Cordelia's Pov

The enforcer waiting by the car was someone I recognised, which was both a blessing and a curse. Rupert Whitmore had been Lysander's beta back when I'd been foolish enough to think I belonged in their world.

He'd also been one of the few people who'd looked genuinely sorry during my very public humiliation.

"Delia," he said, straightening as I approached. His voice carried that careful neutrality that screamed 'this is awkward for everyone involved.'

"Rupert." I kept my tone equally neutral, though inside, my wolf was doing complicated gymnastics. Being around pack members again after five years of isolation was like stepping back into a coat that no longer fit properly. "Lovely weather we're having."

He glanced at the grey Scottish sky, currently threatening rain with the determination of a disgruntled deity. "Quite."

We stood there for a moment, two people who'd once known each other well enough to share inside jokes, now separated by years of carefully maintained distance. Rupert looked older, more worn around the edges.

There were lines around his eyes that hadn't been there before, a tension in his shoulders that spoke of too many sleepless nights.

"How bad is it?" I asked, because dancing around the obvious seemed pointless.

His expression shifted, and for a moment, I saw past the professional facade to genuine worry. "Bad enough that the council overruled his objections to bringing you back."

That was interesting. So Lysander hadn't wanted me involved. Typical. The man who'd rejected me in front of half the supernatural community was apparently too proud to ask for help, even when his life depended on it.

"And what exactly makes you all think I can help?" I climbed into the passenger seat, noting that the car still smelled like expensive leather and pack authority. Some things never changed.

Rupert started the engine, and we began the winding drive back toward Ravenshollow.

The landscape rolled past, achingly familiar despite my best efforts to forget it, stone walls, sheep that looked perpetually judgmental, and in the distance, the spires of the estate where I'd once thought I'd spend my life.

"The pack healers are baffled," Rupert said, navigating a particularly aggressive curve. "Whatever's affecting him, it's not responding to conventional treatment. The bond you shared... even damaged, it might be enough."

"Might be." I stared out the window, watching my old life approach with all the enthusiasm of a dental procedure. "Hardly inspiring confidence."

"Delia..."

"It's fine." I cut him off before he could launch into whatever apology or explanation he'd been rehearsing.

"I'm here, aren't I? Despite every rational instinct screaming at me to barricade myself in my studio with enough tea and biscuits to wait out the apocalypse."

The silence stretched between us, filled with things neither of us wanted to address. Like the fact that I'd been in love with Lysander since we were teenagers. Like the fact that the mating bond had been so strong, so obvious, that the entire pack had assumed it was destiny.

Like the fact that he'd chosen pack politics over his supposedly fated mate, and I'd been naive enough to be surprised.

"He asks about you," Rupert said quietly as we turned through the familiar iron gates of Ravenshollow Estate.

My stomach did something complicated. "Does he now?"

"Not directly. But he... notices things. When your pottery shows up in the village shops. When tourists mention the eccentric artist living in the hills."

"Eccentric." I laughed, but it came out sharper than intended. "I prefer 'selectively social.'"

The estate came into view, and despite everything, I felt a pang of something that might have been homesickness. Ravenshollow had been in the Ashworth family for centuries, a sprawling Gothic revival manor that managed to be both imposing and oddly welcoming.

I'd spent countless hours here as a young woman, learning the intricacies of pack politics and dreaming of a future that had spectacularly failed to materialise.

Rupert parked in the circular drive, and I noticed the subtle signs of neglect that spoke of a pack under stress.

The gardens weren't quite as pristine as they once were, and there was a general air of things being maintained rather than lovingly tended.

"Before we go in," Rupert said, turning to face me properly. "You should know... he's not the same. The illness, whatever it is, it's changing him. Making him..." He struggled for the right word.

"More of an arse than usual?" I suggested helpfully.

"Desperate," he said seriously. "And that makes him dangerous."

I considered this as we walked toward the front door, our footsteps echoing on the ancient stone. A desperate Lysander was indeed a concerning prospect.

