Chapter 2 - Shadows on the Road West
The horses thundered across the misty borderlands, kicking up sprays of dark mud and autumn leaves. Jesse rode ahead, his posture commanding and alert, perfectly attuned to every shift in the wind. Jane gripped the saddle horn tightly, her muscles aching from hours of unaccustomed motion, but she refused to complain.
During a brief midday halt by a rushing stream, Jesse dismounted in a fluid motion and knelt beside the water, splashing his face. The gray veins on his collarbone had receded slightly, suppressed by distance from the pack grounds, but they still pulsed faintly.
“You’re exhausted,” Jesse noted, not looking up as he cupped water in his hands and offered a drink to Jane.
“I’m fine,” Jane panted, accepting the water with a grateful nod. She sat on a mossy boulder, watching him. “You keep looking at the horizon like you expect an army to jump out. Who are we running from, Jesse? Or rather… who cursed you?”
Jesse’s jaw tightened. He stood, towering over her, his molten eyes dark with ancient memories. “Her name was Morana. A high witch of the old bloodlines. She offered me her heart, believing her power could bind me to her throne. When I refused her, she twisted my arrogance against me. She whispered a spell into my wine: ‘May your heart remain as cold as stone until a soul pure enough to love without expectation shatters the shell.’ She thought no one would ever pity a monster.”
“She was wrong,” Jane whispered.
“She was arrogant,” Jesse corrected softly, stepping closer. For the first time, he reached out, his large, calloused thumb gently brushing a smudge of soot from Jane’s cheek. The touch sent an electric shock racing through her veins, a warm, golden heat that settled deep in her chest. “She didn’t account for an omega who felt invisible enough to understand a forgotten stone.”
May you like
Before Jane could answer, a sharp snap echoed from the dense tree line.
Jesse’s body went rigid. His wolf—ancient, massive, and dormant for a millennium—pushed hard against the surface of his consciousness. “Down!” he roared, shoving Jane behind him as a volley of black, poisoned arrows rained down from the canopy.
