Alpha Terrell’s POV
After I left the study, I considered going after her.
I imagined finding her sowhere in the corridor, her steps fast and restless the way they beca when she was overwheld. I imagined catching her arm before she could escape the conversation, forcing her to look at .
Maybe I could explain it better.
Maybe I could make her understand that my proposal had not co from manipulation.
It had co from fear.
Real fear.
Sothing I had not felt in centuries.
But the thought faded almost as quickly as it appeared.
Angel did not respond well to pressure. If I cornered her now, she would only retreat further into herself.
And the last thing I wanted was for her to begin seeing as her enemy.
So instead of chasing after her, I did what I had done for hundreds of years whenever my thoughts beca too loud.
I went to work.
I descended the corridor from the study, and my beta Kane who had been waiting in the hallway, fell into step beside .
We reached the throne room.
I sat.
The doors opened.
The first were villagers seeking entry into the pack - a family of five, the father with the calloused hands of a man who had worked land all his life, the mother holding a child too young to understand where they were. They stood before with the combination of hope and terror that ca from presenting yourself to soone who could refuse you everything with a single word.
I looked at them.
"Where are you from?"
"The eastern settlent, Alpha." The man’s voice was steady, despite the slight tremor in his jaw. "Our old pack was dissolved when our Alpha..." A pause. "When he fell."
"Skills?"
"Farming. talwork. My wife is a healer."
A healer. My gaze moved briefly to the woman.
"Kane."
"Alpha."
"Prepare them for initiation. Also, the woman reports to the dical wing for assessnt."
Kane nodded. The family was escorted to the side, and the father let out a breath so profound it was almost audible from across the room.
I moved on.
The crop complaints wre next - a cluster of farrs who had apparently been building their collective grievance for so ti and had decided today was the day to release all of it at once. They spoke over each other with the chaotic energy of n who had agreed on the injustice but not the order of operations for describing it.
I let them go on for approximately forty seconds before I raised a hand.
Silence.
"Soone is stealing your crops," I said. "At night. From the southern fields."
"Yes, Alpha, that’s..."
"How long."
"Nearly two months now, we’ve been..."
"Kane." I leaned back slightly. "Extend the range to cover the southern farmland. Night rotation."
"Done."
"And find out who’s hungry enough to steal crops in bulk." I looked at the farrs. "If it’s pack mbers going without food, that’s a supply problem, not a theft problem, and I want to know about it before it gets to this stage again."
The farrs were ushered out.
The gift-bearers were next, and these were - different.
They ca in a group, six of them, representing different settlents within pack territory, and they were cheerful, They bore between them an assortnt of offerings - wine, cloth, carved wood, and in one morable case, a live goat that had clearly not been consulted about the plan and was voicing its objections loudly.
"To congratulate the Alpha," their spokesperson announced, "on the finding of his mate." He bowed. Deeply. "The pack is glad, Alpha. We have waited."
There was a murmur of agreent from the group behind him.
I looked at them.
"The pack’s regard is noted," I said, after a mont.
"And the Luna?" the spokesperson pressed, the grin undimd. "Will she receive us? We would pay our respects, if..."
"She is resting." The words ca out a degree sharper than I intended. I moderated. "She’ll receive the pack’s regards in due ti. When she is well."
I looked at the goat.
"Kane. Get that animal out of my throne room."
"Already arranging it, Alpha."
The gift-bearers departed beaming.
I moved on.
The delegation asking to see the Luna was smaller but more formal - three won from the rchant district.
"We’ve brought a gift for her," the eldest said. "Herbs. For recovery." She t my eyes. "We heard she was unwell. The Luna should know the pack is thinking of her."
Sothing about the phrase the Luna should know stopped sowhere behind my sternum.
"I’ll see it reaches her," I said.
"With respect, Alpha." The woman held my gaze. "We’d feel better knowing she received it herself."
Kane shifted at my side.
I looked at the woman for a long mont.
"Leave the basket," I said. "I’ll make sure she knows it ca from you. Personally."
It was the closest I had co to making a promise in this room all morning, and from the slight widening of the woman’s eyes, she understood the difference.
They left the basket. They left satisfied.
The slave trader ca last.
He was a small man with an aura that made everyone uncomfortable. He bowed slightly. And behind him, visible through the partially opened doors, were shapes that resolved into people as my focus adjusted - n and won standing in the antechamber.
"Alpha." The trader’s voice was warm and professional. "A fine selection. I travel from the..."
"I’m not interested."
He paused, recalibrated. "Of course, of course. I understand the Alpha has many demands on his..."
"I said I’m not interested." I was already looking toward the doors, already calculating what other matters remained. "Take your wares and..."
"Alpha." Kane’s voice ca at my shoulder.
I looked at him.
I gave him a slight nod.
"We are short," he said, just low enough for the exchange to remain between us. "The running of the territory, the castle, the household - we’re under capacity. It’s been a strain." A pause. "And the Luna." His voice remained neutral. "She has no personal attendant. No one at her specific disposal. Soone who answers only to her needs." He held my gaze. "She should have that. Especially now."
I was quiet for a mont.
I looked at the doors. At the shapes beyond them.
I thought, without aning to, she actually needed soone at her disposal. Especially now.
"How many?" I said, to the trader.
He straightened. "Fifteen, Alpha. n and won both. Ages ranging from..."
"Kane." I cut the recitation off before it continued. "Pay him. Take your ti with the inspection. Bring the one best suited to serve my Luna." A pause. "Don’t bring soone incompetent."
