The Cursed Alpha's Fifth Luna

Rodrigo burst into the closet, his breathing ragged as he headed straight for the concealed compartment in the wall. His shoulder slammed against the frame, but he barely felt the impact. The skin across his knuckles was split wide open, raw and bleeding from hours of scraping against the wall, but the pain didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the sickening hollow in his chest.

Without wasting a second, Rodrigo shoved the wardrobe to the side. The wood scraped loudly across the floorboards until the internal latch clicked open.

A bead of sweat gathered on his forehead as he waited, his gaze dark.

“Please be here…” he whispered hoarsely, his throat dry and rough from growling through the night. “Please be here.”

The entire closet was a wreck.

The heavy doors to the room hung off their iron hinges, split down the middle. Splintered timber, torn curtains, and shattered porcelain covered the floor. Deep, jagged claw marks scarred the walls—gouges left by the lycans who had repeatedly thrown their heavy bodies against the walls, trying to tear their way inside.

Rodrigo’s jaw tightened until his teeth ground together.

Last night had been a living nightmare.

He had been deep in the woods with Seven, several meters away from the main house, when he felt the sudden overwhelming feeling that she was in danger. It came all at once—a sudden, suffocating surge of pure terror that flooded his veins.

Panic. Fear. Danger.

He instantly turned and sprinted toward the estate. On the way, he thought of a thousand reasons why she would be in danger, but his mind could come up with nothing.

When he reached the hallway outside his chambers, the sight had turned his vision red.

The lycans he had stationed outside the door—the best of his men with absolute control over their wolf instincts—were snarling, snapping at each other, and raging like wild beasts.

A primal rage had overtaken him. Rodrigo had charged the corridor. He had grabbed the lead warrior by the throat and hurled him across the chamber with enough force to crack the wall behind him, forcing the rest to cower and drop to the floor under the crushing weight of his rage.

Then he had searched the room, only to find her… gone.

For three terrifying minutes, Rodrigo thought they had done something to her. His eyes, bloodshot, tracked her scent through the torn sheets and shattered glass until he reached the displaced wardrobe.

The hidden passage.

Rodrigo heaved a sigh of relief. If she was here, then she was safe, but what if she was bitten before she could escape?

What if one of the lycans had followed her through?

The thought of it sent instant rage burning through him as he clawed at the walls, but the wardrobe mechanism needed human hands to move at an angle in order to push.

With the blood moon curse, he couldn’t force his body to shift back until the full moon had disappeared.

He had waited every agonizing second until sunrise.

The wall glided slowly backward, breaking a seal of dust. A stale draft blew out from the opening, thick with the smell of old masonry and cold earth.

Rodrigo’s gaze dropped to the narrow wooden staircase disappearing into the darkness below.

Halfway down the steps, a small figure lay curled tightly on her side.

His hands began to shake.

“Nina…”

His voice was barely a rasp. She didn’t move.

His pulse stumbled. He took the first step down, the old wood creaking loudly under his boots. Each footstep felt impossibly heavy.

“Nina…” He called out again, his voice dropping quieter, thick with dread that something might have happened to her.

Then suddenly, the figure stirred. Her shoulder twitched. Slowly, she pushed herself up on one elbow and lifted her head, her blue eyes struggling to focus on him in the dim light.

“Snow…?”

Before the word could fully leave her lips, Rodrigo was moving.

He dropped the rest of the way down the stairs, his knees slamming hard onto the stone steps as he grabbed her. Rodrigo pulled her flush against his chest, locking his arms around her back so tightly it knocked the breath straight out of both of them.

He pinned her to his chest, burying his face in the crook of her neck. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with her scent—soft skin and the faint, cold smell of the stone passage. His hands moved over her back, clutching her shoulders, dragging his palms down her spine, tangling his fingers in her hair, needing to feel every inch of her to prove she was whole.

She was warm. Her heart was beating fast against his ribs. She was alive.

The unbearable weight crushing his chest finally broke.

Nina buried her face into his shirt, her fingers digging into the fabric at his back. “The Lycans…” she sobbed, her entire body shaking in hard, erratic spasms. “They… they were trying to hurt me…”

Rodrigo pressed his cheek against the top of her head, one hand cradling the back of her skull, holding her tight against his collarbone.

“I’m here now…” His voice cracked, rough and uneven. “No one dares to hurt you.”

His fingers stroked through her hair, his hand still trembling against her head.

“You’re safe with me.”

Without another word, he slid one arm beneath her knees and kept his other arm clamped around her back. He stood up off the stairs, hoisting her easily into his arms.

Nina instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face into his throat.

Rodrigo carried her back up the narrow stairwell. When he reached the top, he reached back and moved the wardrobe, watching the stone wall slide shut with a heavy thud.

Rodrigo stepped out of the closet and walked through the ruined bedroom into the hallway.

Several lycans were standing along the corridor walls. Their uniforms were torn, their faces bruised from the previous night. Every single one of them stood with their heads bowed, eyes locked onto the floorboards.

None of them dared look up. Their shoulders twitched nervously as Rodrigo approached.

Seven stood a few feet apart from the group, his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw set in a tight line.

Rodrigo didn’t say a single word.

The silence stretched out until the air in the corridor felt thick enough to choke on. Then without warning, Rodrigo spoke, his voice dry and cold. “Seven, send the lycans who did this to the dungeons. They are not to see the light of day again.”

At his words, the guards buckled instantly. Knees cracked hard against the hardwood floor as four of the men bowed their heads to the ground.

“We don’t know what happened, Alpha!” one of them screamed. “Something was pulling us against our control. We would not dare to hurt the Luna!”

Seven’s jaw tightened as his gaze dropped to the lycans, but he did not say a word.

“Alpha! Something happened, please, listen to us!”

Rodrigo’s teeth clenched as he walked past them without looking back, his grip on Nina never slackening.

Nina’s fingers tightened around his shoulders as he carried her down the long hallway. She kept her cheek pressed flush against his neck, her eyes shut tightly.

After finding the Vault, she had made her way back up the hidden stairs, but she did not leave the stairwell. She couldn’t let Rodrigo see her hair, but more importantly, she wasn’t sure if they were waiting on the other end to pounce on her and tear her to pieces.

The best bet was to wait for morning to come.

Now, she banked on her luck that her glowing hair was in one way or another linked to the full moon, and she was right.

Once morning came, her glow disappeared.

She could have walked back into her room, but she decided to wait for him to come find her.

Now she knew where the Vault was. All that remained was finding the Alpha’s Seal. To get her hands on it, she needed to be right here—locked in Rodrigo’s arms, closer to him than ever before.

If she was weak and fragile, then he would not let her out of his sight. And that is exactly what she wanted.

She tightened her hold around his neck.

Rodrigo carried her through the heavy double doors at the end of the hallway and pushed them open.

Nina listened to his footsteps quietly as the doors closed behind them, blocking out the noise of the hallway.

Rodrigo didn’t set her down on her feet. He carried her to the bed draped in white sheets and thick fur blankets, then he laid her carefully on the bed. Only then did Nina open her eyes.

Large wooden beams ran across the ceiling, and warm golden light filtered through enormous windows overlooking the forest behind the pack house.

The room was enormous and more tastefully furnished than his.

She looked up at his face. “A different chamber?”

Rodrigo’s hands hadn’t left hers. His gaze stayed locked on her face, his grip tight as if she might vanish if he let go.

Before she could say another word, he leaned down, pulling her into a fierce, desperate embrace, burying his face in the crook of her neck.