Maggie's POV
Immediately after the abduction
The cab door slammed shut, and they were gone.
Gone.
I stared at the empty space where the black car had disappeared, my hands trembling, my lungs burning like I'd been running, even though I hadn't moved. My best friend—my person—had just been taken. Just like that.
"What the hell just happened?" I gasped, fumbling for my phone.
No signal.
Of course.
My eyes darted around the deserted alley. It was just me now. My heart pounded in my ears as I climbed out of the cab. My shopping bags spilled across the pavement, forgotten. I didn't care. I turned a slow circle, searching for someone, anyone. But the street was dead quiet—just warehouses, shadows, and the lingering echo of tires screeching away.
I finally caught a bar of signal and dialed 911 with shaking fingers.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"My friend—she was kidnapped! Two guys took her from a taxi. They dragged her into a black car and drove off—I think it was a warehouse district near the mall—she screamed, she was screaming—"
"Ma'am, I need you to take a breath. Are you safe right now?"
"No! Yes! I mean—I'm alone. But she's not. Her name's Halia. We were shopping—oh my god, they just took her."
"Okay, we're dispatching officers to your location. Stay put."
But I was already moving.
"I have to tell her mom," I said, more to myself than the operator. "She has to know."
"Ma'am—"
I hung up and ran.
—
It was a blur after that—sprinting down side streets, flagging a bus, huffing the whole ride back to our neighborhood. I could barely sit still, gripping the metal pole with white knuckles, replaying it all over and over.
That cab driver. His silence. The way he locked the doors like it was planned. That second car, already waiting.
They weren't random creeps.
This was organized.
And Halia—God, Halia—had known something was off. I saw it in her face when we left the mall. She'd been off all day. Haunted. She tried to smile, but something was chewing her up inside.
What if that dream she mentioned wasn't just a dream?
The moment the bus doors hissed open, I bolted.
Her house was only a few streets down. Familiar. Safe. Until tonight.
I banged on the front door hard enough to make the porch shake.
Her mom answered, wearing a soft cardigan and loose joggers, her hair pulled up in a messy bun. She blinked like she'd just been reading or folding laundry. For a second, I thought I'd imagined everything.
"Maggie?" she asked, confused. "Is everything alright?"
"No," I said, the word breaking out of me. "It's Halia. She's—she's gone."
Her face didn't contort the way I expected. No panic. No wailing.
Just a pause. A blink. And then a strange narrowing of her eyes.
"Gone," she echoed slowly.
"She was kidnapped!" I cried. "We got in this cab and it locked the doors and then two guys came, and there was another car, and she screamed—she fought—and they had her, they dragged her—and then they just vanished."
I was breathless. My chest heaved. But her mom just stood there, staring past me like she was trying to remember something she hadn't wanted to.
"You called the police?" she asked.
"Of course I did. But they don't know anything. I had to tell you—I didn't know what else to do."
She stepped aside. "Come in."
I hesitated. "Aren't you going to—freak out? Call someone? I don't know—cry? Scream? She's your daughter."
"I am her mother," she said quietly, shutting the door behind me. "That's why I know screaming won't help."
That sent a chill right down my back.
I followed her into the kitchen. She moved like she was on autopilot, pulling down two mugs and putting on the kettle. Tea? Now?
"I don't understand," I said.
She faced me, eyes suddenly sharp. "Maggie, did Halia say anything to you lately? Anything strange? About how she was feeling? Dreams?"
"Yes," I whispered. "She said she had this… intense dream. About some guy. She woke up and there was blood. She said it felt real."
Her mom nodded slowly. "It's earlier than we thought. I hoped for more time."
"What do you mean we?" I demanded. "You knew this could happen?"
Silence. Then she poured the water, the steam clouding up between us.
"She's waking up," she said finally. "They must have sensed it. The others."
"The what?"
Her mother looked at me, something ancient flickering in her gaze. Something not entirely… human.
"She's not like other girls, Maggie. She was never going to be. And now they know it too."
I took a step back. "You're saying you expected this?"
"No," she said. "I feared it. But bloodlines don't stay quiet forever. Not hers. Not his."
I had no idea what she was talking about. But the way she said his made my stomach twist.
"Who is he?" I asked.
***
The city below shimmered like a mirage, false and fleeting. From my perch high above, it looked peaceful. Harmless. But I knew better.
This world was built on lies. Fragile illusions spun to keep the masses blind. And we—the cursed—walked among them, unseen, burdened by a truth too dark for fairy tales.
The curse was not mine alone. It belonged to my bloodline. A mark carved deep by the Moon Goddess herself—punishment for a transgression I still don't fully understand. I was young when it happened. Too young to know that even loyalty can be a sin if offered to the wrong god.
Now, the curse rots us from within. My pack and I—Alpha-born, moon-forged—we decay slowly, unraveling at the seams. Madness, bloodlust, and the slow erosion of will. That is our fate unless we obey the rules of the ritual.
And the rules are cruel.
Each year, we must claim a girl on the cusp of her eighteenth year. The bond formed through the act of carnal sealing halts the progression of the curse, siphons its hunger for another moon cycle. It buys us time. A ritual of flesh and spirit, written in the blood of ancients.
I've performed it more times than I can count. Detached. Mechanical. A necessary evil.
Until her.
Halia.
She wasn't like the others. I knew the moment the dream began—the first contact between her soul and mine. The dreamscape is supposed to be cold, structured, one-sided. But she reached for me. She touched back. And when I claimed her—no, when we collided—I felt something break open inside me.
It wasn't just the ritual. It wasn't just the curse.
It was her.
Her confusion, her fear, the way her body moved with mine like she knew me in some other life. Her scent, the heat of her skin, the defiance in her eyes even as she submitted to the bond.
This wasn't control.
This was connection.
And it terrified me.
For the first time in centuries, I felt. Not lust. Not power. But longing. A craving I had no name for. The others were sacrifices. But Halia?
She felt like fate.
Like home.
I watched her after. In the crowd. Just once. A glimpse. I shouldn't have. It was reckless. But I needed to see her eyes in the waking world.
And I saw it.
Recognition. Just a flicker. Just enough to unravel my resolve.
That night, I gave the order. She was to be extracted.
I hated myself for it.
But if I didn't, someone else would. The other clans watch the bloodlines. They'd sensed her awakening. They'd smelled her dream-claim. If I waited, they would come.
And they wouldn't be gentle.
So I sent my men. I orchestrated the abduction I swore I'd never commit again. Because she deserves better than the cage of this curse.
And yet, I'm the one who dragged her into it.
When they told me she was secured, I should have felt relief. But all I felt was dread. Because now she's mine—bound, claimed, marked.
And I can't pretend this was just duty anymore.
The curse is old. Relentless. It devours and defiles. But what if she is more than a balm?
What if she is the one thing that can break it?
What if loving her is the real transgression?
I stare down at the city, at the illusion of safety below.
She's in.
And with her, everything I thought I knew begins to unravel.
I don't know what I am anymore.
Monster. Alpha. Weapon.
But I do know this:
I would burn this entire world to keep her breathing.
Even if it means letting the curse consume me instead.
Her mom just stared at the steaming mug, like it might give her answers.
And all she said was: "The one who claimed her."
***