The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 63: One of The Clan

🦋ALTHEA

My eyes widening to saucers as I watched, horror tempted by intrigue.

Bone snapped and reformed with sickening speed, muscle tearing and rebuilding in the space between breaths. If it hurt him—and it had to, the way his body convulsed, the way shadows burst from his skin like something clawing its way free—he didn’t show it.

But that wasn’t what stole my breath.

His wolf stood tall, the largest I had ever seen and its fur—

Oh it’s fur... not dark fur. Not black or grey. Undulating, shifting shadows glided where hair should have been.

Living darkness that rippled and shifted with every movement, as if his form couldn’t quite hold still, couldn’t quite settle into something solid. His eyes burned silver behind the darkness, twin points of light in a silhouette that seemed to drink in the moonlight rather than reflect it.

The shadow wolf. The one that had taken me at the mist’s edge.

Him. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Before I could process it, before I could reconcile the creature before me with the man who’d pressed a dagger into my hands—

A howl erupted directly in the center of our group. My heart lunged into my throat as even more fear seized me because this howl was close, to near, like a whisper at my very ear.

The nightmare burst from the ground itself, dirt and roots exploding outward as it lunged, jaws wide, aiming for the nearest omega—a young girl who stumbled back with a scream.

Panic detonated in my chest, white-hot and paralyzing.

But Thorne moved faster.

He was on the nightmare before it could close the distance, shadow-form slamming into it with enough force to snap its spine. His jaws clamped around its throat, tearing, ripping, until the thing went limp and lifeless in his grip.

He dropped it, blood—thick and wrong, too dark—dripping from his muzzle. His gaze snapped to us, to me, and even through the shadow, I felt the weight of it. His gaze did not kill this time, not this form.

Keep up.

He didn’t speak, but I heard it anyway.

Then he bolted.

"Run!" someone shouted—Garrett, maybe, or another gamma I didn’t recognize.

And we ran.

The omegas scattered into motion, some ready, whatever fear I had seen before dissipated like smoke and others clutching weapons as they sprinted after Thorne’s retreating form. I ran with them, the dagger heavy at my waist, my breath coming in ragged gasps as the forest closed in around us.

The sounds of battle followed—howls, screams, the wet crunch of bodies meeting with lethal intent.

We burst into the fray.

Not the center, where the bulk of the clan held the line, but the edges—where nightmares broke through, where gaps formed, where the formation threatened to collapse.

Thorne led us straight into it. He moved like liquid violence, his shadow-form tearing through nightmares with deadly efficiency. He didn’t hesitate nor did he falter. He was a force, like fire, water of a crashing wave, a wild whirling tornado. Yet he moved with a precision, each

blow, slash was delivered too clean for a beast that moved like chaos incarnate.

Despite the paralysing fear, we followed.

The omegas followed him into hell, unto the dreadful cacophony of doom. A nightmare lunged at me from the left. Instinct kicked in. I went through this dance before with gammas. I just had to see them instead of the nightmares.

I ducked, rolled, came up with the dagger in my hand and drove it upward into the creature’s chest just as it leapt over me. The blade sank deep, meeting resistance—bone, maybe—before punching through.

The nightmare shrieked, convulsed, then went still.

I yanked the dagger free, stumbling back, my hands slick with black rotten blood that wasn’t mine.

Thorne was there in an instant, his shadow-form circling back, checking, assessing. His eyes met mine for a heartbeat. Then he was gone again, tearing into another nightmare that had broken through the line.

"Stay close!" someone shouted—another omega, a boy barely older than the newborns, his voice cracking with fear.

I nodded, breathless, and kept running because stopping meant dying.

And I wasn’t done yet. The letter burned in my mind, a constant pulse beneath the chaos.

East edge. Run. They’ll be waiting.

But I would not be going anywhere yet, not while Thorne was still fighting. The clan still held and I would hold right along with them. While I could still hear the sound of his howl cutting through the darkness, fierce and unrelenting, a promise that he wouldn’t let the nightmares take us.

Even if he hated me to hell because I was his mistake.

Even if tonight, I would prove him right by running.

For now—just for now—I would stay.

And fight beside the shadow wolf who’d once dragged me from the mist. The one who’d left a dagger at my waist so I could survive. The one I was about to betray.

The next nightmare came low and fast, its body skimming the ground like a living wound.

I barely registered it until the wolf to my right stumbled.

She was bigger than most of the omegas, her fur pale and mottled with black blood like tar, that was not all her own. A sling was bound tight across her chest, crude but secure, and nestled against her sternum—too small, too still—was a baby wrapped in layers of fur and cloth. The infant did not cry. Its tiny fingers were buried in the wolf’s ruff, knotted there as if instinct itself had taught it where safety might exist.

The nightmare lunged.

There was no time to think, as I ran forward, in front of her.

The dagger was already in my hand when I slammed into the creature’s side, the impact jolting up my arm and rattling my teeth. My blade bit deep, not where I aimed but where my body carried me—along the ribs, scraping bone, ripping muscle. The nightmare shrieked and twisted, claws flailing wildly.

One caught me.

White-hot pain tore through my side, sharp enough to steal my breath. I gasped, staggered, and felt warmth spill beneath my ribs. The world tilted.