The Feral Alpha's Captive

Chapter 71: Gone

🦋 ALTHEA

Thorne’s voice cut through the tension like a blade. "Let the others go."

Morgana’s eyes narrowed, calculating, weighing her last shreds of leverage.

Thorne turned his head, surveying the North Clan wolves surrounding us. They had formed a wall of fur, fangs, bodies fraught with promised annihilation and restraint.. Every eye glowed in the darkness. Every muscle coiled, ready to strike at the order.

He looked back at Morgana, waiting.

Her jaw clenched, teeth grinding, her face drained of all colour, forehead beaded by sweat. The silence stretched until finally, she spat the words like venom: "Release them."

My heart pounded in my throat as the brigade hesitated, looking to her for confirmation.

"You heard the man *release them*!" she snarled.

One by one, claws withdrew from throats, chains fallinl. The twenty-nine Vargans stumbled forward, disoriented, bleeding, barely believing they were free. They moved with uncertainty of people who had never thought it would be possible.

But Yana remained locked in Morgana’s grip.

"Go!" Yana’s voice rang out, sharp and commanding despite the claws at her throat. "All of you—*go*!"

They began to move, shuffling toward the tree line, toward safety. All of them moved as one, prodding the other forward, except one—

Thal.

The boy stood frozen, his small frame trembling, eyes locked on his mother. Blood still seeped through the torn fabric at his back. His face was streaked with tears and dirt.

"Thal," Yana said, her voice cracking for the first time. "Go. *Now*."

"No." The word was barely a whisper, it could have been the wisp of wind.

"Thal—"

"*No!*" He lunged toward her, his small body colliding with hers, arms wrapping around her waist as sobs tore from his throat. "I won’t leave you! I won’t!"

"Baby, you have to—"

"*NO!*" His wail split the night, raw and desperate and utterly heartbroken.

I couldn’t breathe, my mind wrought with chaos with everything that had just happened. The world tilted and blurred as tears streamed down my face.

Yana’s free hand—the one not pinned by Morgana—stroked his hair, her own tears falling now. "You have to be brave," she whispered. "Be brave for me. Be strong."

"I can’t—"

"You *can*." Her voice broke. "You will."

Across the clearing, yards from where Morgana held back Yana, Draven stood motionless, his face a mask of defeat. His hands hung limp at his sides. He looked—*hollow*. Empty. Like something vital had been carved out of him.

His eyes met mine for a brief, searing moment.

Then he looked away.

"This is far from over," he said, his voice flat, directed at Thorne. "We’ll be back."

Thorne’s laugh was low and dark, a sound like grinding stone. "Next time, bring your balls along." His tone dripped with contempt. "Because right now, you’re nothing but a cunt."

Draven’s jaw worked, but no words came. The insult landed like a physical blow, silencing him completely.

The moment hung there—solemn, charged, brittle with sorrow so potent it felt like a hand around your throat. Still, I could do nothing but watch.

Watch as Thal finally, *finally* pulled away from his mother, his face red and swollen, his small body shaking. He stumbled backward, guided by one of the freed Vargans, his eyes never leaving Yana.

Then he saw me.

"Althy!" His voice cracked. He broke away from the Vargan’s hold and ran.

Straight toward me.

"Mum is going to—" he choked out, the words dying in his throat.

I couldn’t hold it together anymore. The composure I’d clung to shattered like glass. I broke away from Thorne’s grip—*he let me go*—and dropped to my knees, arms open.

Thal crashed into me, sobbing into my shoulder, his small hands clutching my torn clothes like I was the only solid thing left in the world. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him as tightly as I could, my own tears soaking into his hair.

Thorne stood behind me, silent. His eyes never leaving the scene as it unfolded.

Morgana’s voice cleaved through the moment like a knife. "Little victories, I suppose."

I looked up, my vision swimming.

She was smiling. That cold, cruel smile I’d seen a thousand times before.

"Althea," she purred, my name like poison on her tongue. "I want you to watch her die."

My grip on Thal tightened to the point of pain.

"I want you to see what you could have prevented."

"No—" I started to rise, but Thorne’s hand came down on my shoulder, holding me in place.

I pressed Thal’s face into my chest, covering his eyes with my hand. "Don’t look," I whispered frantically. "Don’t look, darling. Don’t—"

Morgana’s claws plunged into Yana’s chest, from the back.

The sound—wet, tearing, macabre—echoed through the clearing.

Yana gasped. A sharp, startled intake of breath. Yet, her face—

On her face was a smile.

Even as the light began to fade from her eyes. Even as blood spilled down her front. Even as Morgana’s hand withdrew, clutching her still-beating heart.

She smiled as the light in her eyes slowly went out. Her body crumpled, lifeless, to the ground.

Thal’s scream tore through me like a blade. He did not see it; but I could not stop him from here his mother hit the ground

He thrashed in my arms, trying to see, trying to reach her, but I held him tight, held him *down*, burying his face against me as my own sobs wracked through us both.

"No no no no no—"

"Don’t look," I begged, my voice breaking. "Please don’t look—"

But I couldn’t look away.

I stared at Yana’s body—small, broken, *still*—and the smile that had been her last expression, frozen on her face like a final act of defiance.

She had died smiling.

For us.

For Thal.

For me.

And I hadn’t been able to save her. I failed her.

Whatever happened next was a blur, and I could hear past the ringing that seared my ears. My mind tried to catch up to the cacophony, trying to stay afloat in an unforgiving, thrashing sea of devastation. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

All I could do was hold on to Thal while writhed from his loss and I could do nothing but rock him back and forth, whispering words I did not know.

I just needed to soothe him, at least he did not see his mother’s heart ripped out by my mother.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that.

Seconds. Minutes. Hours.

Time fractured, splintered into shards of grief too sharp to hold. All I knew was Thal’s weight in my arms. His sobs vibrating through my chest. The way his small fingers dug into my skin like he was trying to anchor himself to something—anything—that wouldn’t disappear.

And Yana’s body. Still and broken on the ground. That smile frozen on her face.

Live. Love.

Her last words echoed in my skull, relentless, inescapable.

I hadn’t saved her.

I’d tried to trade myself. Tried to call back the moths. Tried to make a choice that would spare them all.

But it didn’t matter. She was dead anyway when she had been so close to home.

And Thal...

Gods, Thal—

He’d lost his everything.