Secrets in the Ashes

Chapter Four:

The fire crackled warmly in the stone hearth, casting a golden, flickering glow across the dark interior of the cabin. For the first time since I arrived, the room actually felt halfway habitable.

I sat on a wooden stool near the fire, holding a small bowl of melted snow water and a torn strip of clean cloth. Across from me, Alexander sat on the edge of his wooden cot, staring blankly at the floor while I carefully cleaned the deep scratch on his shoulder with the warm water.

Every time the wet cloth touched his torn skin, his massive muscles twitched slightly, but he didn't make a single sound. He was stubborn to a fault.

“You don’t have to do that,” Alexander muttered gruffly, staring straight ahead.

“If you get blood poisoning and die in this cabin, Marcus will just send another useless chore girl, and I’d rather not risk getting someone even worse,” I replied dryly, pressing a homemade herbal poultice—made from some dried leaves Evelyn the healer had once secretly given me—onto his wound.

Alexander let out a short, dry chuckle that sounded almost human. “You really don’t know how to keep your mouth shut, do you?”

“Nobody ever gave me a reason to stay quiet,” I answered softly, wrapping a clean strip of cloth tightly around his broad chest to hold the medicine in place.

As my hands brushed close to his chest, I noticed something strange. Right over his heart, underneath the jagged battle scars, there was a faint, circular pattern carved into his skin—not a scar from a blade, but a strange, dark burn mark that looked like ancient wolf runes.

“What is that?” I asked, my fingers hovering for a second over the strange marking.

Alexander’s body went completely rigid. He grabbed my wrist with a hand like an iron vise, his steel-gray eyes flashing with sudden, intense fury.

“Never touch that,” Alexander snarled, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low rumble that shook the air between us.

I pulled my hand back quickly, rubbing my bruised wrist, my heart pounding against my ribs. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”

Alexander closed his eyes, taking a deep, shaky breath, and slowly loosened his grip. He stared into the fire, the anger in his eyes fading into a deep, heavy sorrow that made him look older than his years.

“It’s not a battle scar,” Alexander whispered, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. “Five years ago, during the battle for pack leadership, Marcus didn’t just beat me with brute force. He used an ancient dark poison—a curse forged by rogue witches—to sever my connection to my wolf and lock my strength away. That mark is where the poison entered my blood. Every day since then has felt like carrying a mountain on my back.”

I stared at him, the heavy hostility between us suddenly melting away into a shared understanding of pain. I knew what it felt like to have your wolf locked away. I knew what it felt like to be trapped inside a cage of your own flesh, cut off from the power everyone else took for granted.

“They call me a StillBlood,” I whispered, looking down at my hands. “They say my wolf never woke up because I’m empty inside. But sometimes… sometimes at night, when the moon is full, I feel something burning deep in my chest. Like a heartbeat that isn’t mine.”

Alexander turned his head slowly, looking at me with a new, strange intensity in his steel-gray eyes. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The fire crackled softly in the silence, bridging the massive chasm between the disgraced alpha and the hated servant girl.

Before either of us could say another word, a loud, sharp thud echoed against the front door.

Someone was standing outside on the porch, heavy footsteps pacing back and forth across the wooden boards.

Alexander’s expression hardened instantly into cold steel. He stood up, grabbing his hunting knife off the table, and motioned for me to stay back in the shadows.

“Stay behind the hearth,” Alexander whispered coldly. “Looks like Marcus has sent company.”

The heavy oak door rattled violently as someone tried the deadbolt from the outside, testing our defenses under the cover of the gathering winter storm.

The heavy oak door rattled again, the wood groaning under the force of a powerful shove from the outside.

“Open up, cripple!” a harsh voice sneered through the thick timber. It was one of Marcus’s senior enforcers, a brutal brute named Thomas who loved cruelty more than food. “We have an inspection order from the Acting Alpha. Open the door before we smash it to pieces!”

Alexander didn't flinch. He stood tall in the center of the dim room, his massive shoulders squared, holding his hunting knife with steady, deadly precision. He looked less like a crippled exile and more like the legendary warrior he used to be.

“Step back,” Alexander whispered to me without turning his head.

Before I could move, a loud crash echoed through the cabin as Thomas slammed his heavy boot directly against the door lock. The old iron deadbolt snapped cleanly out of the rotting wood frame, and the door flew wide open, letting a freezing gust of wind and swirling snow rush into the room.

Thomas stepped across the threshold, flanked by two armed guards, sneering as he looked around the cabin. His eyes landed immediately on Alexander, then shifted over to where I stood half-hidden near the stone fireplace.

“Well, well,” Thomas laughed nastily, resting his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Looks like the little pets are surviving out here in the cold. Marcus wants to know if the StillBlood has caused any trouble, or if we need to put her out of her misery early.”

Alexander took a slow step forward, his eyes burning with cold, lethal fury. “Tell Marcus that if he ever sends his lapdogs to my door again, I won’t just send them back with a warning. I’ll send them back in pieces.”

Thomas’s smile vanished, replaced by an angry flush. “You arrogant piece of trash! You’re nothing without your pack! You’re a crippled failure living in the dirt!”

Thomas unclipped his sword from his belt, drawing the shining steel blade with a sharp hiss. The two guards behind him fanned out, blocking the only exit from the cabin.

“Kill him,” Thomas snarled to his guards. “Marcus said accidents happen in the woods.”