The man had been formidable enough when he'd been secure in his power. Backed into a corner, facing his own mortality... Well, that had the potential to be spectacularly unpleasant for everyone involved.

The front hall hadn't changed much. Still intimidatingly grand, still designed to make visitors feel small and significant simultaneously.

The portraits of previous Ashworth alphas looked down with their painted expressions of aristocratic superiority, and I wondered if any of them had been stupid enough to reject their fated mates for political expediency.

"Miss Blackthorne." The voice came from the top of the main staircase, crisp and disapproving. Margaret Ashworth, Lysander's mother and current pack matriarch, descended with the grace of someone who'd been practicing intimidation since birth.

"Mrs Ashworth." I inclined my head just enough to be polite, not enough to be deferential. Five years of independence had done wonders for my spine.

She looked me over with the sort of assessment usually reserved for livestock at market. "You look... rustic."

"Thank you," I said cheerfully. "I will try."

Her lips thinned, but before she could respond, a commotion erupted from somewhere inside the house. Shouting, the crash of something expensive hitting something solid, and underlying it all, a sound that made my wolf whimper.

It was a pain-filled, desperate, and undeniably familiar howl.

"Right then," I said, squaring my shoulders. "Let's go see what sort of mess you've all gotten yourselves into."

Cordelia's Pov

Following the sound of destruction through Ravenshollow's corridors was like following breadcrumbs in a particularly violent fairy tale. A Ming vase lay in pieces near the library door. Claw marks scored the wallpaper in the hallway. Someone had definitely been having a proper tantrum.

"Perhaps," Margaret Ashworth said with the sort of brittle composure that suggested she was one broken antique away from a nervous breakdown, "you might consider a more... measured approach."

"Measured?" I paused outside what used to be the blue drawing room, listening to the low growls emanating from within.

"Your son sounds like he's trying to redecorate using only his claws. I'm thinking measured might not be the appropriate response."

Another crash. Something expensive meeting an untimely end.

"He's been like this for weeks," Rupert muttered, running a hand through his hair. "The pack healers can't get near him when he's in one of these states."

"Right." I rolled my shoulders back and reached for the door handle.

"Well, the good news is, I've had five years to get over being intimidated by Lysander Ashworth's dramatics."

Margaret's eyebrows rose to somewhere near her hairline. "You always were impertinent."

"Still am, thankfully."

I turned the handle and stepped into chaos.

The blue drawing room looked like it had been redecorated by a particularly artistic hurricane. Furniture was overturned, paintings hung askew, and in the centre of it all stood the man who'd once been my everything and was now apparently committed to destroying his family's antique collection.

Lysander Ashworth, in all his tragic, infuriating glory.

Five years had changed him, but not in the way I'd expected. He was still devastatingly handsome in that aristocratic way that made sensible women forget their own names.

Still tall, broad-shouldered, and possession of those ridiculous cheekbones that belonged in a renaissance painting. But there was something wrong with the picture now.

His skin had a greyish pallor that spoke of serious illness. His dark hair, usually perfectly styled, hung lank around his face. Most concerning of all, his eyes – those startling green eyes that had once made my knees go weak – now held a wild, desperate quality that made my wolf instincts scream WARNINGS.

He spun toward me as I entered, and for a moment, I thought he might actually shift right there in his mother's favourite room.

"No," he said, voice rough as gravel. "Absolutely not. Get her out."

"Lovely to see you too, darling," I said, closing the door firmly behind me. "You look terrible, by the way. Has anyone mentioned that lately?"

He stared at me like I was a particularly unwelcome hallucination. Which, to be fair, I probably was. "I said get out."

"And I said you look terrible. We seem to be at an impasse." I picked my way carefully through the destruction, noting how he tracked my movement with predatory focus.

Whatever was wrong with him, it was affecting his wolf nature as much as his human side. "When did you last sleep? Properly, I mean, not whatever you've been calling sleep lately."

"This is none of your concern."

