The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 37: Next Ploy

DRAVEN

This time, I was not the only one who looked like hell when we converged for our usual hellish meetings.

The High Gamma’s skin had grown noticeably sallow, her mouth stretched into a hard line of restrained ire and frustration.

The High Alpha was the same—his void eyes held not a hint of their usual dark humor.

Nothing had gone according to plan, despite the damning evidence we had sent right to the Clan’s doorstep. The projected consequences had come out flat and disappointing. Our nameless correspondence from the Clan had not sent any type of update concerning the new state of things in the wake of implicating Althea.

Things had gone quiet—far too fucking quiet.

I had begun to pace, the silence between all of us a suffocating shroud that refused to lift as we pondered our next steps.

"It should have worked. He is called the Hell Hound for a reason," Morgana lamented.

Despite my own personal annoyance at the situation, I could not help but smirk at her despair at our plans falling pathetically through. The bitch hated to lose. More than me—and that was really saying something.

I turned my gaze and locked onto the High Alpha, watching me with those unnerving orbs imbued with the essence of doom itself.

I swallowed, the motion of my throat painful as I tore my gaze away from his. I spoke, hoping to relieve the sweltering, terse tension that had held us all captive.

"And our eyes in the Clan are no longer as forthcoming. We have no idea what is happening in there. Does he believe it? Is he still torturing her for a confession? Has he killed her and refused to let go of her remains—"

"The paper Alpha keeps on ranting," the Alpha snapped, his annoyance becoming a physical force that wafted through the air, sour and acrid. "Ranting on and on about the things we already know." His eyes locked onto me again, boring into me, peeling off layers of my being. A horrible chill rippled through my spine. "And unlike you, who is no longer linked to her in any way, shape, or form, she is still branded to me. So I know she is not—she is not dead."

But even through the withering stare, I could see the flicker of uncertainty.

And Morgana must have noticed it too, because her spine straightened as her eyes shifted to the High Alpha.

"Is there something else, High Alpha?"

Another flicker.

I stiffened. It had not been my imagination—there was definitely something wrong.

We all turned to him even as he towered over both of us.

"What is wrong?" I tried to keep the rising indignation from my words.

"It’s the soul brand. There were times when the connection shut off before it was established again." Black bled into the white of his eyes until they were fully eerie, snuffing out all light. "And even now, the brand seems to have been shut off."

Morgana and I locked eyes before turning back to face the High Alpha.

He did not wait before elaborating, a wrinkle forming on his pale brow—the first I had ever seen on his ageless face.

"Another bond is interrupting the soul brand’s potency. Something far more poignant and powerful to our being as a race."

Something ugly, green, and bitter unfurled in my chest like an accursed flower.

"A mate bond."

It tasted like piss on my tongue.

"With their current proximity, even a touch could intercede the pain she should feel and interrupt my machinations."

"A touch from him."

He was touching her—not to torture her. That could not activate nor trigger the mate bond. It had to be tender. Intended to soothe.

I knew how it felt when Althea would cradle my face, her eyes searching mine when the burden of being the inconsequential third son of an Alpha became too much to bear. How her touch would lighten the load. My touch had been the same for Althea through all her suffering.

That was even before we were pronounced mates under the gaze of Fate’s silver flames. We had always known—before it all got so fucking complicated.

My wolf howled, writhing beneath my skin at the implication.

We were losing her.

A heated dagger slipped between my aching ribs at the thought of his hands on her. Should she let out a pleasurable sigh at the contact of their skin? Would she hum, pleased, while he rubbed circles into her burning back? Should she arch into his body—would she grind—

"I doubt you are breathing, Paper Alpha," Morgana’s irritating voice cleaved through my thoughts. "Endeavor to pull your head out of your ass and cease the standing wet dreams."

Heat crawled up my neck, to my face and cheeks. I despised how well the woman could read me. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was a witch herself. I felt utterly and completely naked under her scrutiny.

I was starting to doubt if Althea was truly her daughter, given how thoroughly she had been tricked by me—yet I could never seem to catch Morgana fully off guard. Instead, I constantly became her victim.

I shook off thoughts of mother and daughter and returned to the dire matter at hand.

"It seems the Hell Hound turned out to be a more empathetic mate than the previous one."

The way she pointed shit out really ground my gears. I bit my tongue hard enough to bleed.

"It seems so," the High Alpha agreed, his voice taking on a contemplative note. "The connection has been more than spotty since we sent out the little present."

Morgana’s voice grew desperate.

"Couldn’t it mean that he has killed her?"

He shook his head.

"Wouldn’t you like that?" he quipped mockingly, though no humor bled through the mask of darkness on his face. "But no." His eyelids drifted closed over his shadowed eyes. "I can still feel her—faint and ebbing like a dying heart."

"She is dying—"

The High Alpha’s features sharpened into a scowl as he hissed,

"No. It’s not her that is dying. It’s the soul brand. My chains around her soul are unraveling, and I will not be holding onto her for much longer. Each time I finally reach her—when the shroud of his presence eases—he returns like some kind of illness."

"He is not letting her hurt for too long," Morgana whispered.

"He is helping her," I added.

"Even though she is the daughter of the woman who killed his mother," the High Alpha muttered.

Morgana’s shocked expression shifted into bubbling disgust, tainted with hatred.

"He is not only sparing her—he is helping her, even though she is my fucking kin." She snarled. "It should never have gone like this. That bitch is always favored by the moon."

We simply watched her.

She schooled her features into something that should have resembled calm—if she didn’t look like she craved the blood of infants. She turned to the High Alpha.

"He cannot have her alive in his domain. She will be our doom—ruin all that we have built, all the souls sacrificed. I cannot let that happen. The Clan must not win, using my blood and flesh as a dagger against our necks. I can’t let Silverfang Pack rise again."

The High Alpha smiled then—an oily, ugly expression that made me want to hide.

"Desperation is so beautiful on you, Poppy."

Poppy?

Morgana ashened, her jaw clenching.

"Watch yourself, High Alpha," she spoke his title like a fucking curse.

His sharp smile only widened.

"So we need your daughter back—dead or alive—but not with the Hell Hound. We have caused her pain, tried manipulating the Hell Hound himself. It is time we reached out to Althea using the Vargan mother and son."