CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT

An Alpha In Misery

Silas’s POV 

Three weeks.

Three god forsaken weeks of staring into an emptiness,  tearing my hands bloody and raw against razor sharp river rocks and coming up with nothing.

My wolf claws relentlessly at the inside of my ribs, a manic wounded beast trapped in a cage of my own making. The mate bond isn’t just severed, it's an open and infected wound that leaks excruciating pain through my veins every time I take a breath. 

Every morning I wake up, expecting the phantom scent of her, only to be choked by the still, heavy silence of nothing.

I slam my fists against my mahogany desk in my study, the heavy would splitting down the center under the force of my strength.

“Silas, you need to stop,” Matthias says quietly, standing by the tall glass windows. He looks exhausted, his Beta instincts are strained to the limit from running the pack while I spent twenty-one straight days hunting a ghost. 

“The border patrols are collapsing, the pack elders are demanding an assembly, you haven’t slept, you haven’t eaten and you're tearing yourself apart over a trail that went cold twenty days ago.”

“It’s not cold,” my voice is as rough as gravel on steel. My wolf snaps his jaws beneath my skin, his golden irises threaten to break through my eyes. “ She is out there, a body doesn’t just vanish into thin air, Matt.”

“The Black Ridge doesn’t leave bodies, Silas.” Matthias shouts, dropping his usual composure, his voice ringing off the stone walls. “It leaves bones. You saw the drop, you saw the blood on the rocks, a wolfless Omega cannot survive a two hundred foot fall into sharp stone!”  

Wolfless.

The word is like a punch now, it strikes me square in the chest, sending a surge of violent rage to my chest. I cross the room in  a fraction of a second grabbing Matthias by the color of his shirt and slamming him against the wall, my alpha aura is thick and suffocating flooding the room with an intense whiff of my scent until the glass windows vibrate.

“Do not use that word in front of me again,” I snarl into his face, my teeth lengthening into fangs, my breath hot against his cheeks. “She was my mate. The goddess chose her for me and I let a snake poison my mind into casting her out.”

Matthias doesn’t flinch, though his wolf submits to my command by instinct. He just looks at me with deep, pitying eyes. “Then punish the snakes, Silas. Because right now, you are letting the pack rot while Noelle sits in a cell, breathing your air.”

The sound of Noelle’s name douses the fire in my blood, replacing it with something far more deadly .

I release Matthias, stepping back and smoothing down the front of my T-shirt.

“Assemble the elders in the courtyard. I’ll be down in the dungeons.”

The lower level of the Silver Moon pack house is cold, damp and reeks of iron. The bars of the solitary confinement are lined with silver and it hums with a faint high pitch electrical charge designed to drain a Lycan’s strength.

I walk down the dark corridor, my heavy combat boots echoing off the wet stone. Two guards posted outside the end of the cell straighten instantly, bowing their heads and exposing their necks in submission as I approach.

“Key.” I commanded coolly.

The guard hands over the heavy iron key with a trembling hand. I unlock the heavy door pushing his open reveal the small windowless space.

Noelle sits on the stone bench in the center of the cell. Her usually pristine hair is tangled, her silk dress is ruined with dirt and dried blood, her wrists are bound tightly behind her in the spell-dampening silver shackles. A thick leather gag is strapped firmly across her mouth.

When she sees me her eyes don’t fill with fear. They fill with pure mocking triumph.

I step into the cell closing the door behind me. The heavy silence between us is suffocating.

“Un-gag her.” I tell the guard standing in the doorway.

“Alpha, her voice-”

“She’s smart enough to know if she tries to spell me, I’ll crush her windpipe with my teeth.” I say quietly, staring daggers into her eyes.

The guard steps forward cautiously, reaching around Noelle’s head to unbuckle the leather strap. The moment the leather falls away Noelle flexes her jaw letting out a low, tinkering laugh that echoes off the damp stone walls.

Even without her powers, her voice is sickeningly sweet.

“Look at you, Alpha,” Noelle purrs, tossing her tangled blonde hair over her shoulder, her dark eyes gleaming with spite. “You look terrible. Have you been sleeping poorly? Or is that hollow look in your eyes just the sound of your soul breaking apart?”

I don’t answer. I stand towering over her, my shadow completely engulfing her small frame.

“Did you find her at the bottom of the Ravine?” she continues, her smile widening into something truly demonic. 

“Did you find the little ground-crawler’s broken bones? I hope you did. I hope you picked up every single piece of her and realized you put her there.”

