eyes—one a clear, piercing silver, the other burning with an unnatural, molten crimson—snapped toward her.

"Another omega," he growled, his voice a deep, gravelly rumble that vibrated through the floorboards and rattled her teeth. "My uncle sends me another scrap of meat."

Arth stood frozen, her fingers clutching the thin fabric of her shift. "Leave," the king spat, baring teeth that were becoming entirely too sharp, too long.

Outside, the heavy iron door slammed shut with a thunderous crash. The sound of multiple heavy bolts sliding home echoed like gunshots in the stone chamber.

She was locked in. There was no escape.

Zepharos laughed, a bitter, self-loathing sound that ended in a sharp gasp of pain. He arched his back, his muscles locking as a fresh wave of black veins raced up his neck and pooled behind his ears.

"He hates you," the king whispered, his crimson eye flaring brighter. "He hates you almost as much as he hates me. You have no wolf. You are completely defenseless."

"I know," Arth said, her voice surprisingly steady despite the terror threatening to tear her heart from her chest.

"Then why aren't you screaming?" Zepharos snarled, his head snapping back as his jaw unhinged slightly, letting out a horrific cracking sound. "Why aren't you weeping at the door like the others before you? Get to the corner!"

"What?" she breathed, taking a cautious step backward.

"GET TO THE CORNER!" he roared, a sound so loud and ferocious it blasted the dust off the surrounding stones. "Do not move! Do not breathe loudly! When it takes me... pray to the heavens it does not notice you are here!"

His scream tore through the tower, shaking the very foundations of Blackwood Citadel. Arth watched, paralyzed, as the man she saw before her began to dissolve. His skin stretched and tore, black smoke pouring from his pores as his bones snapped and rearranged themselves into a shape that defied nature.

Darkness swallowed his humanity piece by piece. Seconds later, a monstrous wolf-like creature—massive, hulking, covered in matted black fur that seemed to absorb the light around it—strained against the silver chains. Saliva dripped from its jaws, hissing as it hit the stone floor.

This was the beast that had slaughtered every single soul sent into this room.

Instinct screamed at Arth to run, to huddling in the shadows, to beg for mercy. But her strange, cursed empathy pierced through the terror, pulling her toward something entirely unexpected.

Beneath the deafening roar of the beast's rage, she felt a profound, suffocating terror. Behind the monstrous exterior was a human mind—a king who had been tortured, manipulated, and trapped in his own flesh, fighting a losing battle against a darkness that wanted to erase him entirely.

"You're still in there," she whispered, her voice barely a breath.

The beast snapped its colossal head toward her, glowing crimson eyes locking onto her slight frame. It took a step forward, the heavy silver chains clinking loudly, the metal glowing hot against its fur.

Arth didn't run. Instead, she sat down right there on the blood-stained floor, pulled her knees to her chest, and began to speak.

She didn't use spells. She didn't offer prayers or holy incantations. She spoke of ordinary things.

She described the golden heat of summer sunlight pouring over ripening wheat fields in the lowlands. She talked about the tart, sweet taste of wild berries picked from the brambles after a morning rain. She told stories of children laughing beside lazy rivers, of old women baking bread with rosemary and sea salt, of warm loaves cooling on windowsills while woodsmoke drifted into an autumn sky.

Little pieces of an ordinary, beautiful world that Zepharos had been stripped of the moment he was dragged back from the dead.

The beast froze.

The massive jaws, parted to unleash a killing bite, hung motionless in the air. The crimson glow in its eyes flickered, dimming just a fraction as the creature tilted its massive, terrifying head.

"Why?" a voice rumbled, echoing not just from the beast’s throat, but directly inside Arth’s mind—a telepathic resonance born of desperation. "Why aren't you afraid of the monster?"

Arth’s voice trembled, tears finally spilling over her lashes, tracing hot paths down her cold cheeks. "Because... nobody should ever have to suffer alone in the dark."

The darkness that enveloped the creature suddenly shuddered. A violent tremor wracked its frame, and with a deafening yelp, the monstrous shape dissolved into a cloud of black vapor that retreated back into the king’s skin.

The beast collapsed.

Moments later, Zepharos lay sprawled naked and shivering against the cold stone, his chest heaving as he gasped for air, his human form restored. He raised his head, his silver eye staring at her with profound, stunned disbelief.

"How?" he whispered, his voice cracking. "No healer, no witch, no priest has ever stopped the blight once it broke free."