Hades' Cursed Luna

The Cursed One

Eve~

I tore through the pack outskirts, my heart beating out of my chest. The towering skyscrapers in the distance loomed like watchful sentinels, the glow of streetlights barely visible beyond the pack's borders. The tall, wrought-iron gates that led out of the urban sprawl and into the restricted woods had long since closed behind me. The foliage scratched at my body as I ran deeper into the trees, away from the concrete jungle, but I knew that if they caught me, I was as good as dead.

"Let me take over," my wolf urged. "They will kill you."

But I couldn't do it. I couldn't give my wolf complete control. Could I even call it a wolf? It was because of it that I was being hunted like an animal.

I tore recklessly at the red ball gown I was wearing, the expensive fabric catching on tree branches that belonged to a forest far beyond the city lights. But I got distracted and tripped on a tree root, flying forward and falling on my face. Pain tore through my already exhausted body.

I forced myself up, glancing back at the dark outline of the pack skyline. But it was too late. They had already come too close, and my ankle twisted painfully during the fall. I couldn't run.

"The Alpha said we must find her. She couldn't have gone far," one of the Gammas tasked with capturing me said to his subordinates.

I pressed my back against a tree, hiding in the shadows cast by the moon filtering through the towering buildings in the distance, my heart pounding like a drum in my chest. I tried to hold my breath so they couldn't find me. They could use their wolves' senses to track me.

"Let me save you,"  my wolf insisted. "You can escape."

But no matter how tempting it was, I couldn't do it. My wolf was the enemy; it was the reason the Alpha wanted me dead. James's face flashed in my mind, his soft brown eyes filled with love. He would be worried. I only hoped that he would not be implicated in this. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if it happened.

Soon, silence fell over the forest, but I could hear the distant sounds of sirens from the pack behind me. I knew the Gammas were changing tactics.

"Eve?" The captain called for me. "The Alpha will be merciful if you just follow us back."

"Lies," my wolf growled, and I agreed with it. Even if the Alpha were the kindest man, my fate wouldn't change.

"Come with us now, Eve." The captain's voice grew harsher, his tone more authoritative.

If I proved too stubborn, he wouldn't hesitate to shot me down.

"Eve!" he growled now. "You should take the Alpha's mercy after what you did."

My heart shattered. They really believed that I had done that. I still remembered the way Ellen had vomited blood at the ball, the gleaming lights of the party blinding me. I couldn't get the memory out of my mind; I would never be able to.

"It seems you have made your choice," the captain said into the air, knowing I could hear.

"Oscar, turn," he ordered his subordinate. "The Alpha said we can bring the cursed one in dead or alive. So when you catch her scent, kill her."

My blood chilled, and fear gripped my heart.

My wolf grew more agitated. "Run, Eve," it urged. "Or I will kill them," it growled in my head, and I knew it would because today, on my eighteenth birthday, I found not an ordinary wolf but a Lycan. They were forbidden creatures. I was the cursed twin the prophecy had foretold, the one who would bring ruin to my pack.

My tears fell as I waited for my death. It was better than living in a world where I was the one thing that was an enemy to my own kind. But my wolf had another idea.