📖 Moonblooded: The Alpha's Cursed Mate
Author: Sharon Ndaiga
Chapter One: The Curse Awakens
The rain was soft that night - almost gentle - as though the moon herself wept for the girl below.
Shivana ran through the woods, bare feet thudding against the damp soil, her breath visible in the cold. The storm hadn't touched her skin, but something colder had: fear.
Behind her, the howls grew louder - not of wolves, but of pack guards. Her own people. The ones who should've protected her.
"Find the girl!" someone shouted in the distance. "She's marked!"
Marked. The word sent a shiver down her spine.
At eighteen, Shivana had always believed she was like any other orphaned she-wolf in the Nightfang Pack - quiet, invisible, surviving. But on her birthday, the Blood Moon rose...and the mark appeared.
A silver crescent burned into her shoulder. A mark older than time. A mark that cursed her blood.
She stumbled into a clearing and fell to her knees.
The moon glowed above - massive, crimson, and unblinking. Its light seemed to call her. Whisper to her.
You are not just a girl. You are the storm born beneath my shadow. You are cursed. You are claimed.
A crack of a branch behind her made her heart stutter. She turned - and froze.
He stood there like death in a tailored black coat. Alpha Kade. Tall, ruthless, with eyes like winter storms and a reputation of leaving no heart unbroken.
Her gaze met his. She expected fury. Hatred.
But what she saw was worse: recognition.
"You..." His voice was deep and unfamiliar, yet something in it struck her soul. "It's you."
She tried to back away. "You're making a mistake."
His boots crunched against the grass as he stepped closer. "You bear the mark of the Blood Moon. That mark binds you to me."
"No." Her voice trembled. "I don't want this. I never asked to be your mate."
His jaw clenched. "Neither did I."
She rose to her feet, lifting her chin despite the fear clawing at her ribs. "Then let me go."
"I can't," he growled. "The Moon chose. And if we disobey... you'll die."
A gust of wind surged between them, the trees bowing as if in mourning.
"Then let me die," Shivana whispered. "Because I won't be a prisoner. Not even to fate."
Kade stepped forward, his hand brushing the air near her cheek, not quite touching.
"Fate isn't the enemy," he murmured. "Your blood is."
And with that, everything shattered.
The ground beneath her feet cracked with a burst of silver light. Pain flared in her mark. Her knees gave way.
Kade caught her before she hit the ground.
She looked up at him, eyes wet with more than just rain. "Why me?"
"I don't know," he said bitterly. "But the curse always chooses the one it wants to destroy most."