The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 46: Different Ways Of Losing

🦋ALTHEA

I sat frozen, the parchment trembling in my hands, my mind a cacophony of panic, calculation, and utter, crushing despair.

They wanted me to run.

During the solstice hunt.

To the eastern edge of the mist.

Where they’d be waiting.

It was a trap.

Obviously, it was a trap.

But it was also a threat.

A real one.

Because Yana was real. Thal was real. And Wren—

My chest seized again at the thought of Wren’s name, at what it meant, at what I’d left behind when I fled into the mist.

Wren misses you.

Of course Wren missed me.

Because I’d abandoned them.

I’d run.

I’d chosen survival over—

No.

No.

I couldn’t think like that. I couldn’t spiral into guilt, not now—not when I needed to think.

But how could I think?

How could I think when the letter incriminated me with every word?

When it made me look like a willing spy, a collaborator, someone who had made a deal with the High Alpha?

When it promised that Draven—Draven, who rejected me, who tortured me, who stood by while my mother broke me piece by piece—had forgiven me?

When it threatened people I loved if I didn’t walk straight into their trap?

My eyes snapped to the door again.

What if someone came in?

What if Thorne came back?

What if he found this?

He’d just told me I was nothing to him. That I was a complication. A problem to be managed.

If he found this letter, he’d think I was exactly what he suspected me of being.

He’d kill me.

Or worse—he’d let me rot.

And Yana and Thal would die because I couldn’t save them.

Because I was trapped here, alone, with no allies and no options, and a letter written in the blood of someone I loved, telling me to walk into certain death if I wanted to save the others.

I stared down at the parchment, at Morgana’s bloody, elegant script.

Don’t keep me waiting, little omega.

My hands curled into fists, crumpling the edges of the letter.

I had three choices.

Tell Thorne.

Risk everything. Risk him thinking I was guilty. Risk him refusing to help. Risk him using this as an excuse to finally be rid of me.

But maybe—maybe—if I told him, if I was honest, if I laid everything bare, he’d see it for what it was.

A trap.

A manipulation.

Another way my mother was trying to destroy me.

Hide the letter.

Keep it secret. Try to figure out a plan on my own. Try to find a way to save Yana and Thal without walking into Morgana’s trap.

But how?

I had no resources. No allies. No power.

I was nothing.

Just like Thorne said.

Go.

Do what the letter said. Run during the solstice hunt. Meet them at the eastern edge.

Save Yana and Thal, even if it meant sacrificing myself.

Even if it meant proving everyone right—that I was a spy, a traitor, someone who couldn’t be trusted.

Even if it meant dying.

At least then, someone I loved would survive.

The door creaked.

I flinched so hard the parchment slipped from my hands, fluttering toward the floor—

I lunged, catching it midair, my heart hammering so loud I was sure whoever was outside could hear it.

The door didn’t open.

Just the wind, maybe.

Or a guard walking past.

Or my imagination, tormenting me.

I stared down at the letter in my shaking hands, at the blood-ink words that condemned me no matter what I chose.

And I realized, with a cold, sinking certainty—

There was no right answer. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Only different ways to lose.

The Hell Hound had made it clear that I was nothing, and that would not change whether I was dead or alive.

But again, the question struck me—how did the letter not only make it into the fortress, but end up on me? How did it happen without me even realizing it? Had I been that lost or distracted—

Realization settled over me, goosebumps rising on my skin as I remembered the strange incident.

The only person who had gotten close enough to the shackles binding my feet had been in the war room.

The Zeta.

Kael.

When he had fallen to his knees in the most bizarre scene I had ever witnessed.

It was still surreal.

The image would not leave me.

Kael on his knees.

The room in chaos.

Everyone watching him—watching me—as if nothing else existed.

I pressed my back to the bed and slid down until I was sitting on the floor, the cold stone leaching through the thin fabric of my clothes. The parchment lay folded in my hand, its edges softening where my fingers had crushed it too tightly.

Kael had been close.

Close enough for his shadow to fall over my feet.

Close enough that I had felt his breath hitch when he’d spoken my name.

Close enough to see the silver at my ankles.

My stomach tightened.

I replayed it slowly now, stripping the moment of shock, of spectacle. The way his remaining hand had trembled when it brushed the chains. The way his gaze had fixed there for half a second too long before lifting to my face. The way he’d collapsed—as if grief had finally overwhelmed him.

As if his knees had given out on their own.

Had they?

I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply, forcing my thoughts to line up instead of spiraling.

The letter had been placed between the shackles. Not dropped carelessly. Not tucked somewhere obvious. It had been hidden where I wouldn’t notice it until I was alone. Until I was free enough to find it—but not free enough to act without consequence.

Deliberate.

Careful.

Kael had been a prisoner. Tortured. Broken. He had returned with half his body ruined and his mind carved open. That much was true—I believed it. I still did.

But belief did not preclude use.

And Morgana had always preferred tools that thought they were acting of their own accord.

I swallowed hard, the taste of copper lingering at the back of my throat, though I hadn’t bitten my lip this time.

If Kael had done this knowingly, then everything he’d said in the war room took on a different shape. Not lies—not exactly—but truths bent just enough to guide the room where it needed to go. Sympathy. Confusion. Delay.

Time.

And it made it easier to convince the Hell Hound to let me join the solstice hunt now that they believed I was not a spy but a victim.

And if he hadn’t known—if he’d been used as the conduit without realizing it—

Then Morgana was closer than any of us wanted to believe.

Either way, the letter had crossed the threshold of the fortress.

Either way, I had been the intended recipient.

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Hello guys, I do hope you are enjoying the book. This is inform you guys that I am dropping a horde of Chapters (more than five) tomorrow and I kindly ask for you to support so hopeful I reach my goal for the month. 🥹🖤

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