The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 90: A Taste

🦋ALTHEA

He broke off his engagement to the delta of his pack while they all watched.

Shameless relief washed over me, followed by guilt that I had broken a relationship while ivanna’s haunting words played over and over in the background.

"Do you remember the weight?" I winced, goosebumps raising on my skin.

​"I was five years old when they locked the first set on me. Wolfsbane-imbued iron. It burned into my skin every day for years while we toiled in those god—"

"You were not even born when it happened!" Zyra snapped like a whip in my mind that I actually flinched from the phantom impact.

The words shattered, the horror of her voice washed over with Zyra’s ire at my guilt.

"You keep torturing yourself and then claim to want to be yourself," The harshness of her voice in my head receded. "Yet you act like a vessel for the guilt that you should not carry. Time and time again." She snarled, my skull quaking from its intensity.

I grimaced, groaning audibly as a pain lanced through my head.

A steady large hand cupped the small of my back, jolting me.

The heat from Thorne’s palm seared through the thin fabric of my shirt, sending a jolt of electricity straight to my core. For a second, the world around us—the weeping pack, the retreating figure of Ivanna, the lingering scent of old trauma—simply dissolved.

​Zyra’s previous anger didn’t just recede; it transformed. It went from a snarl to a low, rhythmic thrum that vibrated in my very marrow.

The guilt was abruptly drowned out by a wave of desire so visceral, so primal, that it felt like a physical blow to my stomach. My knees weakened, and for a terrifying, intoxicating moment, I didn’t want to fight the bond.

I wanted to turn into him, to bury my face in the crook of his neck and let the scent of cedar and storm-clouds swallow me whole. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

​My breath hitched, and the air in my lungs felt like liquid fire.

Every nerve ending screamed for his touch to move, to go higher, to pull me against the hard planes of his chest. I could feel his heartbeat through his fingertips, or perhaps it was my own, racing at a pace that felt like a death gallop. The ghosts of the mines and the iron chains vanished, replaced by the sheer, unadulterated gravity of the man standing over me.

​The silence of the hallway became a vacuum, and in that vacuum, Thorne’s eyes weren’t just gold; they were molten.

​"Althea," he murmured, his voice a low vibration that I felt more than heard.

​I was lost. I was falling into the heat, my hand instinctively reaching out to catch the front of his vest, my fingers curling into the leather. I didn’t care who was watching. I didn’t care about the history of our bloodlines. I just needed—

​"Althy? Althy, why are your eyes glowing?"

​The voice was a splash of ice water.

​I jerked, my head snapping to the side as the fog of lust and wolf-instinct shattered. Thal was standing there, his small hand tugging at the hem of my sleeve. His face was pale, his eyes wide with a mix of awe and fear as he looked between me and the Alpha.

​The sudden transition from the heat of the bond back to the cold reality of the hallway made my head spin. I staggered slightly, the hand on my back tightening to keep me upright.

​"Thal," I breathed, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. "I... I’m okay."

Thorne wasn’t convinced. The molten gold in his eyes hadn’t faded; if anything, the interruption had only made the hunger in his gaze more jagged.

And I did not need to see what lay beneath the silver mask he wore.

I could feel it pierce my core.

I could feel it—something had changed the moment he called off his engagement.

Another line had been crossed between us.

Another step that could not be retraced.

I felt in the way the charge between us had been altered and I knew that he knew that he felt it too.

He reached for me again, his large hand extending to cup my cheek, his fingers twitching as if he couldn’t stand the sudden inch of distance between us.

​"Althea, stay," he rasped, his voice thick with a need that made my skin hum.

There were people still watching—the echo of his jilted ex-fiance hurried steps still lingered like strong incense.

​I bolted.

​The instinct to flee was a frantic survival mechanism against the sheer intensity of him. I jumped back so sharply that I nearly collided with a small, hunched figure I hadn’t noticed standing in the shadows of the doorway.

