Wrapped in my Enemy's Arms
When Ayla is dragged from her school into the heart of a strange wolf territory, she expects torture-or death. Instead, she meets Alpha Kael: a man as dangerous as he is breathtaking, and a secret buried beneath his skin. His blood awakened an ancient orb-and in one night, Kael became the vessel of a living curse.
Now the orb stirs again, its power latching onto Ayla. The mark she wears, her mother's ring, links her to the prophecy whispered by the Moon goddess messenger:
"When the moon bleeds and the cursed wolf kneels, love shall either heal the wound... or end the world."
As darkness spreads through the pack and the curse consumes Kael's soul, Ayla must decide whether to save him-or destroy him before the prophecy destroys them both.
But fate has a cruel sense of humor...
Because to break the curse, the moon goddess demands the one thing neither of them is willing to give up.
Their hearts.
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Chapter 4
Ayla's POV
"Kiara!"
"What do you mean prepared?"
She doesn't turn back or answer me. At that moment my head snaps up and my body begins trembling.
The room glows an ethereal light and my body feels impossibly light-like the air itself is pulling me upward.
I feel a gentle tap on my shoulder-When I turn, a tall brunette woman stands behind me-beautiful, unreal, and her eyes glowed like moons reflecting on water.
"Who are you?" I whisper.
She only smiles and brushes her fingers against my cheeks.
"When the moon bleeds and the cursed wolf kneels," her voice echoed, soft yet thunderous, "love shall either heal the wound... or end the world."
Then she's gone.
"Wait!" I scream out, but the room is back to normal.
Before I can process what just happened, Kael bursts in.
"What did you do?" he growls.
My brows furrow. "What do you mean, what did I do?"
"You can summon the messenger!"
"Look, I don't-know. I was here and there was suddenly light and-and-I don't know," I stuttered.
His nostrils flare as he scans the room, every inch of him vibrating with tension.
"Do it again," he barks.
"What do you mean-do it again?"
"I just told you, I don't know how it happened!" I snap back at him.
My anger has been simmering too long now, and it's beginning to boil over. I step closer to him and point my finger at him.
"You dragged me here, you tied me to a rock, and now you're throwing questions at me-like I asked to be a part of this nightmare!"
"Watch your tone!" he seethes.
"No! You watch yours." My voice is shaky but I don't care.
"I'm not your slave, I don't belong to your pack, and I'm not a sacrificial lamb to you! Do not treat me like I'm an object! I don't care who you are."
I pause for a moment to catch my breath. "Take me back to the academy now!"
"And what will you do if I don't?" He closes the space between us so that I can feel his hot breath against my skin. I feel the hair on the back of my neck rise for a while.
I huffed. "Dear Alpha Kael... trust me, it'd be the greatest mistake you'll ever make."
He tilts his head and I see a small smile form on his lips.
"Is that a threat, Ayla?" his stare hardens as he mumbles.
"Oh, trust me, Kael. You don't want to find out," I taunted.
He takes a step away from me and turns to leave, but when he reaches the door, his body jerks backwards and he falls to the ground.
I run to him when he doesn't move or get up.
"Stay away from me," he mutters with teeth glued together.
His hand flies to his chest and a low growl rips from his throat.
"I didn't do anything!" I begin to panic. If the pack finds out I hurt their dear alpha, my head would be on a spike before the day ends.
"Kael, Alpha Kael!" I call out.
His eyes flicker and his iris turns a very bright red color, brighter than any wolf I've seen. The veins along his neck and arms pulse violently, turning a black shade of color.
"What in the goddess' name is happening to you?"
He doesn't answer. His head snaps back and a sound, half-growl, half-roar, tears from his throat. Sharp claws are now emerging from his fingers.
Kiara runs inside, and the moment she sees him, she freezes.
"Oh goddess..." she breathes.
"What's wrong with him?" I ask, panicked.
Kiara's face drains of color. "The orb," she whispers.
"The what?"
Kael's head snaps towards her, his red eyes darkening into black.
"Shut up!"
"You have to tell her! She might know a way!" Kiara yells at him.
"No!" Kael snaps back.
"It's draining you, Kael. You're going to die if you don't break the curse." Her breath comes fast and her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Kael's gaze flickers-not in anger this time, but fear-and I almost pity him for a second.
"Tell me what? What the hell is going on?!"
Kael's gaze sweeps over me. His claws are retreating now and the dark veins had begun fading. His jaw locks like he's stopping himself from speaking.
