Chapter 9

• VALENS
• It started when I was nine. I wanted to go to this place and that, visit here and there. Everyone laughed at my enthusiasm for travelling, calling me an explorer but then it was confirmed I had inherited my father’s curse. No one laughed after that.
• Of all things to inherit, I just had to inherit a curse.
• While I slept, I dreamt of warmth, of a woman with beautiful amber eyes and reddened skin. Since I hit puberty and the curse came alive, I lost the ability to see colours. Even in my dreams, my world was grey, so it was a fascinating dream. The woman was the most fascinating to me but like a wicked prank, every time I reached for her, she slipped through my grasp like smoke.
• I woke up with my hands reaching for thin air and then I blinked once, twice, ten times. My eyes flitted across the room as my mouth dropped open. No matter how many times I hit myself, no matter how many times I blinked my eyes and pinched myself, the scene remained unchanged.
• The world around me was alive with colours.
• I all but flew out of the bed as I took in the blast of colours around me. Although the room was mostly decked out in white and brown, there was a green potted plant, my black shoes, a silver coin.
• “I can see colours.” The words slipped from my lips, filled with awe. Then I paused.
• My curse breaker.
• “Where is she?” I looked around the room even though I knew I was the only one in there.
• My mind flashed back to the previous night and a sharp pain pierced my skull, making me hiss. I waited a few seconds for the pain to pass but to my amazement, it did not. My lips stretched in a grin as the pain intensified rather than subside.
• Despite my head splitting in two, I was the happiest man alive.
• Cursed with immortality, it was impossible for me to die. I only felt pain for a few seconds before it faded but now – now things had changed. I could see colours, I could feel pain. My curse was broken.
• But my curse breaker was nowhere in sight.
• Although the previous night was a blur, my body clearly remembered the heat of hers. I closed my eyes to call up an image of her but I recalled her harsh pants and how she moaned my name, instead.
• Blood rushed to my nether regions and I laughed.
• Picking up my phone, I called my Beta.
• “Good morning –“ I interrupted his greeting.
• “I found her.”
• “Who?”
• “My mate,” I answered, my lips stretching in a wide grin.
• “What – Where –“ I ended the call with a laugh. I wanted to scream it to the world, tell everyone I was free. For the first time in a long time, I felt – giddy.
• Picking up my clothes scattered about, I threw the covers off the bed while trying to find my shirt and a red piece of cloth fell to the ground. I picked it up with my heart racing, and then I brought it to my nose and inhaled the scent of my mate, committing it to memory while my mouth watered and my manhood filled with blood.
• “You’re not going about without panties, I hope.”
• Stuffing the cloth into my pocket, I grabbed my shirt and went out to find the alpha of this pack. He found me first.
• “Good morning.” He cleared his throat when I stepped out of the room while he was about to knock.
• “Where is she?” I ignored his greeting.
• “W – Who?”
• “The woman from last night.”
• “Oh, Chantelle,” he muttered, his face darkened. “Was she to your liking?”
• Chantelle.
• The name was like a melody to my soul but my eyes narrowed when I processed the implication of his words.
• “What does that mean?” I asked.
• Thinking back to the previous night, my senses went on alert. Why was there a random woman in my room last night?
• “Oh, nothing. Can we have a conversation in my – in my office, if you…” He trailed off, scratching his neck.
• “Alpha!” Lucian came jogging over before I could respond. “Good morning. Are you serious –“
• “Hold him.” I nodded at the man before me. In the blink of an eye, Lucian had his hands firmly behind him.
• “What – What the fuck is this! Let me go!” He struggled but Lucian would not be my Beta if he could not subdue a single Alpha throwing a hissy fit. “Do you know – I am the Alpha of this pack! You should be careful –“
• “Oh, have you decided?” I asked the man trying to headbutt my Beta’s chin. “I thought you needed time but you seem ready so what will it be? Will you hand over without fuss or do you prefer a bloody battle?”
• “I – We – My office. We can have a discussion –“
• The curse seemed to have worsened in the previous month. I took over four packs last month but still, I felt restless. I continued to drift despite the fatigue deep in my bones. I was exhausted but I could not fight the curse no matter how hard I tried. The curse of wandering brought me here and when I stepped into this pack, I had every thought of making it mine. Heck, it was mine already and since the warriors at the border did not try to stop me, I had no reason to rush the handover. I didn’t even care about any of that thanks to one woman.
