The Feral Alpha's Captive

Chapter 82: MARKED

🔹 THORNE

Her eyes snagged on mine, my breath fracturing.

For a moment, the world ceased to exist—the noise fell away, the room faded, and only those eyes remained. Orbs that held galaxies locked onto mine, vast and endless, swirling with violets, blues, and black so deep there was not even a trace of the familiar grey left behind.

She blinked slowly. A single, shimmering tear slid down her pale face. Then panic flared in her gaze and jolted up and away from me.

Her head whipped around, taking in the chaos in the infirmary. Her face contorted into horror, her breathing growing labour as though she could not draw breath. She ran a trembling hand through her hair, her eyes falling back to meet mine.

I sat where I was—unwilling to scare her more than she already was. I kept my expression neutral, so that my own panic would not exacerbate hers.

She noticed the shimmering silver moth, the number of them and she reached out her hands. She recalled them without a word, letting them come back to her.

I watched in silence as they returned into her, at first in ones and twos until they did so in tens and twenties. Soon the room was clear of the fluttering invaders. With them gone, she faced me again, still perplexed.

She opened her mouth, her voice hoarse as she spoke. "What happened? What happend..." She swallowed thickly like she could not bring herself to ask but forced through the trepidation. "What happened to me?"

I stood and took a careful step back, giving her space. The infirmary looked like a battlefield, but I didn’t point it out. She already knew something was wrong. You could see it in the way her shoulders were tight, like she was bracing for a blow.

"You collapsed," I said plainly. "Your powers must have surged. We couldn’t stop it."

Her fingers curled into the sheet. "I don’t remember collapsing."

She didn’t remember asking me why it hurt.

"I know."

She swallowed. Her eyes flicked to the floor, to the cracked stone, to the stains that shouldn’t have been there—her blood. Then back to me. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

She grimaced when she twisted her neck, hand going there to inspect. To inspect the mark I had put on her—where I laid my claim, bonded us.

Her still-shaking hand traced over the wound and froze. Her heart stopped beating for a moment as it sunk in.

Her eyes darted to mine, darkening—searching for an explanation I hadn’t given yet.

I felt it then.

Not fear.

Shock—cold and total—rolling through me.

Before I could speak, a rush of air tore through the open archway.

Nyx swooped in hard and fast, wings snapping as she cut through the lingering silver dust. She circled once, sharp and agitated, then dropped onto my shoulder with enough force to jolt me back into myself. Her talons bit through leather. A warning. An interruption.

I exhaled slowly.

I didn’t stop it.

The timing was intentional. She tried to undercut the tension and as if on cue crone entered.

She didn’t look at me. She went straight to Althea.

"You lost a pregnancy," she said. Her words sucked the little air from the room.

The sentence hit me like a blow I hadn’t seen coming.

For a split second, my mind rejected it outright—no, impossible—before memory surged in, sharp and unforgiving.

The nights Althea had slept restlessly.

The half-formed words she had murmured in her sleep.

A baby.

Always the same word. Always soft. Always breaking off before it finished.

It hadn’t been a dream.

Althea’s gaze lifted slowly. "No," she said, more reflex than belief.

I didn’t move.

Didn’t reach for her.

Didn’t let the horror on my face cross the space between us.

This was her moment.

Crowding it would only make it worse.

"You were far along," the crone continued. "Nearly six months." silence pressed in, weighing far too much.

My chest tightened, breath turning shallow—but I stayed where I was, hands loose at my sides, forcing stillness into my bones.

"Your body couldn’t absorb it," she went on. "It tried to expel it instead. But it didn’t finish the work."

Althea’s hand drifted to her stomach, fingers splaying there, as if trying to cradle the lie that no longer existed there.

I looked away.

Not because I didn’t want to see—but because I refused to make her grief about my reaction to it.

"The tissue remained," the crone said. "The infection took hold. Weeks ago. It spread quietly. Fever, weakness, instability. Your magic responded long before you did."

Althea swallowed. Once. Again.

"I didn’t—" Her voice broke off. She tried again. "I would have known."

"Not always," the crone said. "Not when survival becomes routine."

Althea’s breath stuttered. Her eyes flicked around the infirmary, taking in the blood on the stone, the overturned table, the lingering silver dust that hadn’t fully settled yet.

