LUMA POV
Luma knew something was different the moment she walked into the healing chamber on the fourth day.
Drake was sitting up.
Not lying down. Not resting. Sitting up on the healing table with his back against the stone wall behind it, watching the door like he'd been waiting for her. His golden shifter eyes tracked her movement as she entered with fresh bandages and supplies.
She stopped walking.
"You've been awake," she said. Not a question.
"Since last night," Drake confirmed. His voice was stronger now. Less rough from disuse. "I couldn't sleep anymore. My body wanted to move."
Luma set down the supplies she was carrying and moved toward him carefully. She placed her hands on his chest and closed her eyes, feeling for the curse. It was still there but it was so much weaker now. Almost docile. Almost like it was sleeping instead of fighting.
"The curse is better," she said quietly.
"But not gone," Drake said. She could hear him watching her. "You said that yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that."
Luma pulled her hands away and opened her eyes. "No. It's not gone."
She'd been coming to the healing chamber every morning for three days straight. Every morning she'd worked on the curse, trying to understand its structure, its origins, why it felt so familiar and so wrong at the same time. Every morning she'd told Drake the same thing. It's getting weaker. It's still there. I need more time.
Every morning she'd lied.
Not about the curse getting weaker. That was true. But about why she couldn't break it completely. The truth was she could probably break it. She could probably push hard enough and tear it out of his body by force.
But she wasn't doing it.
Because breaking it completely would mean understanding it completely. And understanding it completely meant admitting what she already knew. That this curse had a signature that matched dark magic she'd grown up around. That it came from someone who'd taught her things. That she was connected to whoever had cursed the Alpha.
And that would get her killed.
"I need to understand it better," Luma said, her voice steady even though her hands were shaking. "Someone put a lot of power into this curse. A lot of intention. To completely remove it, I need to trace that intention back to the source. I need to know who did this. Why they did this."
Drake was quiet for a long moment. Then he asked the question she'd been dreading.
"Can you do that? Can you understand where this curse came from?"
Luma hesitated. She knew the right answer. She knew the honest answer. She knew that lying to an Alpha was dangerous. That lying to someone with Drake's power was potentially fatal.
But telling him the truth meant revealing that she was connected to dark magic in ways she'd never told anyone. That her father had been someone she shouldn't talk about. That she'd learned things from him that would make the pack question her loyalty.
She chose her words carefully.
"I'll do everything I can," she said.
It wasn't a yes. It wasn't a no. It was a promise that was technically true but also technically evasive. Drake seemed to understand because he didn't push for more information.
"Then that's enough," he said simply.
Over the next two weeks, something shifted.
Drake got stronger. By the end of the first week, he could walk around the healing chamber. By the end of the second week, he could walk the entire headquarters without needing support. His magic came back. His strength returned. The dark veins faded to almost nothing, just pale marks on his skin that would disappear completely once his body finished healing.
But he never left the healing chamber for long.
Every day he woke up and waited for Luma to arrive. Every day she came with food and fresh supplies and her hands glowing soft gold as she worked on what remained of the curse. And every day they talked.
She told him about her mother. About the dementia that was slowly stealing her away. About sitting in a hospital room holding someone's hand while they looked at you like a stranger. About learning healing magic from books she'd stolen and hidden because her mother needed help and the pack healers refused to save a human.
"You taught yourself?" Drake asked on the eighth day, his voice filled with something that sounded like respect.
"I had to," Luma said. Her hands were glowing against his chest, working on the curse. "There was no one else to teach me. So I read. I practiced. I failed a thousand times before I got it right. But I got it right eventually."
Drake watched her work. "You're brilliant."
The words hung in the air between them.
Nobody had ever called her brilliant before. Nobody had ever looked at her like she was someone worth knowing. Someone worth listening to. Someone worth time.
On the eleventh day, Drake opened up about himself.
They were sitting in the chamber, Luma in her usual chair beside the healing table, Drake sitting up with her hands on his chest. The curse was barely visible now, just a ghost of dark magic that was almost completely harmless.
"I killed my uncle," Drake said.
Luma's hands stilled. "What?"
"To become Alpha," Drake continued quietly. "I was twenty-two. My father was weak. The pack wouldn't follow him. They wanted someone stronger. Someone who could lead them. My uncle had taken power before my father got a chance. So I challenged him."
Luma could feel the pain in those words. The weight of them. The guilt.
"You had to," she said gently.
"Did I?" Drake asked. His voice was raw. "Or did I want to? Did I want the power so badly that I convinced myself it was necessary? I won't know. I'll never know if I killed him because the pack needed me to or because I needed to be the strongest thing in any room."
Luma moved her hands away from his chest and sat down next to him on the table. She didn't touch him. She just sat close enough that he could feel her presence.
"You've been carrying that for nine years," she said.
"Since I became Alpha," Drake confirmed. "I learned not to feel it. Learned not to let it matter. Learned that guilt is weakness and weakness is dangerous."
He turned to look at her directly.
"But being around you, I can't do that anymore. I can feel again. And it's breaking me."
Luma's breath caught.
This was the moment. This was where she should pull away. Should establish distance. Should remember that getting close to the Alpha was dangerous. That knowing each other like this was dangerous. That caring about each other would only make it worse when the truth came out.
Instead, she stayed exactly where she was.
"That's not breaking," Luma said quietly. "That's healing."
Drake reached out and took her hand. His grip was warm and strong and filled with something she'd never felt before. Something that felt like recognition. Like finally finding something you'd been searching for your entire life without knowing you were searching.
"When the curse is completely gone," Drake said, his voice low, "I'm going to find out who did this. I'm going to find out why. And you're going to help me."
It wasn't a question. It wasn't a request. It was a statement of fact.
And Luma knew in that moment that everything was about to change.
Because finding the source of the curse meant finding her connection to it. Meant Drake discovering who her father really was. Meant the end of this fragile thing that was growing between them.
She squeezed his hand anyway.
"I'll help you," she promised.
Drake pulled her closer and Luma didn't resist. She let him hold her because she knew these moments were numbered. She let him see her as something more than invisible because she knew it wouldn't last.
The curse was almost gone.
And when it was completely gone, the real pain would begin.