The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 80: Make Or Marr

🔹THORNE

Moths, everywhere.

I stopped dead for a second the moment I took it all in—shimmering silver wings blinding me. I couldn’t see whatever lay in wait inside the infirmary. Then I caught myself.

"Althea," I called.

Another deafening howl split the air. The walls shook. The moths responded, fluttering harder, silvery dust filling the space until visibility dropped to almost nothing.

"What the hell is going on?" I yelled. "Is there no one in there?"

The answer came from nowhere and everywhere at once.

"Force your way in."

The crone’s voice cut through the chaos, sharp and unyielding, ringing through the storm of wings like a bell struck in a burning hall.

"She is running out of time."

I clenched my jaw. "Grandmother—"

"Now, Thorne."

Another howl tore through the fortress, closer this time. Not a wolf. Not anything that belonged to this world. The sound scraped along my bones, wrong in a way that made even the shadows recoil.

Then I heard it.

Whimpering.

Thin, broken sounds struggling to rise above the din.

"The deltas—" I muttered.

Their voices bled through the mothstorm, panicked and raw.

"Alpha—please—"

"Something’s wrong—she’s—"

"We can’t hold it—"

Another shriek cut them off, higher, sharper, a scream warped into something inhuman.

I didn’t think, I lunged forward.

The moths battered against me, their wings stinging like cold sparks against my skin, their silver dust clinging to my lashes, my throat, my lungs. The air itself felt alive, resisting me, trying to push me back.

But I forced my way through.

"ALTHEA!" I roared into the storm.

The doors to the infirmary loomed ahead, barely visible through the glittering haze. I slammed into them shoulder-first, wood and iron groaning under the impact.

Inside, something answered.

A sound so vast and feral it felt like the room itself was screaming.

And I knew, with sick certainty, that whatever was happening in there had already crossed the point of no return.

I dropped Thal, "Stay here. She will be okay," I lied to him as much as I lied to myself.

I forced my way through the army of flutters, letting my shadows aid in my infiltration, another pair of hands to part the sea of moths. The dust coated my lungs—it I was not born imperious to silver, I would have been fucking mushy, my body dissolving from the inside out.

One more step and reached a miraculous clearing.

I stopped dead.

My eyes passed over the chaos—the deltas pinned against the walls, blood smeared across white tiles, overturned trays and shattered vials—but they snapped straight to Althea.

She was still conscious.

That was the worst part.

They had her on the infirmary table, three deltas and two guards struggling to keep her there, hands slick with blood and silver dust as they fought against her thrashing body. Her back arched, her fingers clawing at the air, her breath coming in broken, gasping sobs.

"No—no—please—"

Her voice shredded itself raw as she cried, iridescent tears streaking down her cheeks, glowing faintly as they fell. "Don’t do it—please—don’t—"

She wasn’t looking at any of them.

Her gaze was unfocused, fixed on something only she could see.

Whatever had her... it wasn’t in this room.

"She won’t wake up," one of the deltas sobbed. "We can’t reach her—she’s trapped inside—"

Althea’s body convulsed.

A howl tore out of her, wild and unearthly, rattling bone and glass alike. The moths answered instantly.

They didn’t just pour from her hands anymore.

They bled out of her skin.

Silver wings burst from her arms, her shoulders, her throat—phasing through flesh like light through fog, shredding fabric and scattering in luminous swarms. Every breath she took released another cloud of them, the room filling until even the ceiling vanished beneath glittering wings.

"She’s killing herself," someone whispered.

I didn’t wait.

I lunged.

Shadows exploded from me, lashing out like living limbs, ripping the deltas and guards away without hurting them, flinging them back as gently as violence allowed. I reached her in two strides and caught her as her body sagged, arms wrapping around her just as another wave of power ripped through her.

"Althea," I growled into her hair. "Look at me."

She didn’t see me.

Her fingers clawed weakly at my chest, not pushing me away, just searching—grasping for something solid. Her tears soaked into my coat, glowing faintly as they fell.

"Please," she whimpered to whatever nightmare held her mind. "Please don’t make me—please—"

More moths tore free from her skin, the air screaming with their passage.

I pulled her against me, crushing her to my chest. My shadows wrapped around her too—coiling over her arms, her legs, her back—anchoring her, holding her when her own body tried to come apart. They weren’t restraints.

They were braces.

I could do nothing but to hold her up. "Stay with me," I snarled, teeth bared, fury and terror knotting in my chest. "You don’t get to disappear. Not now. Not like this."

Her head lolled against my shoulder, breath hitching, eyes glassy with pain and terror.

Another howl built in her chest.

I tightened my hold.

"Let it come," I whispered fiercely into her ear. "But you don’t go with it. You hear me? You stay right here."

And as her power surged again, threatening to tear her apart from the inside, I held her with everything I was—arms, shadows, will— refusing to let the silver moths take her away from me.

"Use the mate bond!" The crone screamed, she held something in her arms, something I had no time to decipher. "Reach her through the mate bond. It will be an anchor for her to find the waking world, and breach the surface."

I held her tighter, desperation clogging my throat.

"Before she is adrift far too long, we lose her. You have to get her back." Her voice cracked. "She has been through so much, she is lost..." Her voice cracked as she cradled whatever was in her arms. "Find her. Mark her now. Give her a place to come. A bond to have, a hand to hold." Her eyes welled with tears.

"Do it now, Thorne!"