Chapter 252

Kaelen POV

"And how exactly are we supposed to believe anything coming out of your mouth?"

Darius’s voice cut through the silence, his anger becoming harder to hide with every word.

His fists were clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles had turned white, and even though he was trying to keep his voice down, I could tell he was barely holding himself back.

"How do we know you’re not making all this shit up?" he continued, taking a step toward Augustus. "For all we know, you’re working with the other Council elders. Maybe this is just another one of their games, another attempt to manipulate us into doing exactly what they want. I don’t believe a fucking word you’ve said. All I see is an old bastard who’s desperate to stay alive and will say whatever it takes to get out of here."

Instead of getting angry or even looking remotely worried, Augustus burst into a rough, blood-filled laugh.

The sound echoed through the underground room, and I couldn’t help noticing how damn comfortable he seemed sitting there in chains, with blood still dripping from his mouth.

"If that’s what you want to believe, then who am I to stop you?" he replied, his voice surprisingly calm.

His storm-dark eyes then shifted from Darius to me, and the faint smile on his bloodstained lips made my stomach tighten.

"Although, I get the feeling the Alpha doesn’t quite agree with you."

Darius immediately turned to look at me.

I hadn’t said a word since Augustus started explaining the curse, but apparently, I didn’t need to.

Whatever was going through my mind must have been written all over my face because Darius’s expression changed the moment he saw me.

Before I could even say anything, he grabbed my shoulder, his fingers digging into it as he leaned closer.

"Don’t tell me you actually believe this bastard!" he hissed, his voice low but furious. "Kaelen, you need to think about what he’s saying. These people have been trying to destroy you for years. You know what they’re capable of, and now you’re seriously considering taking his word for it?"

I just stared at him, but he wasn’t finished.

"He hasn’t shown us a single piece of evidence. Nothing! He’s just sitting there telling us whatever he thinks we want to hear. And how the hell could your father have suffered from the exact same curse without anyone knowing about it? There’s obviously someone feeding him information about you, Kaelen. Someone on the inside!"

His grip tightened on my shoulder, and I could see the frustration building in his eyes.

"We don’t even know how much he actually knows or what he’s planning to do with that information. For all we know, he’s working with the other elders and trying to get inside your head. So why are we wasting our time listening to him? Let’s just kill the bastard and be done with this."

I stood frozen, unable to take my eyes off Augustus as his words continued to replay in my head. The stages, the symptoms, the way the curse progressed. Everything he had described was beginning to make sense.

It wasn’t some random story he had come up with to frighten me. Every detail matched what I had been experiencing, even the things I had never told anyone about.

"You don’t know," I finally said, my voice coming out rougher than I intended.

Darius frowned, his hand tightening on my shoulder. "What?"

"You only know about the episodes and the physical changes. The black veins, the red eyes, the rage, and the way I lose control." I turned to look at him, struggling to keep my voice steady. "You know what happens to me when the curse takes over, but you don’t know everything."

I swallowed, feeling a knot form in my throat as I tried to find the words to explain what I had been keeping to myself.

"You don’t know that I can barely tell the difference between Morwenna’s voice and my own thoughts anymore. Sometimes, I can’t even tell if it’s me thinking or her speaking inside my head. I’ve never told anyone about that. Not even you."

Darius’s expression changed immediately. The color drained from his face, and his hand loosened on my shoulder as he stared at me in disbelief.

"Kaelen..."

"But that’s not all." I shook my head, cutting him off before he could say anything else. "Everything Augustus has told us is happening to me. Every single thing. I can feel it getting worse, Darius." My voice grew louder as the frustration and fear I’d been holding back finally spilled over. "So how the fuck can you expect me to believe he’s lying? How could he possibly know all of this if he were making it up?"

Darius opened his mouth, clearly struggling to find a way to argue with me, but Augustus spoke before he could.

"Because I’m telling you the truth," he said calmly, as though he hadn’t just turned everything I thought I knew about the curse upside down. "I’ve told you nothing but the truth. And as for your concerns about spies, you can put them aside. No one else on the High Council knows about this. I’m the only one."

Darius immediately turned toward him, his gray eyes narrowing as he stepped closer to the chair. Whatever patience he’d had left was clearly running out.

"How is that even possible?" he demanded, his voice sharp with disbelief. "How can you be the only person alive who knows about the former Alpha King’s curse?! Do you hear yourself? Does that even make any sense?"

At that, something flickered across Augustus’s expression. It lasted only a fraction of a second before that same unsettling calm settled back over his face.

"That’s because everyone else who knew was killed by him," Augustus said simply.

Darius’s brow furrowed, his skepticism deepening. "How the hell does that make any sense? If he killed every single person who knew his secret, then how are you still alive? What makes you so special?"

Augustus didn’t answer immediately.

For a long moment, he simply sat there in silence, his bruised face giving nothing away.

Then, when he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than I had ever heard it. There was none of the arrogance he usually carried that had made me want to put my fist through his face every time he opened his mouth.

"Because he needed my help to find the cure." He paused, lowering his gaze for a moment.

Something dark crossed his face, something so bitter that even the bruises couldn’t hide it.

"And he had something else to hold over me."

His throat bobbed as he swallowed, his bloodstained skin stretching painfully with the movement.

"Something that still has me trapped, even ten years after his death."

Darius’s expression hardened, but Augustus continued before he could ask another question. "My daughter. My only child. The daughter I had with my late wife."

The words came out quieter this time, and his fingers tightened slowly against his knees.

"He took her from me and had her sold off."