Chapter 118: The Pain-Binding Curse

Author’s POV~

You are killing Adeline, not me.

Zyran stood completely still.

The fragile, fierce, resilient female who had already suffered so much at the hands of her cruel pack, who was just beginning to find a shred of peace under the protection of the Royal family, she was lying somewhere right now, screaming in agony because of him.

Because of his blind, uncontainable rage. Because he had rushed down here to exact bloody vengeance without checking for hidden traps, without considering the insidious depths of a witch’s dark magic.

’I did this,’ the thought clawed violently at Zyran’s conscience, tearing his insides apart with a suffocating wave of guilt and self-loathing. ’I stabbed her. With my own hands, through this monster... I was about to drove the silver straight into Adeline’s heart.’

Chloe saw the exact moment the rage inside him changed into helplessness.

A slow smile appeared on her lips. She lifted her chin slightly.

"I understood that the four Lycan princes had been wrapped around her, the very moment when all four of you arrived at the RDC court yourselves," Chloe said, her voice dripping with a bitter, spiteful venom as she spat the words out. She let out a scoff, but her eyes remained wide, wild, and unhinged.

"I knew it," she continued. "The moment I saw that the four of you came there personally just because of her, I knew that girl had become more important to you than anyone could ever be."

She shifted slightly against the chains, ignoring the blood running down her arms.

"I knew that eventually you would all come back to me. To tear me apart."

Her gaze moved between the two princes.

"Because that is what happens when everyone realizes that nothing can be truly hidden from Royal Lycans forever. I knew the truth would come out eventually. I knew someone would discover what I had done. And I knew that once you found out, you would come after me."

"So... I did what I had to do to survive."

Blake took a slow, heavy step forward, his eyes locking onto hers with a dark, suffocating intensity.

"So, you had a witch put a pain-binding curse on Adeline." Blake said, his voice low, dangerously controlled, and vibrating with an icy fury. "You used an ancient dark magic just to transfer all your physical torment and agony straight to her?"

Chloe tilted her head back against the cold iron chains, a sick, victorious smile spreading across her pale, blood-stained face.

"I did what I had to do to protect me. I used her as my shield," Chloe whispered, her tone chillingly calm as she confessed her twisted strategy. "I needed a way to protect myself when my plans fell apart. So now..." She paused, letting the heavy, suffocating silence stretch before flashing them a mocking grin.

"If you kill me, then Adeline dies with me!"

Zyran staggered backward as if he had been physically struck. The mighty Royal Lycan Prince, the apex predator who feared nothing, felt his knees tremble. He gripped his dark hair with his hand, pulling at the strands as frustration, self-hatred, and blinding panic tore him apart from the inside.

"No..." Zyran choked out, his voice cracking with raw rage. "No, fuck... No..."

Chloe continued, leaning into her twisted leverage with a sickening display of confidence.

"You wanted to punish me. You wanted to make me suffer for what I did to her." Chloe smiled. "But now can’t do that. You have got a serious problem."

She slowly raised her chained hands.

"If you hurt me... She hurts."

"If you stab me..." Her smile widened.

"She suffers. She takes the pain for me."

"If you kill me..." She whispered the final words. "She dies."

Silence fell over the dungeon.

"Lords, you really want to save her, don’t you?" Chloe mocked, her voice shifting into a sickly sweet, pathetic tone.

"So now you have got to protect me. Because every time you do something to me, that poor little bitch feels it."

She let out a soft, taunting laugh, her eyes darting between the two furious Royal Lycans.

"What if I try to kill myself right now, just so that little bitch can die with me? Huh? You wouldn’t risk her life, would you? You can’t let a single scratch come to me, or Adeline bleeds for it." Chloe’s smile widened.

"So look at that. Now I get the ultimate protection, the attention, and the undivided care of all four Royal Princes. Isn’t it funny? The girl you both protect is keeping me alive. Now, I’m the one you have to keep alive to protect her."

Blake let out a harsh, dry scoff, the sound echoing off. He stared at her as if she were the most repulsive creature crawling on the earth.

"You are really just a pathetic, desperate whore," Blake said, his voice dripping with absolute disgust. "You had the twin alphas wrapped around your finger for years, and yet you wanted what she has because you were burning up with jealousy over Adeline."

Hearing the word jealousy triggered something explosive inside Chloe. Her smug mask slipped instantly, replaced by a contorted mask of pure, ugly fury.