"You know what? It's fine!" I shrug. "Since no one is going to say a word, I'll just do y'all the favor of disappearing."
I get to my feet and leave, but Kael's grip stops me-rough and firm but not enough to hurt me.
I halt. His touch sets my skin on fire and burns through me.
I look at him, then at Kiara, and back at him again. I want to pity them for a moment, then I remember how I was tied down some moments ago.
I unwrap his hand from my wrist.
"Look, I can't sacrifice myself to save anyone if that's what you want. Besides, how do all these concern me?"
Kiara gets to her feet, tears strolling from her eyes.
"You're Liora's daughter-the Sayer who fell in love," she mutters.
"What are you saying?" I laugh out loud.
"My mother's name is Leah. And what does Sayer mean?"
I'm trying not to get overwhelmed at the turn out of events today.
"You summoned the messenger," Kiara speaks.
"When the moon bleeds and the cursed wolf kneels..."
"Love shall either heal the wound... or end the world."
We both say the last sentence together.
"How do you know that?" My lips quiver as I speak.
It's not possible. Kiara wasn't here when the woman appeared to me.
"Because you, Ayla, are the daughter of a great Sayer. And Kael is-"
"The cursed wolf," I complete her sentence.
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7.5
For five years, I was locked away in the freezing royal dungeon, starved and used as a bloody plaything by the kingdom's sadistic Cabinet Minister, Brandt Fischer.
He tortured me daily for one twisted reason: I simply looked like someone else.
When he visited my cell to casually announce my father's execution and drag a silver dagger across my neck, he expected me to beg.
Instead, I laughed, sank my teeth directly into his carotid artery, and was violently thrown against a jagged stone wall to my death.
As my skull cracked and my blood stained the moss, I thought about my so-called family. The moment Brandt had demanded me, my father, the Duke, handed me over without a single hesitation to save his own political career.
I was nothing but a disposable pawn, left to rot in the dark while the monsters who ruined my life thrived.
I died suffocating on my own blood and absolute, destructive vengeance.
Then, I opened my eyes.
I was lying in my silk-sheeted bed, reborn as my fifteen-year-old self.
Today was the exact day Lord Daryl Langley, the God of War, would be ambushed and crippled—the event that allowed Brandt to seize ultimate power.
I immediately stole a horse, rode to the palace gates, and threw myself directly in front of Daryl's moving carriage.
"I just didn't want to see a hero die like a slaughtered pig."
I didn't care if I had to shatter my own ankle to hijack his convoy. This time, I was going to save the general, and he would become the blade I use to slaughter them all.
9.0
Isolde woke up in a freezing, ruined stone house with a splitting headache and only five percent of her life signs remaining.
Before she could even process the mechanical system voice in her head, a flood of violent memories slammed into her.
She had transmigrated into the body of a cruel noblewoman who mercilessly tortured her beastmen husbands with a barbed whip.
And right now, she was lying in a pool of her own blood, having been shoved against the stone floor by one of them.
Outside the rickety door, her husbands were coldly discussing her death.
"Just go in and finish her. One stab, and we're free."
"If she hit her head and died on her own, then it's an accident. We walk out of here as free males."
To test if she was faking her sudden amnesia, the snake beastman Dangelo even ground his heavy military boot into her injured hand, waiting for her to snap so he could legally end her.
She was poisoned, freezing, and entirely at the mercy of the men who deeply despised her.
She was bearing the deadly consequences of a monster she never was, with a red system warning of imminent death flashing in her mind.
But they didn't know the new Isolde had awakened a survival system and Life Magic.
She swore a blood oath to the Beast God to buy herself three months of time.
Then, she turned her sights to the dying wolf beastman chained in the shed, deciding to pull him back from hell to become her very first shield.
7.2
The Royal Pack’s glowing moonstone token rested in my palm.
Before I could even process the miracle of my rebirth, my half-sister Alyssa snatched it right out of my hand.
"This destiny is mine, little sister. Enjoy your cursed Alpha," she sneered.
My family easily caved to her whining. They forced me to take her place and marry Alpha Kaelen, a man they called an insane, crippled monster with three feral adopted sons. They laughed, expecting his beast to tear me apart before the honeymoon was over.
Alyssa thought she was stealing my crown. She didn't know she had just stolen my death sentence.
