The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 29: Correspondence

🔹️ THORNE

The hallway narrowed, growing too small for the two of us—even if she was half my size.

"I am going to reject her once I get all I need from her."

Her one working eye flared. "You won’t." The finality was damning and infuriating.

"Mate or not, I am not pissing on my mother’s legacy for some girl."

Her eye narrowed. "You cannot weave fate into the tapestry you prefer."

"You seem to have a lot of empathy for her, Grandmother." I stepped closer to her. "Can you not smell Morgana when she is near? You should be the last person on this earth who would forget," I spat.

"I have forgotten nothing," she snapped back. "I could never forget."

The forlorn note in her voice fell away into grief.

"I saw it happen, Thorne. I saw her struggle until the last moment. I saw the instant she knew she could no longer fight. I saw her neck snap and split, the blood gushing from the stump where her head used to be. I saw her head roll."

I bit back my own sorrow, swallowing it whole, forcing it painfully down my throat. Still, my bile rose high and fast.

She took a tentative step forward, shaking slightly—because the cruelty of my words had knocked her off-center.

"And I remember you quivering, Thorne."

I stilled, my body locking against my own will. Nyx—usually weightless—suddenly weighed a ton on my shoulders.

"I remember having to hold back, lying to you that she would be okay. Covering your eyes."

I whipped my head—and on cue, Althea screamed again. My heart lurched, slamming into my ribs.

I held my breath against the instinct that screamed at me not to walk away—but to race to her side.

The Moon and the Fates were cackling in the pantheons they resided in, mocking me for my helplessness in the face of their ruthless machinations.

Another scream. Her voice could have torn a hole through the fabric of reality itself.

"Thorne."

My name from her mouth was a warning wrapped in a plea.

But I walked past.

"Tell them to take care of her. If she has control over animals, she can take this too."

The words tasted like ash as I walked away from her.

"You can’t run away from this, Thorne," she whispered after me.

"Your father tried—but even he fell in love with a witch. This is inevitable."

I let the distance swallow her words.

----

🔹️ DRAVEN

"She either dies, or we retrieve her alive," the High Alpha said, his eyes still wholly black and depthless, that sick grin plastered across his unnerving face.

Dressed in dark, opulent robes that flowed like black water with every movement, he looked nothing short of a demon cloaked in silk and shadow—the kind of monster that belonged in nightmares, not standing before me issuing orders like this was just another day in his twisted existence.

"I don’t see how those are the only options," I said carefully, my mind still reeling from what I’d witnessed—him reaching across hundreds of miles to torture Althea through the soul-brand.

"We can’t let him have her," Morgana bit out. "Why can you not comprehend that? If we can’t have her, we definitely cannot let him have her."

I swallowed, my tongue heavy as lead.

"No one survives him. They never come back. The gamma who dared get closest reported corpses strung up like ornaments for his wretched fortress. He does not keep prisoners."

"If he has her, he won’t kill her," Morgana said, her eyes fixed on some distant point. "He knows my scent. I made sure of it."

A satisfied flush flooded her face.

My stomach turned.

"And those hounds can track bloodlines—much less the Hellhound himself. He has it in for me, and therefore all those related to me. Killing Althea would be too easy for his satisfaction. He will keep her alive. I know I would—and I would draw out her suffering. Her screams would echo for days. She is still alive for that reason."

I could only stare at her, my mind struggling to process what I was hearing.

This was Althea’s mother.

The woman who had given birth to her. Raised her—if you could call years of abuse and cruelty raising.

And she was satisfied at the thought of her daughter being tortured.

Not just tortured.

Kept alive specifically to prolong it.

"You’re insane," I breathed, not caring that the High Alpha was watching—didn’t care that insulting Morgana could cost me. "She’s your daughter."

"She’s a mistake," Morgana corrected flatly. "A weakness I should have eliminated the moment she was born. But I thought—" Her jaw tightened. "—I thought she might be useful. That her blood, her abilities, might serve a purpose beyond existing as a reminder of my greatest failure."

"What failure?" The question slipped out before I could stop it.

Morgana’s eye fixed on me with terrible intensity.

"Loving her father."

I hadn’t even begun to comprehend the words before she continued, her gaze shifting away.

"But now he has her, and he could have the same intentions. The last thing we need is those hounds getting steps ahead of us because they got their claws into my daughter. We need to kill her—or get her back. There is no in-between."

"So we ramp up the pain while you—"

The Hellhound turned to me.

"—the Alpha with a tin crown—lead men to their border and demand her return. Or we—"

The chamber doors burst open.

I whirled, hand instinctively going to my weapon—but it was Elias, dragging someone behind him.

No. Not someone.

A boy.

He couldn’t have been more than fifteen—gangly and terrified, eyes wide as moons as Elias shoved him forward.

The boy stumbled, barely catching himself before hitting the floor. When he looked up—

I knew him.

Tham. Thak. Something like that.

But I knew him well.

The son of Vargan’s handmaiden for Althea.

Yana.

The one caught sneaking Althea food.

"No," I whispered.

"Yes," the High Alpha purred, his smile widening as he examined the trembling boy. "I believe we’ve found exactly what we need."

Thal’s eyes darted between us—me, Morgana, the High Alpha—and I could see him piecing together what he’d overheard. The terror on his face said he’d heard enough.

"He was listening outside the door," Elias reported, his grip still tight on Thal’s shoulder.

"Pressed against the wall like a little rat. Should I dispose of him?"

"No," the High Alpha said quickly, stepping closer, inspecting the boy like livestock. "No. I think young Thal here is going to be very useful. Aren’t you, boy?"

Thal swallowed hard. "I—I didn’t hear anything. I swear. I was just—"

"Lying," the High Alpha interrupted smoothly. "But that’s alright. I don’t care what you heard. I care who you are."

His pitch-black eyes locked onto the boy.

"Tell me, Thal. You’re close to Althea, aren’t you? I can smell her on you."

The door slammed again—this time admitting a Vargan woman.

"Alpha Draven," she said, head bowed, panting. She had run all the way here.

"What?" I demanded. The High Alpha and his bitch might know the truth, but to everyone else, I was still the Alpha of Hollowhowl.

With shaking hands, she offered a red letter—stamped with an N engraved in wax.

The room froze.

No allied pack bore that emblem.

And there were no other packs of werewolves besides the North Clan.

The implication struck everyone at once—

For the first time, we had direct communication from the Hellhound’s clan.