JULIEN

I was sitting on the chair in front of the desk, nervous and playing with my fingers. Byron’s dad was silent, looking me up and down, inspecting me. I felt a little nervous at the feeling of his gaze fixed on me. What if he didn’t like me? What if I made a mistake already? Bad thoughts started to fill my mind.

“So, you are the son of Henry and Eleanor?” He asked curiously with a serious look. I nodded. “Are you the cursed one?” I froze at his question, my face turning pale. 

“How? How do you know?” I was confused. Nobody outside of the merfolk knows about it, it was supposed to be a myth for them.

“My dad used to be friends with your grandmother, they were good friends. He was helping her find her fated mate.” He smiled softly and took out a photo from the drawer of his desk, showing it to me. In the photo, my grandmama was standing next to a man whose looks were similar to Rendall's. Grandmama looked so young, she must have been in her twenties when that photo was taken.

“But she never found them.” I sighed looking at him and then checked the photo again. “She passed away and the curse got me.”

“She did find them. He was a wolf from another pack, but he rejected her.” I looked at him shocked at his words. “Your mother was young at that time and your grandmother went through a bad rejection. Packs were not open-minded as they are now.”

I could only imagine the pain grandmama had gone through at that time. I looked at the photo again and then at alpha Rendall, telling him to continue. 

“Your mother and I used to be friends, but due to your grandmother’s rejection, she started to hate our kind.” He sighed and showed me another photo where a young self of my mom was standing next to a young self of him. “We stopped being friends after that.” He sighed. All her hatred against werewolves made a lot more sense now. She hated them for hurting her mother, but it was not their fault, those were different times and multi-species relationships were not allowed.

“Oh, I didn’t know about that. But is it true? Fated mates can break the curse?” I asked curiously looking at him. He nodded, putting the photos away.

“Your grandmother and my father believed the way to break the curse is for the cursed one and their fated mate to consume their love and their mating under the light of the full moon.” I gasped at his words. With consume the love, did he mean…making love? My cheeks burned and a soft blush crossed my face. He softly laughed at my reaction. I had to make love with Byron on a full moon night. I felt a sudden itch on my nape.

“When’s the next full moon?” I asked with a serious look, making eye contact with the older alpha.

“In about a week and a half.” I nodded at his response, I had to wait until then to break this curse and mate with Byron. He continued to talk to me, this time he was smiling. “I won't reject your relationship with Byron, all I ask is that you take good care of him.” 

“Thank you alpha Rendall and of course, I’ll do my best to take care of Byron. He’s my mate after all.” I sincerely smiled at him. 

“You can go to him now, he’s probably waiting for you outside.” He said pointing at the door of the office. “It was nice to meet you, Julien, I hope you break the curse soon.” 

“Thank you. It was nice meeting you too and I hope so too. See you at dinner.” I smiled giving him a little nod to walk out of the office. Byron was not outside so I walked down the corridor looking for him. I was excited to tell him how it all went, obviously I can't tell him about the curse part, but I can tell him everything else, but all that excitement died down when I found him.

A woman I didn’t know was kissing him, she was grabbing Byron’s cheeks, tiptoeing, and with her eyes closed. I felt my heart breaking into pieces at the sight of my mate kissing another, tears began to blur my vision. Byron pushed the woman away from him, I could feel his anger at her. He noticed me there and came up to me. The woman smiled at me with a ‘take that’ look on her face.

“Julien, baby. T-this is not what you think, she forced me to do it.” He said, his voice trembling. 

As soon as he got closer to me I got further away, walking two steps back. The pain in my chest was unbearable, I couldn’t take it anymore. I pushed Byron away and then ran out of the building. I heard Byron screaming my name, telling me not to leave but my body reacted on its own and I was far from going back there. I ran and ran into the woods. I didn’t know where I was going, everything was blurry from my tears. I felt dizzy, betrayed, and hurt.

BYRON

When Julien ran away from the building, I ordered some of the betas to go look for him. He didn’t know the woods well and it made Boris and me worry a lot. I looked at Tiffany with hate. This all happened because of her.

“What the fuck is wrong with you Tiffany? That’s my mate!” I screamed at her. I was so pissed, Julien misunderstood everything and now he had run off somewhere. Boris was growling at the back of my mind. He was tired of Tiffany’s attitude and so I was.

“He is not your mate! I am! I was here first! I was just trying to kiss my fiance!” She screamed at me confused and angry. 

“I said this before so many times. You are not my fiance. You’ll never be my bride. You’ll never be my Luna. You are nothing to me. Can’t you understand that?” The pack members that were in the building were looking at our fight, I heard an ‘ouch’ from the crowd. 

“No this is wrong! You are wrong! You must be enchanted! That merman probably used his voice on you!” She was starting to say crazy theories and I was tired of it. There’s no other way now, she left me no choice. If she doesn't understand in a good way, I’ll have to use the bad one.

‘Do it.’ Boris growled.

“Tiffany I didn’t want to do this but I’ll request you and your family to be transferred to another pack.” She gasped and her face went pale looking at me, not believing my words.

“W-what? Y-you can’t do that…” Tears started to form in her eyes.

“Of course, I can, as the future alpha of the pack I’ll request your transfer,” I said with a serious look. She started crying and ran away from the building.

Soon, I went into the forest in my wolf form looking for Julien. All the betas searched the woods up and down but I still felt uneasy thinking something bad could happen to him. I needed to find him and fix this problem. 

JULIEN

Running in the woods, I didn’t notice my surroundings. I tripped over some tree branches and I fell into a trap, a net. I moved to try to escape but I couldn’t. I noticed some men appear from nowhere, they had weapons with them. My heart stopped and my face turned pale. 

Merfolk hunters.

They took the net away from me and I tried to run away but I was so scared that my legs failed. The hunters took me by the arms. A handkerchief was put on my face, a weird but pleasant smell coming from it making me sleepy. Chloroform. 

“Finally we got him.” Said an unknown voice, probably belonging to one of the hunters.

“Yeah, the boss is going to be so happy we found him.” Another hunter responded.