Cursed Wolf

Felix Winter pushed himself back from his desk and stood. He stretched his shoulders and back after a long session of programming. He left the office in his new four-bedroom house and walked down the stairs to his open-concept kitchen.

He pulled eggs and bacon out of the fridge, dropped a tablespoon of butter into a pan and turned it on. He cracked the eggs into the pan and put his bacon into a second. He’d been working all morning on his latest app and needed brain food to keep him going.

During the months he had spent living with the Doolittles, he’d taught himself programming. It hadn’t taken much time for him to get up to speed on the evolution of technology since his time. Felix was a Winter and, for the most part, Winters were adaptable.

The Doolittles had let him use their computer in their upstairs office as much as he wanted, and he’d used the opportunity to educate himself. Felix was a man who loved to learn. He loved to use his mind to solve problems and to create.RêAd lat𝙚St chapters at Novel(D)ra/ma.Org Only

He flipped his eggs in the pan and turned over his bacon. Things had changed a great deal in the years that he and his brothers had spent in wolf form. Felix relished the new possibilities.

The Internet made it possible for him to connect with anyone in the world at any time. He could learn almost anything instantaneously if he knew where to look for it. There was so much opportunity and so much to learn.

He scooped his breakfast onto his plate and walked into his dining room to sit at the table. He and his brothers had each received over $300,000 in cash from the sale of their family land.

Everyone but his younger brother Blake had agreed to sell after coming to Fate Island. There was nothing left for them on their Central Alaskan property. It was where they had been cursed and where they had lived their cursed lives for seventy-five years.

Felix was happy to be done with it. And, with the proceeds of the sale, he had been able to buy his house. His apps were already making him money every day. He had also learned about cryptocurrency and had invested several thousand dollars a few months ago, and that investment was already paying off.

His life was definitely turning up. He had a home, an exciting new career, and hobbies. There was only one thing that was missing. A mate.

Four of his brothers had already found their one true loves. Felix pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and tapped over to mate dot com. He found himself compulsively opening the app several times a day, hoping that this time he would see something different. But, for the third time that morning, he saw that the app still hadn’t found his 100% match.

He grumbled and shoved a piece of bacon in his mouth. He had to relax and accept that he might not find his mate anytime soon. Just because his brothers had each been blessed with a mate, and Rex was already preparing for the arrival of his first child, didn’t mean that he should expect the same thing.

Fate worked on its own time. It could even be argued that the curse inflicted on them by the Snow Queen had been worked by the hands of fate. Most of his brothers would not like to hear such a thing, but without the seventy-five-year curse that had extended their lives supernaturally, his brothers would not have been in the right place at the right time to find their mates.

Sometimes Felix wondered if his own mate had already grown old and died. It was a thought that always depressed him. Most shifters found their one true love, but every once in a while, a shifter died alone. He didn’t want to be one of them.

Felix took his empty plate to the kitchen, rinsed it, and placed it in the dishwasher. He had everything he needed to offer a potential wife. A home, a steady income, and himself. It was all ready and waiting for her when she arrived.

And if she didn’t arrive?

He would just spend his life taking care of his family and his brothers’ children. He rubbed his temples, hating this train of thought whenever it came to him. It was the darkest, bleakest thing that he could imagine. But it was a possibility. Felix was a man who liked to be prepared. Preparing oneself for the worst outcomes was just as important to him as preparing for the best.

After eating his breakfast, he changed into his workout clothes and went to the basement, where he had installed a gym. He hopped on the treadmill and started to run. Felix went slow at first and then increased the speed until he was maxing out the machine’s upper limits.

He sprinted at top speed for several minutes, enjoying the feeling of his heart pumping in his chest and air filling his lungs. After a five-mile jog, Felix hopped off the treadmill and started to lift weights on his weight machine.

He did several sets of 350 pounds and then switched to his leg press where he pumped over a thousand pounds. When he was done with his workout, he did a long stretch session to loosen up his muscles.

Felix had learned how to do yoga on the Internet and always enjoyed the flowing movements that opened up his body. After yoga, he went upstairs to his master bathroom and took a long, steamy shower.

He imagined what it would be like to have a woman in his life to work out with and to shower with, but he pushed the thoughts from his mind. Felix had to accept that he was alone, and he may always be.

After he got out of the shower, he toweled himself off and walked into his bedroom. Steam billowed out of the bathroom door, following him into the walk-in closet.

He chose a pair of dark blue jeans, a T-shirt and a button-up flannel. Felix may have taught himself to program computers and to build mobile apps, but he was still an outdoorsman at heart. He strapped on his hiking boots and combed the water out of his hair.

His phone rang and he answered it, hearing the voice of his younger brother.

“Hey Felix, how are you doing?” Tate asked.

“I’m doing well, brother, and you?”

Tate had just found his mate Dalia, an amazing artist and painter who painted fantastic landscapes of the local area. Felix had hung one of her paintings over his mantle and it was the perfect touch for his new home.

“Dalia is having an exhibition at Four Winds Gallery. It’s opening on Saturday night. We wanted to make sure you are invited.”

“I will definitely be there,” Felix said, still combing his hair.

“Dalia will be so glad.”

“See you then,” Felix said before hanging up the phone.

Tate had created his own Internet comedy channel and was growing in subscribers by thousands a day. Tate had always loved comedy and fun, and Felix was proud of what his brother had done.

All his brothers were doing great things with their lives.

Rex and his mate Luna owned New Moon Books. It wasn’t just a bookstore, but also a place where Luna sold her potions. If it hadn’t been for Luna, the Winters would still be stuck in wolf form.

Luna was a witch who had inherited the bookshop from her grandmother, and she had been able to brew a potion that would allow the brothers to remain human during the whole month. At first it had come with terrible side effects, but as Luna’s abilities had improved, she’d revised the potion to where it was today.

Felix took a little amber bottle from the bathroom and dropped two pipets full of potion into his mouth. It would be enough to keep him human for the next eight hours.

At this point, the potion had barely any side effects, but if he didn’t take it, the curse was ever-present and would force him back into wolf form. The only thing that would break the curse would be claiming his fated mate.

Felix’s youngest brother Damian had been matched with a supermodel named Venus. Venus was world famous with millions of followers online. The two of them had started a photography and modeling agency in Selkie. They did shoots and brand deals nonstop and lived in a large Victorian house right outside of town.

The last Felix had heard, his other brother Blake had been living with them and caused them no end of distress. Felix had a feeling that Blake would soon be looking for a place to stay.

Blake had refused to take the money from the land sale in protest. He was essentially homeless now, going from brother to brother. Tate had had him in his one-bedroom apartment for longer than he should have.

Thorne was going back to college, studying wildlife management. Felix never would have expected his wild, fierce brother to go back to college. Now that Thorne had his university professor mate, it all seemed to make sense. Heather was a marine biologist. With Thorne studying wildlife management, they made a powerful team for the ecology of Fate Island.

Only Felix and Blake were left unmated. Felix wondered how Blake would react to finding his mate. Would it calm him down? Would he find new hope in the new world that they shared? Felix really hoped so. It would be a tragedy if, after having been given so many blessings, Blake still refused to see beyond the curse.