The Feral Alpha's Captive

Chapter 18: Meeting

🔹THORNE

My grandmother’s one seeing eye speared me from where she sat. "You have to keep her. Alive."

I bit back a retort. Anything that had to do with the daughter of High Gamma Morgana filled me instantly with rage so visceral it threatened to choke me.

"Alive?" Zeta Kael snarled from across the war table, his scarred face twisting with disgust. "You want us to shelter that thing while our people rot in the allied Packs’ mines and dungeons? While they dig silver from the mines with their bare hands, bleeding out their lives so the Allied Packs can grow fat and rich?"

"She’s leverage," my grandmother said, her voice flat and final. "The Silvermoth—"

"Is a lie," Zeta Riven interrupted, slamming his fist on the table hard enough to make the wood crack. "A trick. Wolf magic designed to swindle us into thinking she’s something she’s not."

"She created the moths," I said, my voice cold and sharp as a blade. "I saw them. Pure silver. Dozens of them, filling the hall like moonlight given form."

"So she has magic," Zeta Kael spat, leaning forward with murder in his eyes. "That doesn’t make her the Silvermoth. It makes her dangerous. It makes her a weapon pointed at our throats."

"It makes her Morgana’s daughter," Zeta Lysandra added, her tone sharp enough to draw blood. "And anything born of that woman is poison. Corruption wrapped in pretty lies."

I didn’t argue.

Because she wasn’t wrong.

My grandmother leaned forward, her single eye gleaming in the torchlight like a shard of ice. "The moths she created contain actual silver," she said, her voice carrying the weight of decades spent surviving, strategizing, fighting. "Our alchemists confirmed it. Pure silver. Manifested from nothing but her will and her power."

Silence fell over the room like a shroud.

And then—

"She should be dead from it," Zeta Riven muttered, his voice rough with suspicion.

"Exactly," my grandmother said, her gaze sweeping the table. "Silver burns pack wolves. It should have killed her the moment she created them. Blistered her skin, poisoned her blood. But it didn’t. She stood there, broken and bleeding, and summoned silver like it was nothing."

"Which means she’s lying," Zeta Kael snapped, his hands curling into fists. "She’s not pack. She’s something else. Something worse. Maybe Morgana made her spawn a weapon."

"Or," my grandmother said, her voice dropping to something cold and deliberate, "she’s exactly what she claims to be."

"The Silvermoth is Vargan," Zeta Lysandra said, her tone final as a death sentence. "The savior of our people. A ghost in the dark, a blade in the shadows, a symbol of hope and resistance. Not some pack-born omega with a convenient story and pretty magic who shows up begging for mercy."

I felt something sharp twist in my chest.

"She did beg," I said, my voice flat and hard. "In the hall. On her knees. Broken and desperate, pleading for her life like every other pack wolf who’s ever crossed into our territory thinking we owe them something other than death."

The room went quiet.

My grandmother’s eye fixed on me, unreadable.

"She begged," I continued, my jaw tight, "because she knew what she was. What she represented. The daughter of the woman who murdered my mother in cold blood. The child of Morgana, who has built her power on the broken backs of Vargans, who has tortured and killed our people for sport."

I stood, my hands bracing against the table, my wolf snarling beneath my skin.

"She begged because she knew I had every reason to kill her where she stood."

"And yet you didn’t," Zeta Riven said, his tone sharp with accusation.

"Because I wanted answers first," I said coldly. "Because killing her before I understood what she was would have been a waste."

"And now?" Zeta Kael demanded.

I met his gaze, unflinching.

"Now we find out the truth."

My grandmother nodded slowly, her expression carved from stone.

"She lived in luxury," Zeta Lysandra said, her voice trembling with barely suppressed fury. "While our people bled in the silver mines. While they were worked to death, their bones left to rot in the dark so the Allied Packs could export silver to other territories and grow rich on Vargan suffering."

She stood, her hands shaking.

"She enjoyed protection. Love. A family. While ours were ripped apart, sold, slaughtered. And now the Moon—the fates—have decided to play their cunning little game with our destinies by making her his mate?"

She gestured to me, her expression twisted with disgust.

"It’s a mockery. A curse. An insult to everything we’ve fought for."

"It is," I said simply.

Because it was. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

The mate bond was supposed to be sacred. A gift from the Moon. A blessing.

But this?

This was cruelty.

This was the universe laughing at me, at my pain, at everything I’d lost.

My mother’s face flashed through my mind—her smile, her warmth, the way she’d held me when I was young and told me I would be strong, that I would lead, that I would protect our people.

And then Morgana had killed her.

Slit her throat, taken her head, and left her body in the snow like she was nothing.