• My curse breaker.
• “Before that, where is she and why did you send her to my room last night?” I asked.
• “Last night – I – we – I didn’t send anyone to your room last night.” His face reddened while mine darkened.
• Did he take me for a fool? More often than not, when I entered a new pack, they either tried to fight me or offer me their women to ‘appease’ me.
• “Seriously – this is – Chantelle snuck into your room. I had no hand in it,” the man in front of me stuttered.
• Was she that type of woman?
• As if to answer my unspoken question, he continued. “I – She has – a bad habit and I have tried to correct her. I’m sorry if she made you uncomfortable but – but –“
• None of that mattered at that point. I was more interested in reuniting with my curse breaker.
• “Where is she now?” I asked and he blinked.
• “Well – I don’t know?” He resumed struggling against Lucian’s hold.
• “Where is her room?” I tried to sniff her out but my wolf seemed dead.
• “She has no – She doesn’t stay in the pack house – I was – we were about to banish her from the pack for – for trying to harm my Luna and pup. She only knows how to cause trouble so – so she must be hiding somewhere now.”
• The more he stuttered, the more insulting words poured out against my mate and my blood heated. My hands balled into fists but I held myself back from doing anything irrational. Finding my curse breaker was more important than feeding my rage.
• “What’s your name?” I asked.
• “Alpha Jackson.”
• “Jackson, I never learnt forgiveness.” I sized him up while he avoided my gaze. “You should remember that in the future.” Because if I found out he slandered my mate for nothing – it would be hell. “Lucian.” I turned to my Beta.
• “I am on it.” He tightened his hold on Jackson. “We need to know what she looks like and places we may find her.”
• “H – Her father’s house? I don’t –“
• As Lucian swung into action, I basked in the colours around me
• “I found her,” I muttered to myself. After seventeen years, I finally found my mate. Sometimes, I feared I would go centuries wandering the earth alone, conquering mindlessly without satisfaction but I found her.
• Or so I thought.
• “What the hell do you mean she’s not there?” I yelled at Lucian. “How can one woman constantly evade the best trackers we have?”
• “It’s – I –“ My Beta exhaled a breath.
• After two weeks of searching, it was clear my mate wasn’t just hiding. She ran away. As if she never existed, she had vanished from the face of the earth. I lost her before I even found her. I kept expecting her to walk through the doors to the guest room like she did on the first night but my expectations had turned into dashed hopes.
• “Find her – Find her or I swear to the goddess –“ My wolf pushed to the surface with a growl. “Find her!”
• “Y – Yes, Alpha.” Lucian rushed out without a backward glance.
• ‘How could you have driven off our mate?’ My wolf growled at me.
• ‘I didn’t drive her off, you damn mutt!’ I growled back. ‘If you hadn’t passed out like the dead, she would have my mark by now!’ I was sure of it.
• Blood Moon wouldn’t be the first pack to tamper with my meal but they were the first to succeed. From the moment my curse was activated, poisons and drugs stopped working on me but the minute I met my mate, even that curse too was broken.
• ‘I should kill that bastard,’ my wolf continued to growl.
• The bastard called Jackson who was responsible for this mess. His people tampered with my food and he knew. For the sake of my mate, I acted as if I didn’t know, as if the drugs never affected me. No one could know my curse had been broken. No one could know my mate was out there. Not without risk to her.
• Another week went by with me searching for my mate. The more I searched for her, the more I felt I may never find her. Was she an illusion? A figment of my desperate imagination? Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the red panties she left behind. No matter how much I sniffed it these days, I could no longer catch her scent. It now smelt like me. I never thought I would hate my scent as much as I now did.
• “Bounty hunters,” I said as Lucian came back with another disappointing report. “A million, a hundred million, just place a bounty. I need to find her.”
• I was going crazy with every day that passed without my mate.
• “That’d be putting her in danger,” Lucian said.
• Asides searching for her, I also had to search in secret to guarantee her safety. I couldn’t risk her life because of my impatience.
• “A small bounty then!” I exclaimed. “One thousand. Ten thousand! Just do it!” My fists struck the table before me and I hissed as splinters poked into my skin.
• ‘Goddess, please.’ I would give anything – everything to find her. ‘Please keep her safe.’