"Isn't it?" I settled into the one chair that had somehow survived his redecorating efforts, crossing my legs with deliberate casualness.

"Because from what I understand, you're dying, the pack healers are useless, and I'm apparently your last hope. That sounds rather like my concern, whether I want it to be or not."

He laughed, and the sound held no humour whatsoever. "My last hope. How poetic."

"I've been called worse things."

We stared at each other across the wreckage of the room, five years of silence stretching between us like a canyon.

He looked like he wanted to pace, but something was stopping him. Weakness, maybe, or the knowledge that sudden movements might trigger whatever was eating him alive from the inside.

"You shouldn't have come," he said finally.

"Probably not," I agreed. "But here we are. So why don't you tell me what's actually wrong with you, and we can both get on with our lives."

His mouth twisted into something that might have been a smile if you were feeling generous. "Our lives. Right."

"Lysander." I leaned forward slightly, and he tensed like a cornered animal. Interesting. "Whatever happened between us, whatever you think of me, I'm not here for revenge or closure or any of that tedious emotional nonsense.

I'm here because people seem to think I can help. So let me help, or let me go home to my pottery wheel."

"Your pottery wheel," he repeated, as if the words tasted strange.

"Yes. It's very therapeutic. I make mugs now. Lots of mugs. Some of them are even round."

Despite everything, despite the years and the hurt and the sheer impossibility of the situation, his lips twitched. Just slightly, but enough to remind me of the man I'd once known.

The one who'd laughed at my terrible jokes and brought me flowers he'd stolen from his mother's garden.

The one who'd broken my heart so thoroughly I'd had to rebuild myself from scratch.

"The healers say it's a curse," he said quietly, sinking into the chair across from me with a careful movement. "It's something old that specifically targets the alpha line."

"A curse." I considered this. "How wonderfully melodramatic. Any idea who might want to curse your bloodline? Because I have to say, the list of people with grudges against the Ashworth family is probably extensive."

His eyes flashed, and for a moment, I saw the old Lysander. Arrogant, commanding, absolutely convinced of his own righteousness. "Are you volunteering?"

"If I was going to curse you," I said cheerfully, "I'd have done it five years ago. And it would have been much more creative than whatever this is."

The silence that followed was loaded with memories neither of us wanted to acknowledge.

Finally, he spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper.

"It's killing me, Delia. Slowly, but efficiently. And according to the pack seers, you're the only one who might be able to stop it."

Cordelia's Pov

The pack's ancient library smelled of leather, dust, and centuries of accumulated secrets. I'd always loved this room, back when I'd had free rein of the estate.

Now, surrounded by towering shelves and the weight of supernatural history, I felt like an intruder rifling through someone else's diary.

"The curse manifested six months ago," Rupert explained, pulling down a leather-bound tome that looked older than the estate itself.

"Started with nightmares, then physical weakness, and now..."

"Now he's redecorating with his claws and looking like death's distant cousin," I finished, running my finger along the spine of a particularly ominous-looking grimoire.

"Any particular reason the family thinks this is curse-related rather than, say, a perfectly normal supernatural illness?"

Margaret Ashworth, who'd been lurking near the door like a disapproving gargoyle, stepped forward. "Because it's happened before."

That got my attention. "Come again?"

She moved to a glass case in the corner, withdrawing a portrait I'd never seen before. The man in the painting bore a striking resemblance to Lysander – same aristocratic features, same piercing green eyes, same air of commanding authority.

Except this ancestor looked haggard, desperate, with that same greyish pallor currently plaguing his descendant.

"Roderick Ashworth, 1847," Margaret said crisply. "Died at the age of thirty-two from what the family records describe as 'a wasting sickness that consumed his wolf spirit.'"

I studied the portrait more closely. There was something about the man's eyes, a wildness that reminded me uncomfortably of Lysander's current state.

"Let me guess – he also had episodes of violent furniture destruction?"

