The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 12: Admission

🦋Althea

He wasn’t old.

That was the first thing that struck me. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

I’d expected someone ancient, withered, monstrous. But he looked young—maybe Draven’s age, maybe younger. His skin was pale, almost luminous in the dim light, and his hair fell straight and black as midnight down past his shoulders.

He was beautiful—he should have been...

But his eyes.

Gods, his eyes.

Black.

Depthless.

They gleamed like wet stone, and when they swept over us, I felt them—cold and sharp and invasive, like he could peel back every layer of me and see what I was made of.

He reclined on his throne, draped in black silk and furs, rings glinting on his fingers, a crown of twisted silver resting on his head.

And around him—

Women.

Beautiful, ethereal, dressed in sheer fabric that left little to the imagination. They knelt beside him, one holding a platter of meat, another feeding him grapes, their movements languid and practiced.

He bit into the meat, blood dripping down his chin, and smiled.

A chill clawed through my spine as I straightened.

One of the women leaned in, her lips brushing his ear, whispering something that made him laugh—a low, dark sound that echoed through the hall.

He raised a hand, a lazy gesture, and the women scattered like smoke.

Gone.

And then his attention turned to us.

The tributes.

Twenty of us, chained and broken, standing in the center of his hall like offerings on an altar.

He didn’t stand.

Didn’t need to.

His presence filled the room.

"Welcome," he said, his voice smooth and cold, like silk over steel. "To My Labyrinth."

No one spoke.

No one dared.

He leaned forward slightly, resting his chin on his hand, studying us with an expression that was almost... amused.

"You’ve come a long way," he continued. "Through the Mist. Through the voices. Through your fears." His smile widened, his canine longer, sharper. "And you survived. Impressive."

His eyes moved slowly over each of us, lingering, assessing.

"Some of you are strong. Some of you are clever. Some of you—" His gaze landed on me, and my breath caught. "—are something else entirely."

I couldn’t look away.

Couldn’t breathe.

He tilted his head, his smile sharpening. "Tell me, little tribute. What are you?"

I didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

He laughed again, leaning back. "No matter. I’ll find out soon enough."

He clapped his hands once, and the sound rang through the hall like a gunshot.

Doors I hadn’t noticed before opened along the walls, and figures stepped out—servants? But they were wolves, not like the ones we had encountered outside. These ones looked better trained.

He waved his hand over us and within a blink, it all burst into chaos

The wolves lunged.

Their jaws clamped down on chains, on clothes, on limbs. The tributes screamed, scattering in every direction, their terror sharp and animal.

But there was nowhere to run.

The doors had closed.

The hall had become a cage.

One by one, the wolves caught them.

A young man tried to fight back, throwing punches that did nothing against fur and muscle. The wolf grabbed him by the shoulder, lifted him off his feet like he weighed nothing, and carried him away through one of the side doors.

Another sprinted toward the entrance we’d come through, but a wolf cut her off, catching her by the waist. She thrashed, screaming, but it didn’t matter.

Gone.

Another tribute dropped to his knees, begging, pleading for mercy.

The wolf that took him was almost gentle.

Almost.

I watched it all happen in fragments—flashes of movement, screams cutting short, the sound of jaws snapping closed around fabric and flesh.

And I stood there.

Frozen.

Waiting.

My turn would come.

I knew it would.

I closed my eyes, fists clenched at my sides, trying to steady my breathing.

Just get it over with.

Just—

The screaming stopped.

The chaos faded.

Silence settled over the hall like a heavy blanket.

I opened my eyes slowly.

The tributes were gone.

All of them.

The wolves had vanished, dragging their captives through doors that no longer existed.

And I was alone.

Alone with him.

The High Alpha.

I blinked, disoriented.

The hall had changed.

It was smaller now. Closer. The towering ceiling had lowered, the endless columns had disappeared. The vast expanse of black marble had shrunk into something more intimate, more suffocating.

A room.

Not a hall.

A room.

And he was no longer at the far end, perched on his throne.

He was right there.

Just a few yards away.

Close enough that I could see the sharp angles of his face, the way his black hair fell over one shoulder, the rings glinting on his fingers as he drummed them against the armrest of his throne.

Close enough to see the way his smile curled—lazy, predatory, amused.

"There you are," he said softly.

My pulse hammered in my throat.

"I was wondering," he continued, tilting his head, "if you’d run. Or scream. Or beg."

I said nothing.

Couldn’t.

His smile widened. "But you didn’t, did you? You just... stood there. Waiting."

He rose from the throne, and the movement was fluid, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world.

And maybe he did.

He took a step closer.

Then another.

I wanted to move. Wanted to run. Wanted to do anything but stand there like prey caught in a trap.

But I couldn’t.

My legs wouldn’t obey.

"Interesting," he murmured, his black eyes sweeping over me, drinking in every detail. "I was starting to think that Morgana would not fulfill her vow to me."

My chest caved in at my mother’s name leaving her lips. I raked together all the bravery I could muster just for a single word. "What?"

His onyx eyes sparkled, and I could see my own reflection in them. "Althea," he purred my name. "You might be a tribute but you are no omega. Your mother has been hollowing you with Wolfsbane since your childhood."

My eyes widened, the world dissolving around me until the only that remained was his words echoing in my ringing skull.

The words didn’t land at first.

They hung in the air between us, meaningless sounds, syllables without weight.

And then—

They crashed into me.

Wolfsbane.

My mother.

Since childhood.

The air was punched out of my lungs.