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 5
Ayla's POV
Kiara nods and I freeze, my stomach twisting into knots.
It's impossible. My father died a long time ago and my mother... she was just... she wasn't... she couldn't have been a Sayer. None of this... any of this... it doesn't make sense.
I press my palm against my temples, trying to steady the storm of thoughts racing through my mind. My mother... Leah... the ring... my dreams-it all had to be a coincidence.
"Look, Kiara. This can't be real, I think you're getting it all wrong."
I face Kael, who's now up and leaning against the door. He doesn't say anything; he just stares at me.
"This can't be real. It's insane." I pace around the room with quickened steps.
I halt and face Kiara, whose gaze burns through me-fierce and unyielding. She's serious.
"This... this is insane." I throw my hands up in exasperation, my fingers clawing at the air as if grabbing hold of reality could make it stop.
They both don't speak a word.
"Okay, listen." I pause and take a deep inhale and exhale. "You're telling me that my mother is a Sayer, and she's the reason you are cursed?"
Kael's jaw flexes before he nods once.
"You feel it, Ayla," Kiara mutters. "You're almost twenty-one, your powers are beginning to manifest."
Her voice sharpens. "Speak to me."
My heart jumps. I look around, but her lips don't move.
Then louder inside my head: "Speak to me."
Pain tears through my skull as I stagger backwards, clutching my head.
"What are you doing to me?!" I scream. "Please-stop!"
The voices halt and I calm down.
"How... how did you do that?" My breath is restless against my voice.
"I'll show you to your room," Kiara only says.
***
The next day, I get up early and have my breakfast.
Kiara's voice still echoed in my head, plus so many things that happened the previous day. It's all new and I'm still finding it hard to process, even when half-part of me still doesn't believe.
I moved around the quarters for a while, touring my new environment before heading to the sparring room. I needed to relieve the growing tension inside me.
"Sebastian, is that you?" I call out, briefly grabbing the attention of others around us.
Sebastian runs towards me and lifts my body into the air.
"Why are you here?" he questions after placing me down- still surprised.
"I got picked..."
"We're five here, so how?"
"I don't know, I'm just here-I guess." I shrug.
"Well, that's fine. Now that you're here..."
He sandwiches my cheeks in his palm as his lips find mine.
"I miss you," he whispers.
"Seb, we can't continue this..."
I slip out of his hold, stepping back. I can't afford distractions right now-especially not ones that come in mixed signals.
I might be a Sayer, and tomorrow I turn twenty-one. My full wolf powers will awaken, and somewhere along all that, I'm supposed to find my mate. It's all overwhelming.
"Ayla, you know I really like you," he insists, giving me the puppy-eyed look he always used when he wants something. Sadly, it won't be working today.
"We could make this serious, we're in a new place now."
"I'm sorry, Seb, I just... can't," I tell him.
Sebastian is a really cool person, but he only wants us together in private. He's scared people will talk when they find out we're together, and I know the only reason he wants to be serious right now is because we're in a different place, no one here knows the things I've done-yet.
He turns and walks away and within seconds, he has his hands around a random girl's waist, and she's all up in his space, her hands wandering boldly up his inner thigh. Typical.
"Heard you're the best at Nightwhisper. Wanna spar?" A voice calls out, grabbing my attention from Sebastian.
I turn my head towards the stranger's voice. He wasn't exactly my type, but he's okay. My mind drifted to Kael for a while when I thought about my type.
He's not my type either. Liar.
"Are you scared to take me on?" He teases, lips curving into a cocky smile.
My brows lift slowly.
"Get into the ring." My sentence is more like a command than a request. I tilt my head towards the ring.
The moment we stepped into the ring, the whole crowd began gathering us. After going at each other for a while, I've cornered Cian-whose name I've gathered from the crowd-and he seems out of moves.
"Careful, Cian," someone yells. "Heard she goes mental and murders people in the ring!"
Laughter erupts around me.
My chest tightens and tears blurred my vision. It was a mistake. One unintentional mistake that I've been punished for ever since.
Before I can focus back on the fight, Cian's fists collide with my stomach, knocking the air out of me before tackling me to the ground, pinning my body with his legs.
His knee grinds against my core deliberately, and a smug, disgusting smile spreads across his face. I don't hesitate-I slam my elbow into his jaw with all the strength I have. He reels backwards, dark crimson spilling from his mouth. Gasps spread amongst the crowd.
Cian wipes his lips with his thumb and when he sees the color, his demeanor changes and he growls-bearing his sharp fangs at me as he charges towards me-
"Enough!" Alpha Kael roars.
Cian pauses immediately and I can see him fuming and pulsating with both hands fisted to his sides. Next time he'll know not to mess with me.
***
That night, I locked myself in my room and the moment the door shuts, everything I've been holding in breaks. Hot tears spill down my cheeks, my body trembling as Alex's face flashes in my mind. The way she called my name and her genuine smile whenever she sights me. The way she didn't care what anyone said about me.
And the way she died in my arms.
"I didn't mean to," I whisper, voice cracking. "I didn't mean to hurt you... Alex, I swear."
In the midst of my pain, my wolf stirs suddenly-she's alert and eager. A pulse of pleasure rushes through me, forcing me upright.
What now?
I sigh and glance at the clock. Midnight.
My birthday. I'm twenty-one and now a fully-grown wolf.
My wolf stirs again, alerting me to the pull. Something-someone-is pulling me outside.
My instincts take over, dragging me through dark hallways until I reach a part of the quarters I hadn't toured. A shimmering pool stretches before me, moonlight glistening on its surface. Something moves in the water, and panic shoots through me.
I turn to run-only to slam into a hard chest. In the next second, I'm pinned against the cold wall. A massive, dripping figure cages me in, heat and something tempting radiating off him.
My wolf purrs so loud it vibrates through me. Lust clouds everything.
"Running away already, Mate?"
That voice-the deepness and roughness vibrated through my spine, causing me to shiver for a second.
Mate? Already? How?
I try to get a look at his face, but it's very dark inside here, like the goddess was listening to me... the dark clouds shift away from the moon, softly casting light into the area and giving me a proper view of his face.
Alpha Kael.
His jet black hair drips water onto my skin and his eyes glow a bright red color, showing his rank as an Alpha... but it's the look in them that freezes me.
Desire.
Raw, unrestrained, and directed at me.
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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.