The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 39: His Return

🔹️ THORNE

He took each step tentatively, like he feared that the ground would swallow him whole if he trod too heavily. Flanking him were two deltas; behind him were gammas whose eyes snapped furtively about for any more threats lying in wait.

No one made a sound as they watched him being aided forward, step by step. My jaw clenched as I took in the stump of what remained of his arm.

It had already started to heal, but there had been no way that a Vargan that old would not have been able to heal an entire limb. Still, suspicion rippled through the concern and relief, almost taking it over completely.

And just like I had done when his arm had been found, I stepped forward, walking toward them.

Zeta Kael’s eyes wandered, seemingly lost, glazed over like he was not even fully there.

My eyes narrowed at the bruises, and perhaps it was sadistic of me—I wanted to say that I expected more. More than just bruises, more than just one amputation. In the past, my mind would not have wandered to those details in the face of the return of one of our own.

But I had seen the condition of one of their own—Althea.

Missing teeth, every inch of her body a map of scars, her unending, instinctual flinching and the constant, underlying tremor that wrapped her every word, like her body had acclimated everything about her, including her speech, to torture and pain.

And hers seemed to have healed—badly—over a period of time.

Maybe that was the reason Kael’s condition looked extremely pale in comparison.

I shook the treacherous thought away, knowing it was the mate bond filling my head with shit to turn me against my own clan in favour of what it craves—binding Althea to me.

"Keep telling yourself that," Nyx cawed as quietly as an obnoxious bird could manage.

I reached them, and Kael’s rheumy eyes locked onto me, the daze falling away like a broken spell. "Alpha..."

"You will need to rest first," I cut him off, "and have the deltas take a look at you, and then we will have a chat."

He looked at me, his expression inscrutable, like a stutter had been dragged over it, before he looked down, nodding weakly.

I gestured for the men and women holding him up to do what needed to be done. The pack parted the way to let them in, no one murmuring or whispering. Their faces said all that their mouths dared not speak as their Zeta was helped into the fortress.

Pity, shifting into dread, as they all looked to me.

I said nothing.

We had all known that whatever illusion of peace we had was shattered by this, and there was nothing we could do but wait for the tide that had been gathering.

The clan departed without a word from me, leaving only two where so many once stood. The crone—her one unseeing eye piercing me as much as the seeing one—turned away and made her way back indoors.

Which left one—Ivanna.

The silence inhaled all oxygen, the air stifling and choking as she stood there, looking at me.

"Betrothed," she finally said.

I internally recoiled. I felt my blood curdle in my veins, but I kept my mask of neutrality at the endearing term she used to refer to me.

Umbra growled, twisting away like the sound of the term revolted him.

"What is it, Ivanna?"

"I have not been hearing her scream from the brand that she claims causes her pain."

Though she couldn’t see it, I raised my brow. I shrugged easily. "Like you said," I strode past her, "it could have been all an act all along." I tossed her words back at her, and she could not counter it.

She followed me, stepping in pace with me. "What happens when Kael tells us what we all already know?"

Silence.

"That being?"

"That she is behind this," she replied.

Silence.

"What happens then?" she asked. "I vote she be neutralized before the mate bond chains you to a fate that will doom us all. Repeat history..."

I slowed then, finally stopping. Not turning to face her—never giving her that satisfaction.

"That will not be put to a vote," I said quietly.

Ivanna halted beside me. The silence stretched, expectant.

"What happens to her," I continued, "will be decided by me."

A beat.

"If," I corrected. "If it comes to that."

She did not respond. She did not need to. Her stillness pressed closer than words.

I angled my head just enough to acknowledge her presence. "When Zeta Kael is fit to speak," I said, "he will say her name first. Not as an aside. Not as conjecture. He will name her."

I finally looked at her then. "And only then will action be taken."

Ivanna’s lips parted, just slightly, as if to speak—to object—but nothing came. Her spine remained straight, her chin level. Composed. Unyielding.

"Until that happens," I went on, my voice even, "speculation ends."

She studied me, her gaze sharp, searching for something she could pry loose. Finding nothing.

"You believe this was not her doing," she said at last.

I exhaled slowly through my nose. "I believe," I replied, "that if an allied pack intended to destabilize us, they would not do so with something so crude."

I resumed walking.

"This reeks of desperation," I added. "Of misdirection. Of something meant to provoke exactly this—fear turning inward, claws bared at a particular throat. Althea’s."

She said nothing as she followed.

"There is more at play here," I finished, "than a poorly thought-out betrayal."

Silence settled again between us.

In the corner of my vision, I saw it—the faintest blanching of her skin, like blood retreating just beneath the surface. Not enough for anyone else to notice. Enough for me.

I told myself it meant nothing.

That it was only the cold.

And I kept walking.

All in due time, I would get the answers that I sought.

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