And now her daughter—Morgana’s daughter—was bound to me by fate.

"My first priority," I said, my voice low and dangerous, "is to the people yet to be rescued. The Vargans still trapped in Hollowhowl and the other allied packs’ dungeons. The ones working the silver mines, their hands bleeding, their bodies breaking, their spirits crushed beneath the weight of Allied Packs’ cruelty."

I looked at each of them in turn.

"My second priority," I continued, "is revenge. For my mother. For every Vargan who has suffered at Morgana’s hands. For the injustice that has been allowed to fester for too long."

I paused, my jaw tight.

"If Althea is indeed the Silvermoth," I said slowly, "that is one reason not to hate her."

My wolf snarled, pressing against my control.

"But there are a thousand reasons to kill her for it."

Silence.

Heavy.

Suffocating.

My grandmother’s eye gleamed. "Explain."

"She’s pack-born," I said. "She lived among them. Ate their food, slept in their beds, enjoyed their protection while Vargans died in the dark. If she’s the Silvermoth—if she’s been rescuing our people—then she’s been lying to her pack for years. Playing both sides. Pretending to be weak and helpless while sneaking out at night to slit throats and free prisoners."

I leaned forward, my voice dropping.

"That makes her a traitor to her own people. And if she can betray them, she can betray us."

"Or," my grandmother said quietly, "it makes her someone who saw the truth and chose to act. Even when it cost her everything."

"It cost her nothing," Zeta Kael spat. "She’s still alive, isn’t she? Still breathing, still whole. Our people have paid the price. Not her."

"We don’t know that," my grandmother countered. "Look at her state."

"It is nothing compared to what our people have had to to endure in those packs and in those blood mines.

"Either way," my grandmother said, "Althea is not what she appears to be. And we need to know the truth before we act."

I straightened, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Then we ask," I said. "We question her. We find out how she does it—how she moves through Allied Pack territory undetected. Where she takes the rescued Vargans. Why she risks her life for people who aren’t her own."

"And if she refuses to answer?" Zeta Kael asked.

"Then we make her," I said simply.

My grandmother’s expression didn’t change. "You’ll question her yourself."

It wasn’t a question.

"Yes," I said.

"And if she lies?" Zeta Lysandra pressed.

"Then we’ll know," I said. "And we’ll act accordingly."

"She’s mate-bonded to you," Zeta Riven said, his tone mocking. "Which means she’s leverage. A tool. Not an ally."

I felt the words like a knife sliding between my ribs.

Mate-bonded.

To her.

To Morgana’s daughter.

To the girl who carried the blood of the woman who’d stolen everything from me.

"The bond doesn’t make her trustworthy," I said, my voice flat. "It makes her dangerous. It makes her a weapon the fates have placed in my hands, and I will use her however I see fit."

My grandmother studied me for a long moment.

"Be careful, Thorne," she said quietly. "The bond may not make her trustworthy. But it makes her yours. And that complicates things."

"Nothing is complicated," I said coldly. "My people come first. Always. And if she gets in the way of that—if she threatens them, if she lies, if she proves herself to be anything other than what she claims—"

I met my grandmother’s gaze, unflinching.

"—then I’ll kill her myself. Mate bond or not."

The Zetas murmured their approval, some nodding, others smiling with grim satisfaction.

But my grandmother’s expression remained unreadable.

"Then question her," she said. "Find out the truth. And pray to the Moon that the truth doesn’t destroy you."

She stood, her presence filling the room like a storm cloud.

"Because if she is the Silvermoth—if she’s been saving our people while her own hunted her, if she’s risked everything for Vargans she had no reason to care about—"

She paused, her eye gleaming.

"—then she’s not the enemy. And you’ll have to live with what that means."

---

The council ended.

The Zetas filed out, their expressions dark and conflicted, their voices low as they debated among themselves.

My grandmother lingered.

"You hate her," she said.

It wasn’t a question.

"I hate what she represents," I said.

"And yet the Moon bound you to her," my grandmother said. "Why do you think that is?"

"I don’t care why," I said, my voice hard. "The Moon has made mistakes before."

My grandmother’s lips twitched, almost like a smile.

"The Moon doesn’t make mistakes, Thorne. Only cruel jokes."

She turned toward the door, then paused.

"Question her," she said. "But remember—if she breaks, you break with her. That’s how the bond works unless you reject her.

She left.

And I stood there, alone in the war room, my hands clenched into fists, my wolf howling for blood.

Because I knew.

Deep down, I already knew.

Althea was the Silvermoth.

And I was going to have to decide whether that made her a hero worth saving.

Or a threat I couldn’t afford to let live.

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