CHAPTER 5

THE ALPHA'S FLAME

The morning light filtered through the lace curtains, soft and golden, spilling across the stone floor like honey.

Octavia sat in the corner of the room as though wrapped in shadow. The sun may have risen, but its warmth did not reach her.

She didn’t move when the maids entered silent as snowfall, their eyes lowered, their hands skilled.

They didn’t speak.

Didn’t ask questions.

They simply did what was required. Gently, they helped her undress, careful with every motion, dipping soft cloths into basins filled with warm water laced with lavender and wolf moss.

The scent clung to the air clean, calming, but unable to mask the ache that clung to her skin like ash.

Octavia sat still, her arms limp at her sides, her head tilted slightly to one side as if she were watching something only she could see.

Her eyes were swollen from weeping, but now they held no tears only silence, deep and vast.

Then the door opened, and Astra stepped in.

A beam of gentle light danced over her auburn hair as she crossed the room, stopping beside the basin. Her presence brought with it a warmth that contrasted the chill clinging to Octavia.

Her gaze was cautious, lips pressed in a way that betrayed her own ache, but in her eyes burned a stubborn spark the kind that refused to be extinguished.

“Octavia,” she said softly, pulling up a stool. Her voice was calm, but the edges trembled with concern.

“I know you’re still hurting. I would be too. But you need to eat. And you need to listen. There are things you don’t understand yet. Things you must understand.”

No response.

Octavia didn’t flinch. She let them touch her, bathe her, dry her like a doll dressed for display. But Astra knew that stillness. She recognized the quiet that screamed.

She had worn it once herself.

“Octavia” she said again, her voice softer now, her fingers brushing a wet strand of dark hair behind Octavia’s ear.

“He wasn’t always like this. So cold. So.empty. There was a time Alpha Xavier laughed. When he smiled.”

A subtle flicker passed through Octavia’s expression. Barely there, but Astra saw it.

Astra’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Before he lost her.”

At that, Octavia blinked.

The maids, sensing the shift, exchanged silent glances and slipped from the room like mist, leaving the two women alone.

“Her name was Seraphine,” Astra began, her fingers knotting in her lap. “They called her the Alpha Flame.”

Her gaze drifted to the window, as if she could still see her there, in the distant memory of moonlight and war cries.

“She wasn’t like the noble daughters who curtsied and kept their heads down. Seraphine didn’t follow Alpha Xavier, she stood beside him. She was fire wrapped in skin. A warrior. Not born of title or privilege she earned everything. Chosen by the Moon Goddess herself.”

Octavia’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, her fingers twitching in her lap.

“She challenged the Council. Rode into battle before she was even mated. Alpha Xavier didn’t want her at first. Said he had no time for ‘soft things.’ But she wasn’t soft. She was forged in fire.”

Astra smiled faintly. Her voice trembled with awe.

“When they bonded, the forest felt it. The earth cracked. The winds shifted. The wolves howled for three nights. They were unstoppable.”

Then the smile faded. Her eyes darkened with the shadow of old grief.

“She was pregnant,” Astra said, barely above a breath. “Only a few months in. The first heir to the Stormfang line. The pack was preparing for a new dawn.”

Octavia’s breath hitched. Her hand moved to her chest, as if trying to still the tremor beneath her ribs.

“But Seraphine refused to be caged. She didn’t sit behind stone walls while the world moved on. She went to train deep into Blackpine Woods, wild and alive. Said her cub deserved a warrior for a mother. Not a statue.”

A beat of silence.

Then came the weight of it.

“That day humans crossed the border. Hunters. Armed with silver. Wolfsbane. Hate.”

Octavia’s lips parted, eyes wide with growing horror.

“They weren’t supposed to get through. But they did. She fought gods, she fought. They said she took down ten before she finally fell. And even then she didn’t scream. Not when they cut her open. Not when she bled. She only cried out once.”

Astra’s voice cracked. “For him. Her mate But he was too late.”

The silence after those words was louder than any scream.

“There was so much blood,” Astra said, staring at the floor now. “And her body. it was torn, broken. The cub didn’t survive. Neither did she.”

Octavia’s eyes shimmered. Her breath came fast and uneven, her hands trembling against her thighs.

“He was never the same after that,” Astra whispered.

“He howled until the mountains wept. Until the stars seemed to dim. Then he became the Alpha. Not Xavier. Just the Alpha.”

Her voice turned ghostlike.

“He vowed never to take another mate. Said the bond was sacred. That it belonged to her. To Seraphine.”

Octavia looked up, her voice hoarse and aching. “Then why me?”

Astra swallowed, pain evident in her eyes. “I don’t know. But you’re not her, Octavia. And that terrifies him more than anything.”

There was a long silence.

Astra rose, moving quietly through the room. She returned with a soft robe and draped it over Octavia’s shoulders with care.

“There’s something else you need to know,” she said, her tone now firmer, like someone trying to protect a child with hard truths.

“Submission in our world, it isn’t weakness. It’s sacred. It’s trust. When you bow to an Alpha, it isn’t because you’re less. It’s because you believe. In his strength. His purpose.”

Octavia’s jaw clenched. “What if I don’t want to believe? What if I don’t want to submit?”

Astra paused, then sat down again, her face serious.

“Then you won’t survive here.”

The truth landed like a stone between them.

“I know it sounds cruel,” Astra said gently.

“But our world is built on strength. On hierarchy. The Alpha doesn’t ask. He commands. And if you defy him the pack will turn on you. Even if he doesn’t.”

Octavia curled into herself, drawing her knees to her chest, voice a whisper of despair. “I’m not a wolf. I don’t belong here.”

Astra reached out again, her touch light but steady.

“Maybe not,” she said. “But the Moon Goddess chose you. And sometimes the fiercest wolves are born without fangs.”

Later that evening, Octavia managed to eat. Just enough. Not out of hunger, but to silence Astra’s concern.

She didn’t speak again that day.

But that night, as the moon rose high above the forest and shadows lengthened in her room, she lay on her side eyes wide open, mind racing like a storm with no end.

She thought of Seraphine.

The warrior. The flame. The mother who never got to cradle her child.

She thought of Xavier, and the echo of a man who had once loved with the force of the storm.

And she wondered if she had been chosen to walk the same road. To be chained to a fate not her own. Bound to a man too broken to hold her heart.

But deep in the hollows of her chest, something stirred. Something not quite pain. Not quite hope.

A flicker.

A flame.

She wasn’t Seraphine.

But she would not be nothing.

Not even in his silence.