The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 13: The Hell Hound

🦋ALTHEA

The room tilted violently, the walls spinning, the floor rushing up to meet me as I was left gasping for air that wouldn’t come.

No.

No, that wasn’t—

It couldn’t—

"No," I choked out, the word barely a whisper. "No, you’re lying."

But even as I said it, I knew.

I knew.

Every weakness.

Every moment I’d failed to shift when the others did.

Every time I’d been called worthless, broken, cursed.

Every beating I’d endured because I couldn’t heal like they could.

It wasn’t because I was born wrong.

It was because she made me wrong.

I shook my head, my brain trying to wrap itself around what he had just said.

Cold fingers pinching my chin yanked me back to earth. He was closer now, touching me but I was too frozen to even get away from the creature who held me captive. "You have been promised as my wife."

I shook my head, my frozen muscles thawing. I could back away from him, but my knees buckled, the floor pulling back.

I scrambled back, away from this man I had only heard stories about.

But he only smiles, eyes flaring with delight like he just had a sip of my fear and nothing would stop him from getting more.

He’d let go of my chin but as I led pathetically, he only came close. With each inch away from him, stepped even closer, the smile on his lips devilish the way that reminded me of Draven.

The air in the room filled my lungs with toxic fumes that made my eyes water, my skin tingle and my body quiver. I dared to look away, desperate for an escape but the room had no doors. None at all.

I glanced at him again before my eyes snapped furtively to the ceiling. It seemed to fall, inching closer with my every breath. The vision blurred, my throat clamping close. What the hell had I gotten myself into.

My line of sight shifted, my heart stopping when I eyes clashed with his just itches away from me. I could count his dark lashes, I could catch the whiff of rotten blood and something arcane and old that turned my stomach.

His cold hand came up to cradle my face. "Helpless, are we?" He asked a question I was not meant to answer.

He stroked my cheek, wiping at my tears. "If only you knew what you were." The softness of his voice did nothing but to alarm me. His words could have been a whisper, but it still effortlessly cleaved through the ringing in my ears.

"I will put you to good use. You will be my wife and you will fill my labyrinth with our pups all the days of your life. You will build me an army of scions."

In an instant, the shivers racking my body seized as I froze, my stomach churning with bile.

"No,"

He stopped, raising a brow. "What?"

I forced the word out through a venomous sneer. "NO,"

He blinked, slowly.

My defiance shocking him, that would have made both of us.

"I will not be the breeding mare for yet another Alpha. I fucking refuse," I bit out, forcing my tears back as I remembered the first child I conceived, only for it to suffer alongside me because I was too weak to protect it. I would never concede that a fate a second time.

Because I had no wolf.

Because my mother poisoned me.

The High Alpha stared at me.

Silent.

Still.

His expression, unreadable.

And then—

He laughed.

Not the cold, dark sound from before.

This was something else.

Genuine.

Delighted.

Like I’d just told him the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

"There it is," he murmured, his tone almost...fond. "Here I thought that after all the torture, the fire that your kind have would have been snuffed out. Leaving you pliant, too broken to resist."

He leaned back slightly, still close enough that I could feel the cold radiating off him, to see truly that there was not a fleck in dark pools of his eyes.

"You think you can refuse me?" he asked softly, his tone almost... fond.

I glared at him, my hands curling into fists.

"I will die first," I said, my voice shaking but steady. "I will throw myself from the highest tower. I will walk into the Mist and never come back. I will do whatever it takes. You don’t fucking own me." I snarled.

His smile widened and dropped.

That was all the warning I got before he clamped his hand around my neck, slamming me down into the hard floor.

Pain exploded through my skull as my head cracked against the marble.

His hand tightened around my throat, cutting off my air, pinning me to the floor like an insect.

I clawed at his wrist, gasping, choking, but he didn’t budge.

Didn’t even flinch.

He leaned over me, his face inches from mine, and the amusement was gone.

Completely.

"Let’s get something clear," he said softly, his voice colder than the Mist. "You don’t get to tell me what I do or don’t own."

His grip tightened, and black spots danced across my vision.

