CHAPTER TWO

Chapter Two

The Hollow Alpha:

The forest behind the Thorne estate was old, dense, and lethal to outsiders.

Ronan tore through it anyway, half-shifted, eyes glowing silver, claws extended, jaw unhinged as a growl thundered up his throat.

He didn’t know how he got here.

Only that the moment he left her that goddamn dungeon scented like leather and lavender and answers his beast had snapped.

He hadn’t shifted fully.

Couldn’t.

He didn’t get to choose anymore.

The curse made sure of that.

“Ronan!”

The voice was distant, panicked. Male. Familiar.

He didn’t slow down.

Branches slashed his skin. The air thickened with the scent of ozone and blood. His own.

The wolf wasn’t just beneath the surface. It was beside him — snarling, pacing, hungry. Not just for violence.

For submission.

Not from others.

From him.

And that was the sickest part of the curse. The cruelest twist the Moon Goddess had left him with:

He wasn’t just haunted by his mistake. He was wired to crave what he could never truly have.

“Alpha, stop!” Elias shouted again, closer now. Loyal. Young. Brave enough to chase him. Foolish enough to think he could help.

Ronan slammed into a tree and shoved off it, snarling. His muscles spasmed. The beast surged.

He dropped to one knee, panting. Clawed hands in the dirt.

I need to be held down.

The thought struck like lightning.

He didn’t want to dominate the pack.

He wanted to be devoured.

But no one knew that.

Not Elias.

Not the council.

Not the dozens of alphas who respected him from a distance, afraid of his bloodline, his power, his curse.

He was the Hollow Alpha still obeyed, still feared.

But never followed.

Because they all sensed the truth:

Ronan wasn’t leading them.

He was containing himself.

---

The forest fell into silence. A heartbeat later, Elias emerged from the treeline, breathing hard, shirt soaked with sweat. His eyes were wide with concern but careful not to meet Ronan’s directly.

“Your scent changed again,” Elias said. “It spiked in town. I thought—” He hesitated. “I thought you were hunting.”

“I was,” Ronan growled.

Elias tensed. “A threat?”

“No.”

Elias didn’t press. He never did. But Ronan saw the question in his young beta’s eyes:

Then what the hell was powerful enough to unchain your beast?

Ronan stood slowly, the partial shift receding — reluctantly. His body ached with restraint. He looked down at the dirt beneath his claws and saw the imprint of his knees, deep and trembling.

He’d almost submitted to the earth.

Almost surrendered without a hand on him.

All from a woman who didn’t even touch him.

“Get the council ready,” he muttered. “I want patrols doubled tonight.”

Elias hesitated. “You think something’s coming?”

“No.” Ronan turned toward the estate. The house loomed like a fortress carved into the mountain, ancient and cold.

“She’s already here.”

The war room inside the Thorne estate hadn’t changed in a hundred years. Carved stone walls. Iron sconces. A long table scarred by claw marks from generations of alphas before him.

But Ronan had never felt more out of place in it.

Seven council members sat across from him all wolves, all older, all watching him like they sensed a crack in the earth forming beneath their feet.

“Your patrol route changed last night,” murmured Garrick, his voice the gravelled edge of caution. “No notice. No backup. You disappeared for hours, Alpha.”

Ronan leaned back in the chair made for kings and killers. “I don’t need backup for a walk.”

“You haven’t gone off-grid like that since…” Garrick didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.

Since the last time the beast got loose.

Ronan’s jaw ticked. “I handled it.”

Garrick opened his mouth to retort, but the youngest of the council, Cale, cut in. “With respect, sir, your scent changed. All of us caught it this morning. Power. Lust. Submission. Something… other.”

That last word hit the air like a curse.

Ronan stared at the young wolf. His claws flexed under the table. “I don’t answer to your curiosity, pup.”

“No,” said a quiet voice to Ronan’s left. “But you answer to mine.”

Ronan turned. Elias.

Not in a challenge. Not even in anger.

Just the one wolf in the room who knew him before the curse fully took hold. Before he started having to lie about what kind of man he was. What kind of alpha he wasn’t.

The silence stretched.

Elias met his eyes and asked, low and simple, “What did you find, Ronan?”

Not what did you do.

What did you find.

Ronan’s breath caught.

He thought about the dungeon. About the gloved hand on his chest. The slap that broke something open. The voice that pierced straight through to the part of him that still knelt in the Moon Goddess’s temple, begging for release.

And for a second, just a second, he saw her in his mind — Talia cloaked in leather and dark fire, standing over him like a holy sin.

“I went to find a woman,” he admitted at last, voice low.

Garrick exhaled sharply. “A woman? You jeopardized control for—”

“I went to test something,” Ronan growled. “I’ve tried every outlet the pack healers and mystics could suggest. Nothing works. Not meditation. Not physical exhaustion. Not sex. Nothing settles the beast.”

“And this one did?” Elias asked carefully.

Ronan paused.

Then: “She didn’t settle it. She claimed it.”

The room fell into stunned silence.

Garrick sat back, face pale.

“You mean she… overpowered your wolf?”

“No,” Ronan said, a little too fast. Then, quieter, “She didn't overpower him. She made him... still.”

He rubbed the heel of his hand against his sternum, like trying to wipe away the memory of her touch. “There was something in her control. Ancient. Familiar. Like the Moon Goddess touched her bloodline.”

“That’s impossible,” said one councilor. “The goddess hasn’t marked anyone in centuries. Not since—”

“Me,” Ronan finished darkly.

The room stiffened.

Elias watched him in silence. Then leaned in.

“And what did you feel, Ronan? When you were under her?”

Not with her.

Under.

Ronan stared at the fire blazing in the hearth. His beast stirred again — not in rage.

In remembrance.

“I felt,” he said slowly, “like if I knelt, it wouldn’t be weakness. It would be the first truth I’ve ever spoken.”

---

Author's note💋

Whew. That dream? That was something.

So… now I need to ask you, dear reader:

Would you rather dominate Ronan or be the one he begs to worship? 😏

(Yes, I’m asking the real questions here.)

Writing these chapters feels like slipping into silk; dark, delicious, and just a little dangerous. I hope you’re loving this tangled web of lust, curses, and power plays as much as I am. 🔥