In my previous life, that exact token had made me the Alpha King’s Luna. But I was just a convenient, disposable meat shield for his true human mate. I died agonizingly, choking on poison meant for her, while the King didn't even blink.
I lowered my head, forcing my shoulders to tremble as if holding back terrified sobs. I played the part of the pathetic, wolfless Omega they all believed me to be.
But beneath my fake tears, I felt a profound relief.
I remembered the Kaelen from my past life. He wasn't a monster. He was powerful, agonizingly lonely, and slowly destroyed by a dark magic no one understood.
I wisely accepted the marriage pact and walked right into his freezing manor.
I know exactly who cursed him. And this time, I will save him, protect his boys, and make his entire pack mine.
7.9
Estrella Ward gave five years of her life to her husband, draining her trust fund to save him from bankruptcy and raising his son as her own.
But one night, she woke up in a freezing hotel room, drugged, with a stranger's bite marks on her skin.
Her husband burst through the door with cameras, his vicious family, and her ten-year-old stepson, publicly framing her as a cheating whore.
The horrifying truth soon surfaced: her husband had drugged her himself, selling her body to his Wall Street boss to secure a senior partnership.
Estrella fought back with hidden security footage, blackmailing him into submission after discovering she was pregnant with his boss's child.
But fate dealt a cruel blow. She was diagnosed with aggressive, terminal breast cancer.
She refused to abort the baby to keep her leverage, but the cancer spread too fast.
She died alone in a cold hospital room, her vengeance unfinished, while her husband and his cruel family celebrated.
They thought they had successfully buried her and her secrets forever, escaping unpunished for destroying her life.
But when she gasped for air and opened her eyes again, she wasn't in a cold grave.
She was in a sterile hospital bed, looking at the perfectly manicured hands of Brooklyn Thompson—the notorious, empty-headed socialite everyone despised.
Estrella's soul had survived the abyss.
"You're going to pay for every drop of blood."
She clenched her new fists, the fire of her vengeance burning brighter than ever.
9.6
Antoinette stood on the manicured church lawn, the blinding summer sun stabbing her eyes. The funeral service for her parents had just ended.
A hand wrapped around her trembling shoulder, carrying the sharp, cloying scent of Fabian Cash's cologne. It was the exact same cologne her fiancé wore the night he locked her in a burning house to die in her previous life.
Now, wearing a mask of sorrowful devotion, Fabian tried to drag her to his car to control her parents' massive life insurance payout.
When she shoved him away in pure nausea, his mother Eleanor immediately shrieked to the crowd, deploying her usual guilt trip.
"She's lost her mind! The girl has completely snapped!"
The townspeople whispered and pointed fingers, watching Fabian play the victim as he tightened his bruising grip on her wrist, claiming she was hysterical and needed to be locked away.
Antoinette stared at the mother and son who had conspired to steal her family's estate and end her life. The rage inside her felt like battery acid pumping through her veins.
They didn't care if she lived or died; they only cared about the money. How could she let them strip her of everything again?
She didn't hesitate. She swung with every bit of strength she possessed, slapping Fabian across the face in front of the entire town.
"The engagement is over," she announced coldly.
Then, she turned her back on her greedy ex-fiancé and walked straight toward the terrifyingly powerful billionaire Hiram Graves, ready to let the world burn.
9.4
I was lying in a sterile hospital room, dying of cancer, with only a fake infertility report to keep me company.
Right before my heart monitor flatlined, a stranger walked in and handed me a medical file.
He told me that my fiancé, Garret, had zero sperm viability. The baby my adoptive sister, Beryl, was carrying wasn't his.
When Beryl got pregnant years ago, my adoptive parents forced me to break my engagement and take the blame for being barren.
I was discarded by Garret, mocked by Beryl's triumphant smiles, and kicked out of the house.
I was left to rot alone in a hospital bed while they lived the perfect life stolen from me.
My entire existence had been a cage built on a single, disgusting lie.
The anger burned away my despair. Why was I the only one who didn't know?
Why did I let them use me as a maid and a shield for their filthy secrets?
As the darkness swallowed me, I prayed for just one more chance.
I opened my eyes to the sound of my adoptive mother yelling my name.
The calendar on the wall read March 15, 2019—the exact day they forced me to give up Garret.
This time, I didn't cry or beg.
"You want Beryl to have Garret? Fine," I told my shocked adoptive parents. "But I want a cash buyout, and we are legally severing this adoption."
Then, I set my sights on Douglass Ward—the stranger from the hospital room.