"Your mother signed you over to me in blood. A vow witnessed by the moon herself." His black eyes bored into mine. "From the beginning, your fate has never been yours, it has been dictated by me and your mother. Letting you get pregnant was just to see if you could bare my children, your mother knows you didn’t murder your sister’s child. There was no child. She framed you. It was just the final nail to get you here.

I tried to speak, to spit something back at him, but no sound came out. Mostly because I was speechless.

Only a strangled wheeze escaped.

"But I’ll humor you," he continued, his tone almost conversational. "Let’s say you do throw yourself from a tower. Or walk into the Mist. Or find some other creative way to die."

He leaned closer, his breath cold against my face.

"Do you think I can’t bring you back?"

My eyes widened.

"Do you think death," he whispered, "is an escape from me?"

Terror clawed through my chest, sharper than the pain, sharper than the lack of air.

"I am the High Alpha," he said softly. "The Red Mist answers to me. The Labyrinth bends to my will. And death?" His smile returned, thin and cruel. "Death is just another door I hold the key to."

He released my throat suddenly, and I gasped, choking, coughing as air flooded back into my lungs.

He stood.

"So no," he said, looking down at me with cold disdain. "You don’t get to refuse. You don’t get to die. You don’t get to escape."

I soothed my bruised throat, the secrets he was revealing too fast for my mind to catch without splitting in half. I eyed him, his darkened gaze piercing me as I still deigned to speak. "If you have so much power, why haven’t you killed The Hellhound?" My voice, hoarse. Maybe it was the lack of air making me reckless but even as something akin to dread ignited in his gaze, I reiterated. "Why haven’t you killed Thorne Vargan, the last descendant of the Witch Luna."

He stopped dead, something haunted crossed his face before he swallowed it. "You are threading on a ground that will swallow you whole."

"I have been swallowed and spat out," I choked, wheezing. "More times than I can count. It is nothing new to me."

His eyes raked over me, at the body of scars my body had become, my gums still swollen from the teeth pulled out. "I can imagine, Althy."

I recoiled, "Don’t change the subject. High Alpha," My eyes narrowed to slits. "You are afraid of him."

His eyes twitched. Afraid?" he repeated softly. "No, little tribute. I am not afraid."

He crossed the room in two strides, and before I could react, his hand was in my hair, yanking my head back.

Pain shot through my scalp.

He released me, shoving me back down.

"The Witch Luna’s blood runs through his veins," he continued, pacing now. "And with it, power that should have died with her. Power that corrupts. That consumes."

He stopped, looking down at me.

"He is called the Hell Hound for a reason, Althea. Not because he’s loyal. Not because he’s strong." His smile was thin and vicious. "But because he is a beast. A creature of rage and ruin who knows nothing but destruction."

He leaned down, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"And if you think I’m cruel?" His black eyes gleamed. "If you think I’m a monster?"

He straightened.

"Pray you never meet him."

The words hung in the air between us, heavy and dark.

And then I spoke.

"Maybe," I rasped, my voice hoarse and broken, "he’s simply found his match."

The High Alpha went still.

"Maybe," I continued, pushing myself up onto my elbows, "he sacrifices omegas too. Maybe he’s just like you."

His eyes flashed.

"Or maybe," I said, my voice gaining strength despite the pain, "he’s everything you wish you could be but aren’t."

His hand shot up, fast as lightning.

I flinched, bracing for the blow.

But it didn’t come.

Instead, his fingers closed around the amulet at my neck.

He yanked.

The cord snapped, and the amulet fell into his palm.

"You think I’m a monster?" he said softly, his voice deadly calm. "You think I’m worse than the Hell Hound?"

He held the amulet up, dangling it between us.

"Then prove it," he said. "Run."

I blinked, confused.

"You said you’d walk into the Mist," he continued, his smile sharp and cruel. "You said you’d die before you’d submit to me."

He tossed the amulet aside.

It clattered across the marble, useless.

"So do it," he said. "Run into the Mist. See if it’s kinder than I am."

My breath caught.

"I’ll even give you a head start," he continued, his tone almost generous. "One minute. Before I send my gammas after you.