​"Careful now, little bird," the Crone chuckled, her voice like dry leaves skittering on stone. I steadied myself, gasping, as she peered at me with that one piercing eye. "The ground is steady, even if your blood is not. It’s a heavy thing, isn’t it? To find that the very thing you fear is exactly what you crave."

​Her smile was thin and knowing—far too knowing. She didn’t say the words, but the way she looked at my flushed throat and trembling hands told me she could see the fire licking at my insides.

​Thorne froze, his hand hanging in empty air. He looked at the Crone, then back at me, the conflict in his expression mirroring the chaos in my own chest. He looked like he wanted to roar, to claim, to drag me back into his space, but the presence of the elder—and the weight of his mourning pack—forced a hesitant withdrawal. He lowered his hand slowly, his knuckles white.

​"Alpha," a Gamma stepped forward, bowing his head but his eyes remained sharp. "The beta’s crow has arrived with a message."

Thorne didn’t look at the Gamma. He kept his eyes on me for three more heartbeats, a silent promise burning in them, before he finally turned away. The tension in his shoulders was a physical weight as he moved down the hall, the Gamma trailing him like a shadow.

​I didn’t wait. I turned and walked in the opposite direction, my pace hurried, my bare feet slapping against the cold stone. I tried to pull the tattered remains of my dignity around me like a cloak. I passed pack members who stood like statues, their gazes stinging like nettles against my skin. I kept my chin up, murmuring "Excuse me" and "Pardon" with as much icy, regal grace as I could muster, pretending my legs weren’t shaking and my core wasn’t thrumming with a rhythmic, demanding pulse.

​Finally, I reached the seclusion of a darkened corridor. I leaned my back against the damp stone and squeezed my eyes shut, my breath coming in shallow hitches. My stomach rolled, a wave of nausea competing with the heat.

​Don’t tell me... I whispered into the silence of my mind, pleading with the wolf who shared my soul.

​Zyra didn’t snarl this time. She chuckled—a dark, liquid sound that felt like it was vibrating in my very womb.

​"It is your heat," she affirmed, her voice dripping with a predatory satisfaction. "And that? That was just a taste, Althea. The feast is coming."

​My stomach rolled again, and I slid down the wall until I hit the floor, burying my face in my hands as the terrifying reality set in.

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🔹 THORNE

​The air outside was biting, a stark contrast to the stifling, pheromone-thick atmosphere of the eastern wing, but it did nothing to cool the fire in my veins.

​Every step I took away from Althea felt like pulling a serrated blade through my chest. The bond wasn’t just tugging anymore; it was screaming. That fleeting contact—the way her skin had hummed under my palm and the way her scent had deepened into something sweet and heavy—had nearly unraveled me. I’ve led a pack through famine and war, I’ve survived the silver mines, but I had never felt a sensation so dangerously intense. It was a hunger that threatened to devour the Alpha entirely, leaving only the beast behind.

​Nyx shifted on my shoulder, her talons digging into my leather vest. She felt my agitation, her dark wings rustling as she let out a sharp, impatient caw.

​"I know," I muttered, my jaw tight. "Focus." It had been almost a year since the last communication.

I was beginning to think—

​As we rounded the courtyard, a dark shape plummeted from the gray sky. It was Vex, my Beta’s crow. He landed with a heavy flutter on a stone pillar, his obsidian feathers gleaming. Nyx didn’t hesitate; she launched off my shoulder with a cry of greeting, landing beside him. The two birds circled each other for a moment, clicking their beaks and ruffling feathers—a rare display of crow-affection that usually would have made me smirk.

​But Vex didn’t stay distracted for long.

​He hopped closer, his head tilting at a sharp, unnatural angle as he fixed his black, bead-like eyes on me. Attached to his leg was a tight scroll of parchment, sealed with my Beta’s wax. But Vex didn’t present the leg immediately. Instead, he let out a low, raspy croak that sounded far too much like a judgment.

​"Something’s changed, I see" the bird cawed with the sharp narrowing of his gaze.

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