Chapter 15: He Was Your Alpha
Rhea tore her gaze from his stoic face and spun toward the small mound of earth. Eli. The name carved itself across her mind like a blade. His first howl, his tiny fingers wrapped around hers, the way he always fell asleep against her chest.
Then she looked at the mound again, and something inside her shattered. Her knees hit the cold, damp ground with a dull thud. Desperation clawed through her chest, entirely bypassing her mind, and she began frantically tearing at the dirt with her bare hands.
"If you won’t tell me, then I’ll get the answers myself," she choked out, her fingernails scraping against coarse gravel and loose soil.
Her breath came in ragged, shallow gasps. She just needed to reach him. If her baby was under here, she needed to hold him.
Adam stood frozen above her for a fraction of a second, his powerful silhouette blotting out what little gray light filtered through the canopy. Then, he moved. His large hands wrapped around her waist, lifting her off the ground with effortless strength.
"Don’t do that," he commanded. His voice was a low rumble, vibrating somewhere between a raw growl of concern and sheer irritation. He held her suspended against him for a heartbeat, his chest solid and radiating an intense heat that cut through the forest chill. "You won’t find the answers in there, Rhea."
"Then why are you not saying anything?" Rhea demanded. She wrenched herself from his grip, spinning around to face him. The veins in her throat strained against her pale skin, her heartbeat hammering so hard it echoed in her ears.
Adam’s brows drew together sharply, his jaw clenching tightly enough to crack. "I can’t," he rasped, the words sounding tight, as if the physical restraint required to keep his mouth shut was tearing his wolf apart from the inside.
The indignation in Rhea’s chest suddenly dimmed, overshadowed by a wave of exhausting, bone-deep grief. A heavy sigh shuddered out of her. Reaching out, her trembling fingers brushed against the thick leather of his sleeve, pressing against the bare skin of his forearm.
Adam stiffened instantly. A low vibration hummed beneath his skin at her touch. His entire body went unnaturally still, and even his breathing seemed to stop.
Rhea looked up at him, her chest still heaving, but the fury had drained from her voice, leaving only a hollow, bleeding ache. "Please," she whispered, the plea tearing at her throat. "Just tell me what happened to him."
She looked back down at the pathetic little mound of dirt, tears spilling over her lashes and tracing hot paths down her dirt-streaked cheeks.
"I couldn’t recognize him at the end because the poisoning had me so weak. Kaleb told me Eli was staying with the elders to protect him while the pack recovered. And then—" She swallowed hard. "Right before they drove the knife into me, they said he died during the war."
A dark, frustrated groan tore from deep within Adam’s chest.
Rhea’s head snapped back up, her analytical mind sharp even through the haze of her sorrow. "But even their timeline doesn’t add up," she said, stepping closer to him, invading his space until she could smell the sharp tang of his sudden tension. "Mira told me that they poisoned him. She said it wasn’t the war."
Adam’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, his gaze burning into hers, completely trapped by her intensity. The air between them grew thick.
"What do you want me to do, Rhea?" he asked, his voice rough, dropping to a dangerous, intimate register.
"Tell me what you know about everything," she shot back, refusing to let him off the hook.
Adam shook his head, deliberately pulling his gaze from hers to look out into the dense treeline. "It’s not my place," he murmured. "Only one person has the answers to your questions."
"That means you know," she pressed, her tone instantly dripping with accusation. She stepped into his line of sight, forcing him to acknowledge her. "You know exactly what happened, and you’re actively choosing to hide it from me."
Adam shifted his weight, his broad shoulders tensing as if fighting the urge to pace. "I don’t live in Ironfang," he countered, his tone clipped.
"You’re deflecting," Rhea barked, a bitter edge returning to her voice. "You are a blood-born Thorne. You are a part of Ironfang’s legacy. You always will be."
Adam let out another harsh groan, his wolf visibly snapping at the restraint. "You are mistaken," he said flatly, his expression shutting down.
Rhea narrowed her eyes, her mind piecing together the gaps in his story with terrifying speed. The wind picked up, rustling the dead leaves around their feet, but she remained perfectly still.
"Then tell me this, Alpha Thorne," she whispered, her voice dangerous. "How exactly did you know where I would be buried?"
Adam didn’t flinch. "My scouts found the site and reported back to me," he said, his answer smooth, vague, and entirely too practiced. "A fresh mound of dirt on our borders and a whispered rumor among the border patrols was more than enough to bring me here."
"So you saved me?" Rhea’s voice was barely a whisper, a thread of silver cutting through the damp forest air.
She looked down at the pathetic mound of dirt with her name on it, then back up at the massive Alpha towering over her. Her head shook in slow, agonizing disbelief.
"But why did you stay silent? Why didn’t you speak up for me when Kaleb pulled that knife?"
Adam stared down at her, his expression a mask of unyielding calm. But beneath the surface, his amber eyes burned with a dark, dangerous current. "Kaleb was your Alpha."
Rhea stared at him. "And that made it acceptable?"
His jaw tightened. "No." The single word landed heavier than any explanation.
"You are just like the rest of them, then," Rhea spat, a bitter edge returning to her tone. She stepped closer, ignoring the suffocating weight of his power. "A politician. Only opening your mouth when it serves your agenda. And when it doesn’t, you simply look the other way while a woman is butchered."
"Yet here you stand." Adam’s voice dropped an octave, stern and commanding. He locked his gaze onto hers, refusing to let her look away. "You are breathing. You are healing. And you are entirely safe under my roof."
"I never asked for your protection!" Rhea’s chest heaved, a raw sob threatening to break past her lips. She gestured wildly toward the smaller mound beside her feet. "I would rather you had saved him! I would have given my life a thousand times over if it meant my son was standing here instead of me!"
Adam’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, his jaw clenching so tightly the muscle leaped beneath his skin, but he said nothing, the heavy silence stretched between them, thick with unsaid things.
Rhea shook her head, a cold disdain washing over her features as she turned her back on him, ready to walk away from his walls of stone.
"I ordered one of my shadows to track Kaleb’s execution squad," Adam said suddenly.
The words hit her like a physical blow, forcing her to stop dead in her tracks and snap her head back toward him.
Adam stood perfectly still against the backdrop of the gray woods, his broad shoulders squared. "They dragged you out here to the border line. You were still breathing, Rhea, and they were going to put you into the ground anyway."
Rhea frowned, her tactical mind instantly searching for the gaps in his story. "If they were going to bury me alive, how did you stop them? Did you slaughter Kaleb’s men? Did you fight him?"
Before Adam could forge an answer, the sharp, distinct crack of a heavy boot snapping a fallen branch sliced through the silence of the woods.
Instantly, their human bickering died. Rhea’s spine locked. Beside her, Adam shifted seamlessly into a predatory stance, his ears twitching as his head turned toward the deep brush.
The scent hit her first. Ironfang wolves. Her blood turned cold because beneath the scent of the warriors was Kaleb.
Adam’s posture changed instantly. "Too late," he said quietly. "He’s here."