"Jealous?!" Chloe shrieked, her voice cracking as she lunged forward as far as the heavy chains would allow, staring at Blake with unfiltered hatred. "Me?! Jealous of that fucking wolfless bitch?! No! She has something she doesn’t even deserve! She has the royal bloodline bowing at her feet, she has the Dowager Luna treating her like family, and she has you all wrapped around her finger when she is nothing! Absolutely nothing!"

"Everything was supposed to be mine. I deserve them not her. The attention, respect, and the protection. She walked into everyone’s lives and suddenly everything changed. She didn’t even have to fight for it. She didn’t have to prove herself. And yet everyone chose her."

Blake didn’t flinch. He didn’t raise his voice. He simply looked down at her with eyes full of a chilling, merciless contempt.

"So you think using her as your meat shield makes you look like you deserve any of it?" Blake murmured coldly, his voice slicing through the dungeon air.

"Maybe not! Yet you still can’t kill me. Indeed, you all will have to protect me from now on."

Blake’s expression hardened.

Chloe whispered, "That’s the part you hate most, isn’t it?" She looked at Zyran.

"You both hate that I have finally found something that gives me a privilege."

"You’re not smart, Chloe. You’re just a pathetic fool digging your own grave, and the moment we find that witch to break this cursed tether... I won’t let Zyran finish you. I’ll take your head off myself."

Zyran dragged his hands away from his hair, his chest heaving as his dark eyes blazed with a desperate, razor-sharp focus. He turned sharply toward Blake, his voice tight and urgent.

"We have to find that witch alive and make her revert the curse," Zyran ordered, his words cutting through the damp air. "As soon as possible. Before Adeline’s body completely gives out from the shock. We find that witch and drag her back here and we force her to remove this curse."

Blake remained silent for a moment. His thoughts were already moving faster. ’If the witch created the binding, then she should know how to break it and she is the only one who can remove the curse.’

"She knows where the witch is."

Blake and Zyran both spun around, fixing their lethal, intimidating gazes directly onto Chloe.

Instead of shrinking back, Chloe tilted her head back. A low, mocking chuckle slipped past her blood-stained lips, building rapidly into a harsh, unhinged laugh.

"You can never find the witch who made the spell for me," Chloe crowed, her eyes wide with a sick, triumphant madness.

The two princes froze.

"What are you babbling about?" Zyran snarled, as his eyes narrowed, taking a threatening step forward.

"Because she is dead!"

"I covered my tracks," Chloe smiled, her voice dripping with venomous satisfaction. "I killed that witch with my own hands the very second the curse was finished and sealed. Her body is rotting in a shallow grave miles away from here. And even if you miraculously managed to dig her up... it wouldn’t matter."

Zyran’s eyes turned dark, his voice deep with barely controlled madness, as he spoke.

"You killed the witch who made the curse for you?"

"Yes, of course. Because I didn’t need her anymore and the curse isn’t bound to the witch anymore. Once the spell was completed, the witch bound it to my wolf and Adeline’s dormant wolf. The witch’s part was finished. She didn’t need to stay alive."

Chloe leaned forward, straining against the heavy steel chains as a twisted, victorious smirk stretched across her pale face.

"So, regardless of whether the witch is alive or dead, the curse is permanently bound to our life-force and our wolves now. The curse became self-sustaining. It’s a blood-locked tether. No one can break it, and no one can revert it. Ever!"

Silence crashed down over the dungeon, heavy and suffocating.

Blake and Zyran stared at her, the horrific weight of her words sinking in.

The absolute rage radiating from both Royal Lycan Princes flared instantly, filling the room with a crushing, suffocating Lycan aura of pure, unadulterated terror.

"There is always a fucking way! There must be," Zyran growled. Chloe flinched but quickly recovered.

Blake turned towards Zyran. "Calm down, Zyran."

"How the fuck am I supposed to calm down?! She just told us that Adeline is bound to this curse permanently!"

"There had to be something."

Ancient magic had existed for more than thousands of years.

Curses had been created.

Curses had been broken.

Bindings had been severed.

But there was always a price.

Always a loophole or an ancient rule hidden somewhere.

But they couldn’t ignore the possibility that Chloe had chosen a curse designed specifically to make it impossible to save Adeline.

They were trapped in an impossible nightmare, and the stakes couldn’t possibly be higher.