"Understood, Alpha."
I stood from the throne, stretching my neck slightly. The morning had been long and the thing sitting in my chest had not gotten any quieter throughout all of it.
"And Kane." I stopped without turning. "Soone with spine. She’ll respect them more."
Then I left.
I was in the corridor, halfway between the throne room and the east wing, when Kane returned.
The sound reached first.
Before I turned, before I saw anything - I felt soone being dragged. Soone who had made a deliberate decision to resist every single step of the process. I turned back toward the throne room entrance.
Kane had the woman by the upper arm and was bringing her forward with the grip of a man who had done this before, but she was making it considerably more difficult than it had to be. Her feet hit the stone floor with resistance at every step, and she was talking - a continuous, barely-interrupted stream that cut through the corridor’s quiet like sothing thrown hard.
"...hands off , you... you dog, you trained dog, sitting at the feet of a murderer and calling it loyalty... let go..."
"Enough," Kane said flatly.
"Enough?" She laughed - the jagged, airless sound of soone who had passed entirely through fear into sothing beyond it, sothing that wore the shape of fury but was built on top of grief. "What is enough to you people? Is this enough?" She gestured wildly at herself, at the corridor, at everything. "Is this..."
She was brought to a stop in front of .
I looked at her.
She was young - younger than I’d expected from the sheer force of the voice. Her hair was in disarray, her clothes worn in the way of soone who had been traveling or confined for several days, and her eyes...
Her eyes were blazing.
"You," she said.
One word. The shape of it said she’d been waiting to say it to my face.
"You." She stepped toward - Kane’s grip stopped her, but she strained against it, getting as close as the hold allowed. "You’re him. You’re the Alpha." She looked at my face with the focus of soone morizing, cataloguing every feature for so future purpose. "I’ve heard about you. Everyone has heard about you." Her voice dropped, took on a register that was quieter and more dangerous than the shouting. "I know what you are. I know what you do. You burned my village to the ground, and the people that didn’t die, you gathered them and burnt them all alive. And now you sit on your throne and let n bring you human beings like they’re goods at a market..."
"Take her out," I said.
"...Satan himself could not have done better than you, you are worse than the worst thing I have ever..."
"Get her out of my sight," I said, to Kane.
Kane was already redirecting her, and she was already fighting it, but I had made my decision and I was done.
"She can’t serve my Luna," I said, to Kane’s back. "She’d sooner slit her throat than attend to her. Give her to one of the farrs in need of a wife. I’ve already paid for her. My money doesn’t go to waste."
Kane nodded, steering her back toward the doors.
"You’ll die for this!" She was still going, still fighting every step, still pulling against Kane’s grip with a strong determination. "I call down a thousand deaths on you... a thousand, each one worse than the last... I curse you and your bloodline and every stone of this cursed castle and everything you have ever..."
I had already turned away.
Three steps down the corridor.
That was when I heard her.
Running feet - lighter than any guard’s, faster than soone walking, coming from the direction of the east wing, from the garden and the private corridors, coming toward with the urgency of soone frightened and moving toward sothing rather than away from it...
"Help ..."
I turned before I had decided to.
Angel.
She ca around the corner at a speed that ant she had genuinely been running - her hair loose around her shoulders, her face flushed deep, her breath coming in hard gasps that could have been exertion or panic or both, and my heart did what it had developed the wretched habit of doing around her - that inconvenient lurch, that sudden violent awareness of her...
I was already moving toward her before I registered that I was moving.
"Angel..."
She reached and stopped, her hands coming out to catch her balance, and she was breathing hard, looking up at , and for a mont I couldn’t read her face clearly because everything in was too narrowly focused on the gasping and the pallor and the alard thought that she had been ant to be resting, she was supposed to be resting, she had been so ill...
"Are you hurt?" The words ca out rougher than I intended. "What happened... what’s wrong..."
"There was... in the garden, the east gate..." She was still catching her breath, one hand pressed to her chest. "Sothing... I thought... I don’t know, I panicked, it was probably nothing, I just..." She shook her head, the flush deepening. "I’m sorry. I just..."
"Don’t apologize." The words ca out before I could think better of them. "You ran, which ans..."
I stopped.
Because behind , the sound had stopped.
I registered it in the sudden absence of it - the way you notice a fire only when it goes out. The shouting. The cursing. The continuous furious stream of words that had been filling the corridor for the last several minutes. Gone. Cut off completely. Not silenced by Kane, not interrupted... just stopped.
I turned, half automatically, to check why.
The woman had gone completely still.
She was standing in Kane’s grip, and whatever she had been in the mont before - the fury, the fight, the blazing forward montum of all that grief and rage - had simply ceased.
She was staring at sothing past , through , with the expression of a person who has seen sothing they cannot imdiately reconcile with reality. Her whole body had gone motionless, and her face - the face that had been all rage and fire thirty seconds ago - had cracked open into sothing else entirely.
She said a na.
Quietly. Almost gently. The way you say sothing you have been afraid to say.
"Angel?"
The word landed in the corridor like a stone dropped into still water.
I felt Angel go still beside .
I looked at her.
She had turned. She was facing the woman now, and every trace of color had left her face - the flush from the running, gone. What was left underneath was sothing I had never seen on her before, sothing raw and arrested and absolutely unguarded, the expression of a person whose body has simply stopped functioning while the mind scrambles to catch up.
Her lips parted as she kept staring at the woman. "Sister."
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