All Chapters of Claimed by the Untamed Alpha: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The camp was quiet. Too quiet.Not the soft lull of sleep, but the kind of hush that clung to the skin, pressing in from all sides. Aria lay in her cot, limbs heavy with exhaustion, heart still tangled in the memory of Kael’s eyes. Stormy, distant, impossibly close. His words circled her mind like a curse.“Then walk in the light.”“It’ll burn me.”She hadn’t cried. Not when he walked away. Not when her legs gave out the second he vanished into the dark. Not even when Maela found her kneeling near the firepit hours later, arms wrapped around herself like they could keep the aching out.But now, in the privacy of her tent, as the moon slid across the sky and the wind whispered through the canvas, Aria shook.Not from fear.From something deeper. A knowing she couldn’t name. A hunger that was no longer just her own.She closed her eyes.Sleep didn’t take her gently.The forest in her dream was burning.Flames crackled through the trees, painting the night in furious orange and angry red

Morning came not with warmth, but with warning.Aria sat hunched over the edge of her bedroll, knees pulled to her chest, the fire inside her banked but restless. The ghost of her mother’s voice still hadn’t answered, and the stars had offered no comfort. Only silence.The camp had shifted again.Tension was a fog that clung to the ground, curling through boot steps, conversations, and even breakfast. Something was coming, Aria could feel it. Like the pull of the moon before the tide crashes in.She stepped out of her tent to a wall of eyes. Not hostile exactly, but not welcoming either. More like… weighing her.Still here, they seemed to say. Still standing.Nessa skipped up to her with a warm biscuit wrapped in a napkin. “You look like you didn’t sleep.”“I didn’t,” Aria said softly, taking the biscuit anyway.Nessa lowered her voice. “They’re calling a full rogue council. Noon. By the fire ring.”Aria froze. “Why?”Nessa hesitated. “You know why.”Of course she did.They had whispe

The rogue camp was quieter now.Not silent, not ever but softer in its rhythm. The clang of swords still rang through the air each morning, the fires still crackled with meat and conversation, but something about the way the rogues looked at Aria had changed.She no longer felt like a trespasser.She wasn’t quite one of them either… not yet, but the edge of their suspicion had dulled.Perhaps it was the way she stood taller now.Or maybe it was the way she didn’t flinch anymore when someone tossed her a weapon.Maybe it was the fact that she survived all three trials and walked out of them bloodied, bruised, haunted, but unbroken.She was still here.And in a place like this, that meant something.That morning, Aria helped haul crates of dry grain to the supply tent. Her arms ached, fingers blistered from rope burn, but she didn’t complain. Not even when a few younger rogues grumbled about her pace.“It’s not the load that breaks you,” Maela had once said while patching a torn tent fl

Morning came with gray skies and a stillness that didn’t belong. No birdsong. No rustle of wind through the tents. Just a quiet, heavy air that pressed into Aria’s chest like a warning.She stretched slowly, sore from another restless night, and reached beneath her pillow to retrieve Nessa’s carved acorn.Her fingers brushed something cold instead.Metal.She stilled.The breath froze in her throat.Slowly, she pulled it free, a knife, small but sharp, its hilt wrapped in worn leather. Tied to it with twine was a scrap of parchment, stained at the edges. One sentence, scratched in jagged letters:“Run before you burn.”Aria’s blood ran cold.The blade trembled in her grip as she sat up fully, heart pounding loud enough to drown out thought. She turned the note over, no signature, no mark. Just that one line.And the unspoken threat behind it.Maela burst in moments later, her hands full of herbs and a sleepy Nessa trailing behind her.“Morning, sunshine… oh gods,” she froze, eyes lock

The rogue camp came alive with color.Tents were strung with woven ribbons of red and gold, pine branches laced with tiny flickering candles. The air buzzed with music, the low thump of hand-drums echoing through the trees like a heartbeat. Laughter rose and fell like waves, and the scent of roasted meat and sweetened root wine curled through the air.Tonight was the Festival of Sparks. A celebration of the twin moons’ rare alignment, a night when, according to rogue lore, the sky ignited the blood of warriors and truth slipped through even the tightest-kept lies.Aria stood at the edge of the gathering circle, her cloak half-open, a faint shimmer of silver glinting at the base of her throat, the mark that Kael had given her, hidden beneath skin but burning all the same.She wasn’t sure she belonged here.But when Nessa tugged her hand and placed a crown of dried wildflowers on her head, smiling like Aria hung the stars herself, she gave in. Just for tonight.“Dance with me!” Nessa de