"Among other things." Rupert spread open the ancient tome, revealing pages of cramped handwriting and disturbing illustrations.

"According to this, Roderick became increasingly unstable as the curse progressed. Attacked pack members, couldn't maintain his human form consistently, and ultimately..."

"Ultimately?" I prompted, though I had a sinking feeling I already knew.

"Went completely feral and had to be put down by his own beta."

The room fell silent except for the ticking of an antique clock that had apparently been marking time since the dawn of civilisation.

I stared at the portrait, seeing not just a long-dead Ashworth but a possible future for the man I'd once loved.

"Cheerful," I said finally. "And you think this is the same curse?"

"The symptoms are identical," Margaret replied. "The timeline, the progression, even the way it affects the alpha's connection to his wolf.

The healers have confirmed it – this is the same curse that killed Roderick."

I closed the grimoire with more force than necessary. "Right. So we know what it is and what it does. The question is, who cast it and why?"

"That," said a new voice from the doorway, "is where things become interesting."

I turned to see an elderly woman I didn't recognise, though something about her felt familiar. She was small, bird-like, with silver hair pulled back in a severe bun and eyes that seemed to see far more than should be possible.

"Delia, this is Cordelia Ravencrest," Rupert said. "The pack's senior seer."

"Another Cordelia," I muttered. "How delightfully confusing."

The old woman smiled, and it wasn't entirely reassuring. "I prefer Cordy, dear. Less formal, don't you think?"

She moved into the room with surprising grace for someone who had to be pushing ninety, heading straight for a section of shelves I'd never paid much attention to before.

Her fingers traced along the book spines with the confidence of someone who knew exactly what she was looking for.

"The curse," she said, withdrawing a slim volume bound in what looked suspiciously like human skin, "was cast by Moira Blackthorne in 1847."

My blood went cold. "Blackthorne."

"Your great-great-grandmother, to be precise." Cordy's eyes twinkled with what might have been amusement.

"Lovely woman, by all accounts. Right up until Roderick Ashworth rejected her as his mate in favour of a politically advantageous match."

The silence in the library was so complete I could hear my own heartbeat. Or possibly that was the sound of my entire understanding of the situation crumbling around my ears.

"You're telling me," I said slowly, "that my ancestor cursed the Ashworth bloodline because one of them rejected her?"

"Poetic justice, some might say," Margaret observed with acid sweetness.

I shot her a look that could have curdled milk. "And you've known this for how long?"

"We suspected," Rupert admitted. "But we weren't certain until Cordy confirmed it this morning."

"This morning." I rubbed my temples, feeling a headache building behind my eyes. "So you brought me here, knowing that my family is responsible for your precious alpha's condition, because...?"

"Because," Cordy said gently, "curses can be broken, dear. But they require specific conditions to be met."

She opened the skin-bound book, revealing pages covered in symbols that made my wolf instincts recoil. The text was written in what looked like a mixture of Latin and something far older, far darker.

"According to this," she continued, "the curse can only be broken by a Blackthorne descendant who freely chooses to heal the afflicted Ashworth."

"Freely chooses," I repeated. "Not coerced, not forced, not manipulated into it."

"Precisely."

I looked around the room, taking in their expectant faces. Margaret's barely concealed desperation. Rupert's careful neutrality. Cordy's knowing smile. And underlying it all, the weight of five years of hurt and anger and carefully rebuilt independence.

"So let me see if I understand this correctly," I said. "My ancestor cursed your bloodline because your ancestor was an arse to her.

Now you need me to break the curse by freely choosing to help the man who was an arse to me. And you thought this was a plan that would work?"

"It has to work," Margaret said, and for the first time, her composure cracked slightly. "He's my son."

Despite everything, despite the years of resentment and the cosmic irony of the situation, I felt something twist in my chest.

Because whatever Lysander had done to me, he was still the boy who'd taught me to howl at the moon and promised we'd rule the pack together.

"Right," I said, closing the book firmly. "Let's go fix your impossible son before he destroys any more antiques."