A lesser man would have lost his temper. A weaker Alpha would have struck her, but I stood completely still, my eyes turning dark dangerous and my wolf  rises to the surface.  

“You think you won?” I say my voice dangerously low, vibrating through the small cell.  

“I did win,” Noelle spits, her tone dropping its sweetness, revealing the ugly  jealousy underneath. “She was nothing, a worthless mistake who took up space in this pack. She didn’t deserve a mate, least of all the Alpha! I took your mind Silas. I made you call her trash. I made you watch while enforcers hunted her down like any common rogue! And every time you close your eyes for the rest of your miserable life, you will hear your own voice rejecting her.”

I reach out grabbing Noelle by the throat,  not hard enough to crush her, but firm enough to cut off her breath entirely. I lift her off the stone bench until her feet dangle inches from the floor.

Her eyes widen in sudden panic as her fingers claw at my iron group.

“You didn’t win anything, Noelle,” I whisper into her ear, my voice cold enough to freeze blood. “You will never leave this cell . You will never see the sun again. You will sit in the dark, bound in silver, fed just enough scrap to keep your heart beating, while I strip your name from every record in this territory.”

I slam her back onto the bench. She coughs violently, clutching her bruised neck, coughing as she glares up at me with pure hatred.

“Muzzle her.” I order the guard. “If she speaks another word, remove her tongue.’

I turn on my heel and walk out of the dungeon, ignoring the muffled scream rising behind me.

By nightfall, the pack house is dead quiet.

I don’t return to the Alpha quarters. I can’t stand this side of the large, plush bed, or the balcony overlooking the territory I failed to protect.

Instead I walk down the subterranean levels beneath the kitchen, stopping before a small rotting door at the very end of the hallway.

 Emery’s room.

I push the door open, it creeks loudly on rusty hinges. The room is barely larger than a closet, there is no window, no heat, no rug, just a thread bear mattress laying directly on the freezing stone floor covered by a single torn wool blanket.

This was where she lived while I ruled the fortress. This is where she had bled while I ignored her existence.

A tight, blinding pain seizes my chest. I walk over to the mattress and drop to my knees beside it. I pick up the edge of the thin blanket bringing it to my face. Her scent is almost gone, faded to a faint lingering  but it is enough to destroy what little control I have left.

I rest my forehead against the storm floor, a single tears lides down my cheek burning against my skin.

I’m sorry. I think, the words are bleeding through my mind over and over again. I amso  sorry, Emery.

My hand brushes against a loose stone near the head of the mattress, pausing, I pull the stone back revealing a small hollow space underneath.

Inside lay a single object, a crude hand carved wooden wolf,  no larger than the palm of my hand. It is smooth from years of being held, it’s carved eyes staring into the dark.

She had carved it. The wolfless girl who had been denied her heritage had carried a wolf in her heart all along.

I pulled the carving out clutching it tightly in my fist until the wooden edges dig deep into my skin. I close my eyes making a silent binding oath to the moon goddess and the pitch black of that basement room.

I will fix my pack. I would punish  every person who had turned blind eye to her suffering. I will make Noelle rot and I will spend the rest of my life carrying the weight of what I had lost.

A sudden, sharp knock on the open door breaks the silence.  

“Silas!” Matthias stands in the doorway, his breath heavy,  his face pale in the dim light of the torch. 

I don’t look up from the wood carving in my hand.  “I told you I want it to be left alone, Matthias.”

“You need to come to the border right now,” he stammers. His voice is laced with an emotion I’ve never heard from my Beta before.  

I stand up slowly, slipping the small wooden both into the pocket of my coat. 

“What is it? Did the enforcers find something in the ravine?”

“No,” Matthias whispers, his eyes wide stepping back into the hallway. 

“The border watch just reported a massive force assembling outside our northern border. An entire Legion of the elite Vanguard Warriors, carrying the black and silver banners of the Sovereign Crescent Pack.”

My blood runs cold.

The Sovereign Crescent Park hasn’t left the mountain fortress in years. They haven’t crossed the regional borders in a few years, mostly because Cassius had found his duties entirely too boring for his attention.

“Why are they here?” I demand my Alpha authority flaring to the surface as I  stride past him towards the stairs. 

 “They brought a royal decree from Prince Cassius,” Matthias rasps following quickly behind me. 

“He is declaring war on every regional Alpha who refuses to bow to him.”