"Oh," she said.

Her fingers curled into the sheets.

Nyx shifted on my shoulder, feathers rustling.

The crone’s gaze sharpened. "The infection reached your blood. Your magic tried to burn it out. That surge was your body choosing between death and destruction."

Althea’s jaw tightened. She pressed her lips together, hard, like if she held them still long enough the room might stop spinning.

"I didn’t feel it," she said.

And I understood, with a clarity that hurt worse than the revelation itself, that she hadn’t just lost something.

She had survived too long to notice. Between running for her life into the mist, then being held captive, framed, imprisoned, trying to save the slaves—she ignored her body’s cry for help until it was absolutely no longer possible and she broke down confused as if her body had not been giving signs.

And I had not been of any help apart from being a fucking prick.

Althea didn’t move for a long moment. Her hand stayed pressed to her stomach, fingers splayed like she was trying to hold something that was no longer there.

The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.

Then the crone spoke again, softer this time. "We buried it. In the garden, beneath the silver birch. If you’d like to—"

Althea’s eyes sharpened.

The shift was instantaneous—from hollow grief to something cold. Something focused.

Her gaze snapped to mine with an intensity that made the room freeze.

Everyone felt it. The deltas. The guards. Even my grandmother stepped back slightly, her expression tightening.

Althea rose from the bed, slow and deliberate, her movements unnaturally steady for someone who’d just nearly died.

She crossed the distance between us in three steps.

I didn’t move. Didn’t retreat. Just held her gaze as she stopped directly in front of me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off her skin.

Her hand lifted.

For a moment, I thought she might strike me.

Instead, her fingers found the mark on her neck—my mark—and pressed there. Hard. Her jaw clenched, eyes blazing with something dark and furious.

"What," she said, her voice low and dangerous, "did you do to me?"

I kept my tone even. Neutral. "I marked you."

Her breath hitched. Horror bled into her expression first—eyes widening, lips parting in a sharp inhale—before rage consumed it entirely.

"You what?"

"You were dying," I said flatly, refusing to flinch under the weight of her fury. "The bond was the only way to pull you back. My grandmother said—"

"I don’t care what she said!" Her voice cracked, raw and vicious. "You had no right—"

"You were dying," I repeated, harder this time. "The power was tearing you apart from the inside. Another minute and you would have been gone."

"And?" she spat, stepping closer, her chest heaving. "Who said I wanted to live?"

The words hit me like a physical blow.

I stared at her, my mind struggling to process what she’d just said.

"What?"

"You heard me." Her voice dropped to something quieter, something broken. "Who said I wanted to survive this? Who said I wanted to wake up and find out I lost—"

Her breath shattered.

She pressed her hand harder against the mark, nails digging into her own skin. "You took my choice. You marked me. You claimed me. Without asking. Without—"

"I saved your life," I growled, my control finally slipping. "I did what I had to do."

"For who?" she hissed. "For me? Or for you?"

The question hung in the air, sharp and cutting.

I opened my mouth—to argue, to defend, to make her understand—

But she didn’t give me the chance.

"You let Yana die," she whispered, her voice trembling with barely contained rage. "You weighed her life and found it expendable. But when I was dying, suddenly my life mattered enough to take my choice away?"

Her eyes glistened, but no tears fell.

"You’re a hypocrite," she spat. "And now I’m bound to you. Marked. Like property. Like I’m yours."

"Althea—"

"Don’t." The word was sharp, final. "Don’t say my name. Don’t touch me. Don’t—"

Her voice broke.

She swayed, suddenly unsteady, and I moved instinctively to catch her—

But her knees buckled before I could reach her.

She crumpled, eyes rolling back, body going limp.

I caught her before she hit the ground, pulling her against my chest, my heart slamming against my ribs.

"Althea—"

No response.

Her head lolled against my shoulder, breath shallow but steady, unlike before.

My grandmother was at my side in an instant. "Her body shut down. Too much strain. She just needs rest. She is at least stable now."

I stared down at Althea’s pale face, at the mark on her neck—my mark—and felt something twist violently in my chest.

She’d rather have died than be bound to me.

And I’d taken that choice away, just like every other man in her life.