Chapter 250 - 0250

Kaelen POV

"Because if you kill me, how will you ever find out how to cure your curse?"

My eyes widened at his words, and for a moment, I forgot all about the claws pressed against his throat. I stared at him, trying to make sense of what I’d just heard. A cure? Was he seriously telling me he knew how to break the curse that had haunted me for years?

"You know the cure?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

The Royal Witches, the most powerful coven on the continent, had spent years studying me, searching for a way to break the curse. They’d tried everything they could think of, yet after all that time, they’d given me the same answer.

There was no cure.

The best they could do was help me suppress it, and even that came with its own consequences. I’d been told I would have to live with it for the rest of my life, constantly fighting to keep the beast inside me under control.

And now this bastard was telling me there might be another way.

"I told you at the Council meeting, didn’t I?" Augustus said, his voice almost gentle, although that mocking smile was still on his face. "I knew a man who was just like you."

My grip on his collar loosened slightly as I listened, but I didn’t take my eyes off him. He seemed to enjoy watching me wait for his next words, and I hated that I was giving him the satisfaction.

"He had the same curse. He went through the same things you did, fighting to keep it under control. But in the end, he lost everything because he couldn’t find a way to break it before it consumed him."

I felt my chest tighten as I stared at him. The more he spoke, the more uneasy I became. I’d spent years believing I was the only one in my family who had been cursed this way, and now Augustus was telling me there had been someone else. Someone who’d suffered just as I had.

"A man who lost everything," I repeated slowly, trying to keep my voice steady. "Who was he?"

Augustus held my gaze, his expression giving nothing away. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he answered.

"Your father."

For a moment, I couldn’t move. My entire body went stiff as his words sank in, and I found myself staring at him, unable to believe what I’d just heard.

My father?

No. No, that couldn’t be right.

"What?" I finally managed to choke out, my voice so rough I barely recognized it.

Augustus simply stared back at me, looking far too calm for someone who had just dropped something like that on me. "You heard me, Alpha. Loud and clear."

I shook my head, letting go of his collar as I stumbled backward.

My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat, and my hands had started trembling. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My father? The same man who had made my life a living hell? How could he possibly have suffered from the same curse?

"No," I growled, struggling to make sense of it. "That’s impossible. My father was a lot of terrible things, but he wasn’t cursed. He didn’t have my condition!"

I glanced at Darius, only to find him staring at Augustus in disbelief. He’d been standing quietly beside me throughout the interrogation, but even he seemed unable to hide his shock.

His gray eyes were wide, and for once, he had nothing to say while Augustus remained completely unbothered.

"Doesn’t your curse make it impossible for you to touch other she-wolves?" he asked, his voice almost gentle. "Doesn’t even the thought of being intimate with another woman make your wolf lose control? Doesn’t the slightest touch feel like poison running through your veins?"

My throat went dry. I stared at him, trying to figure out how he knew so much about something I’d spent years keeping hidden.

"How do you..."

"I already told you," he interrupted, a faint smile spreading across his bloodied lips. "I knew a man who looked just like you and suffered from the same curse. That man was your father."

I clenched my jaw, my mind racing as I tried to make sense of everything he’d just told me. Even if my father had suffered from the same condition, there was still something that didn’t add up.

"That still doesn’t make any fucking sense!" I snapped, my voice rising as frustration and confusion took over. "If he couldn’t even stand being touched by another woman, then how the hell did he have an affair? How was I even born?"

Because that was the crux of everything, wasn’t it? My entire existence was the result of my father’s betrayal. If he hadn’t cheated on his mate, if he hadn’t slept with my mother, I wouldn’t even exist. I wouldn’t have been born into shame, hated by my own family, neglected, and eventually sent away to live with the woman who broke me and helped turn me into the man standing in this room today.

So this had to be a lie.

It had to be some twisted story Augustus had made up to keep himself alive a little longer.

But the faint smile that appeared on his swollen lips made my stomach twist. It wasn’t the smug smile he’d been wearing earlier. There was almost something pitying in it, and somehow, that pissed me off even more.

"That’s exactly why your father was cursed, Kaelen," he said.

It was the first time he’d said my name without the title, and the familiarity of it immediately caught my attention.

"He cheated on his mate. He betrayed her and humiliated her, and she wasn’t willing to sit back and accept it." Augustus shifted against the chair, the silver chains rattling softly around his wrists. "Your stepmother, Luna Elizabeth, knew what she stood to lose. Her position, her power, her throne. She could no longer depend on the mate bond to keep your father by her side."

He leaned forward as far as the chains allowed, his dark eyes locking onto mine.

"So she found another way to keep him under control."

My jaw tightened.

"She cursed him."