The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 81: Through Her Eyes

🔹THORNE

I hesitated, then a terrible terror shook the fortress. My eyes whipped to Althea but she had not howled.

This was something else.

Then again, another tremor rattled through, vibration embedding itself in my marrow. But again, it was not Althea’s doing.

What the hell was going on now? Me and the crone exchanged a worried glance just as a voice came from the other side of the barrier of moths.

"Alpha," Panic edged the single word. "It is the animals. They are back."

"Try to send them back," I ordered.

"They are very hostile. No one had ever seen them like this. They are not just growling or snarling, they are not even watching. They are fucking attacking the fortress. They are very agitated. We will have to kill them if this continues."

"Even that will not work," Another gamma joined the first, his voice breathless. "Their numbers are climbing and they are growing more aggressive. We can’t kill every animal in the woods. It will be a disaster."

My mind ran through all the possibilities at once, discarding them just as fast. Raids. A diversion.

They were coming for her and nothing would stand in their way.

"They’re here because of Althea," The crone said slowly, the truth settling into my bones like ice. "The animals always respond to her. Always. But this—" Her gaze snapped back to her writhing form in my arms, silver light spilling from her skin in violent waves. "This isn’t guidance or protection. This is panic."

Another howl echoed through the woods beyond the walls, followed by the sound of something massive slamming into stone.

"They can feel her distress," I went on, my voice going hoarse. "Whatever is happening inside her is bleeding into everything that’s tied to her.

The crone’s face had gone pale beneath her paint, her fingers digging into the object she held against her chest.

"If they are this feral," she whispered, "then her spirit is slipping deeper than we feared."

Althea convulsed again, a choked sound tearing from her throat as more moths ripped free, her body arching against mine like she was being pulled apart by invisible hands.

"She’s drowning," the crone said.

Another impact shook the fortress. Cracks spider-webbed along the stone of the far wall.

"Do it," she urged, her voice no longer commanding but pleading. "You have to give her something to grab onto. A tether. A rope back to herself. The bond is the only thing strong enough to reach where she’s gone."

I looked down at Althea’s face—tear-streaked, luminous with agony, lips moving in silent begging to something I couldn’t see.

"Mark her," the crone said. "Pull her back before she disappears entirely. Before she takes every living thing with her."

Outside, the animals roared and howled and threw themselves at the walls, driven mad by the echo of her pain.

Inside my arms, Althea was slipping away.

And if I didn’t act now, there would be nothing left to save.

Mark her. Umbra snapped, desperation curdling his growl.

I lifted my head slowly, the weight of the fortress shaking around us, the air thick with silver dust and blood and terror.

"Everyone out," I commanded.

No one moved.

"I said out."

The Alpha command slammed through the room like a blade. "All deltas. All guards. Clear the infirmary. Now."

They didn’t argue. They couldn’t. Bodies tore themselves away from the chaos, stumbling through the mothstorm, dragging the wounded, hauling the unconscious, fleeing the room as if it were already burning.

"Nyx," I said.

She hesitated, her dark eyes locked on Althea.

"Go."

A flicker of protest crossed her face—then obedience won. She turned and vanished into the silver haze with the others, leaving the room empty but for the three of us.

Me and the woman breaking apart in my arms.

The doors slammed shut behind them, the wards sealing with a low, resonant thrum. The moths thickened, wings brushing my skin like cold prayer.

Althea whimpered, her body trembling violently as another wave of power tore through her. I tightened my hold on her, shadows bracing her spine, her ribs, her shaking limbs.

"I’m here," I murmured, though she couldn’t hear me. "I’ve got you."

Slowly, deliberately, I reached up. My fingers curled around the edge of my mask.For years it had been a shield. A lie. A barrier between the monster and the world. I ripped it away.

Cold air struck my bare skin as I dropped the mask to the floor where it shattered against the stone.

Then I looked down at her. I allowed myself to really take her in, despite the forces that wanted ripped through the fortress.

Her lashes were wet with glowing tears, her lips parted in a broken plea, her skin luminous with moonfire and ruin. The silver moths bled from her like dying stars, tearing at her from the inside out.

Still, I never wanted this, this was yet another trick by the fates but I stopped myself before that want could turn into something ugly.

I let myself forget the stakes of the moment as I drank in her face. I drank myself drunk on the honey-warm softness of her skin, the pale fringe of her lashes, the stubborn pinch of her lips as she fought whatever was trying to pull her away. Even as the world gave way to rattling stone and distant terror, something fierce and aching coiled inside me—not lust, not hunger, but the brutal need to keep her here. To keep her breathing. To keep her herself.

I memorized her the way you memorize a map when you’re lost.

The faint freckle near her temple.

The tiny scar on her knuckle.

The way her brows drew together when she was afraid but refusing to give in to it.

If I was going to reach her through the storm, I needed to know exactly who I was calling back.

"Althea," I said, low and steady, my forehead still pressed to hers. I shifted my grip, cradling her closer, my forehead pressing to hers.

"Come back," I whispered. "Follow me."

And then I bared my teeth.

I lowered my head to the curve of her neck.

The place where her pulse beat.

The place where a bond could be written into flesh and soul, not just in the ink of the fates. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

For a heartbeat, I hesitated against the impulse of Umbra’s growling voice in my head because I understood what this meant. A mark wasn’t just possession. It was a promise. A tether. A vow that cuts both ways.

My teeth sank into her skin. The moment I broke her skin, power exploded between us.

Silver light surged from her in a blinding wave, moths screaming into the air as if struck by lightning. Shadows tore outward from me, wrapping around us both, forming a cocoon of dark and moonlight that sealed the rest of the world away.

Althea gasped, her body arching against mine.

And I felt her, it was not just her body flush against mine.

I taste her fear.

I smelt her memories.

Her life long pain and the echoing ache of every time she’d been left behind. It flashed unbidden in my mind, and each one whipped me like a lash to my bare back. All I saw was—suffering. Since her first whine, her first whimper in her mother’s arms—All. I. Saw. Was. Pain.

There had not been a single day without the suffocating weight of dread. What Morgana had said at the edge of the mist had barely scratched the surface. Now, feeling it all through the bond—every memory, every truth—unspooling inside me like a living wound... nothing could have prepared me.

A visceral ache threaded through my entire being as I listened to every word spoken over her, watched through her eyes every punishment, every betrayal, every brutal revelation.

She has been poisoning you with wolfsbane.

The High Alpha’s greasy voice slithered through my mind like rot.

I had been so wrong...

The bond snapped into place like a drawn bowstring released.

Mine!

The word thundered through me as her scream cut off mid-breath.

The moths froze in the air, wings locked in mid-flutter, silver dust hanging like a shattered constellation around us. The violent surges of power stuttered... then slowed.

Her trembling eased, her pulse steadying beneath my mouth.

I lifted my head, breath ragged, my lips stained with a faint shimmer where our blood had mingled. The mark on her neck glowed softly, a delicate crescent threaded with silver light, already sinking into her skin.

There was no going back now.

She opened her eyes and my world imploded.