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."

Cordelia's Pov

The ritual chamber beneath Ravenshollow was exactly as pretentious as I'd expected. Stone circles, ancient runes carved into the floor, candles arranged in patterns that probably meant something deeply significant to people who took this sort of thing seriously.

The whole setup screamed 'ancient supernatural nonsense' with all the subtlety of a neon sign.

"This is where the original mating ceremony was supposed to take place," Cordy explained, lighting what had to be the hundredth candle.

"Before Lysander decided to make his grand rejection speech in the main hall instead."

"How thoughtful of him to choose a more public venue for my humiliation," I muttered, examining the intricate stonework.

"Nothing says 'this isn't personal' quite like an audience of three hundred."

Lysander stood in the centre of the circle, looking about as enthusiastic as a man facing execution. Which, given his current condition, might not be far from the truth.

The journey down to the chamber had clearly cost him, and his hands shook slightly as he stripped off his shirt.

I tried very hard not to notice how the candlelight played across his chest, highlighting muscle and scars I'd once known intimately.

Five years hadn't dulled the physical attraction, unfortunately. My treacherous wolf stirred with interest, apparently having forgotten that this particular male had chosen pack politics over our bond.

"The curse is tied to his life force," Cordy continued, arranging crystals around the outer edge of the circle. "To break it, you'll need to establish a direct connection to his wolf spirit and essentially burn the curse out from within."

"Burn it out," I repeated. "That sounds delightfully painful."

"For both of you, I'm afraid." She gave me a sympathetic look. "The connection required is... intimate. More intimate than most healings."

Margaret, who'd been hovering near the entrance like she was afraid I might bolt at any moment, stepped forward. "How intimate?"

Cordy's smile was decidedly wicked. "Soul-deep, dear. The kind of connection that only exists between true mates."

The silence that followed could have been bottled and sold as concentrated awkwardness. Lysander's jaw tightened, and I could practically feel the waves of reluctance radiating from him.

Even dying, the man apparently couldn't bear the thought of being vulnerable with me.

"Brilliant," I said cheerfully. "So to save your life, we need to forge the exact connection you publicly rejected five years ago. The irony is so thick I could serve it with custard."

"Delia..." he started, but I held up a hand.

"No. Absolutely not. We're not doing the thing where you apologise or explain or make this about feelings. This is a medical procedure, nothing more.

I'm here to break a curse, not to have a heart-to-heart about our past."

His eyes flashed with something that might have been hurt, but I was well past caring about Lysander Ashworth's delicate emotions.

He'd forfeited the right to my sympathy when he'd chosen appearances over our bond.

"Right then," I said, stepping into the circle. "How exactly does one go about establishing a soul-deep connection with someone who's spent five years avoiding you?"

"Physical contact helps," Cordy advised. "Skin to skin. The more contact, the stronger the connection."

I looked at Lysander, who was staring at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Resignation, maybe. Or dread. Possibly both.

"Well?" I said. "Are you going to stand there looking tragic, or are we doing this?"

He moved toward me with careful, measured steps, like he was approaching a wild animal. When he was close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his skin, he stopped.

"I need you to know," he said quietly, "that I never wanted this for you."

"This? You mean saving your life? How considerate."

"I mean being forced into a position where you have to touch me again."

The admission hung between us, raw and honest in a way that reminded me why I'd fallen for him in the first place.

Before the politics and the pressure and the spectacular public rejection, there had been moments like this. Moments when his guard dropped and I could see the man beneath the alpha.

"Lysander," I said, reaching up to place my hands on his chest. His skin was burning hot, fever-bright and damp with perspiration. "Shut up and let me save your life."

The moment my palms made contact with his skin, the world exploded into sensation. The mating bond, damaged but not destroyed, roared back to life with the force of a wildfire.

I could feel his wolf spirit, wild and desperate and fighting against the dark tendrils of curse magic that were slowly strangling it.

But I could also feel his pain. Not just physical, though that was considerable, but the deeper ache of regret and self-loathing that had been eating at him for five years.

The knowledge that he'd thrown away something precious for the approval of people who didn't matter.

"I can see it," I whispered, my hands growing warm as I channeled healing energy through the connection. "The curse. It's like... like thorns wrapped around your soul."

His hands came up to cover mine, his touch gentle despite the tremor in his fingers. "Can you remove them?"

The curse fought back as I began to work, sending waves of agony through both of us. Lysander's back arched, a low growl rumbling in his chest, but he didn't pull away.

If anything, he leaned into the connection, trusting me with a vulnerability he'd never shown before.

"There's so much of it," I gasped, sweat beading on my forehead as I pushed deeper into the tangle of dark magic. "It's been growing for months, feeding on your life force."

"Just... don't stop," he managed through gritted teeth.

The irony wasn't lost on me. Here I was, pouring my energy into saving the man who'd broken my heart, feeling more connected to him than I had in five years.

The mating bond pulsed between us, stronger with each passing moment, and I couldn't tell if that was helping the healing or making it infinitely more complicated.

"Almost there," I whispered, finding the core of the curse and beginning the delicate work of unraveling it. "Just hold on."