The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 35: His Discarded Toy

Draven

"It has to fucking work!" I ground the words out of my locked jaw, pacing, dragging quivering hands through my hair.

The heat had grown to be too much, the humidity sticking to my skin making every exponentially more frustating and infuriating.

I couldn’t think straight, I could not comprehend the shittu turn of event this entire nightmare had fucking taken.

I could feel their piercing gazes on me, but even if the bitch named Morgana or the eldritch Alpha knew my most darkest, devastating secret it held no water compared to what the mist-forsaken letter from the North clan had revealed.

"THE HELLHOUND IS ALTHEA’S MATE."

My chest had grown far too constricted for my hammering heart, I could take in enough air to get my bearings. The world had lost its meaning as everything continued to spiral out of control, out of my control.

After all I had sacrificed to get here, this shouldn’t have happened. No matter what I had done there were greater sinners in our world, I did not deserve this.

Althea could not be fated to someone else after me.

I gnawed on my fingernails, eyes darting as if looking for an explanation in the claustrophobic space. It didn’t matter if I looked insane.

It made no fucking sense, she was would fated to someone else.

Second chance mates were as rare as black moons. Of all people, it has to be his mate that would belong to someone else.

I was an Alpha, secret or not, people bowed to my whims, bent to my wills, in their eyes I was higher than their bitch of a High Gamma. A sovereign was my rank.

It shouldn’t have been that the girl I rejected would be fated to another mere months after I rejected her.

This would only further sully my rule, my legacy would be stained because of Althea’s fate.

She was fated by the moon to my arch nemesis.

"Draven." Morgana’s voice cut through the spiral of my thoughts, sharp and commanding. "Calm yourself before someone realizes something is amiss."

I whirled on her, my breathing ragged. "Calm myself? Did you not read what that letter said? Did you not—"

"We have had two days to sit with this information," she interrupted, her tone maddeningly composed. "Two days, and you still show no signs of calming yourself. If anything, you’re getting worse."

I dragged my hands through my hair again, feeling strands tear loose. "You don’t understand—"

"Oh, I understand perfectly." She leaned back against the wall, studying me with that calculating eye that saw far too much. "What I find fascinating is why you’re spiraling quite this dramatically. After all—" her lips curved into something that might have been amusement, "—you rejected her. Sent her to die. Gave her to the High Alpha like she was nothing more than a strategic asset. So why does it matter so much that she’s bonded to someone else now?"

"Because she’s mine," I snapped, the words coming out before I could stop them. "She was my mate first. My bond. My—"

"Your what?" Morgana’s voice turned almost teasing, dangerous in its lightness. "Your possession? Your property? Or—" she tilted her head, "—if I didn’t know better, one would think you truly loved her."

I froze.

The world stopped.

My mind—already spiraling, already fracturing—ground to a complete halt as the word echoed through my skull.

Loved.

Love.

No.

No, that wasn’t—I didn’t—

But my chest was too tight. My heart hammering too hard. My hands shaking too violently. The rage and panic and desperate, clawing need to get her back, to stop the Hell Hound from keeping what was mine—

Oh, gods.

The realization hit me like a physical blow, stealing what little air remained in my lungs.

I still loved her.

That’s why I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t function knowing she was in another Alpha’s territory, bonded to another wolf, calling out to someone else in her dreams instead of me.

I still loved her.

After everything I’d done. After rejecting her. After using her blood and discarding her and sending her to die in a Labyrinth designed to kill omegas like her.

I still fucking loved her.

And I’d destroyed any chance of her ever loving me back.

"No," I said aloud, the word coming out strangled. I turned to Morgana, seeing her expression shift—something almost like pity flickering across her features before being buried. "No, I don’t—I can’t—"

"Can’t?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I cannot love someone of her rank," I forced out, the words tasting like ash. "She’s an omega. Wolfless. Beneath my station. I’m a sovereign, Morgana. People bow to me. I can’t—" My voice cracked. "She belongs to me. I gave her over to the High Alpha because she was mine to give. Mine to use. Mine to—"

"Discard?" Morgana finished quietly.

"Control," I corrected viciously. "And she will not—she cannot—belong to another. Not him. Not the Hell Hound. Not anyone." My hands clenched into fists. "It’s either she stays mine, or she dies by the hand of her new fated mate. I will not rest until she is returned to me—alive or in pieces."

The silence that followed was deafening.

Morgana stared at me for a long moment, something unreadable crossing her face. Not quite disgust. Not quite pity. Something darker, more resigned.

Finally, she sighed—long and heavy and carrying the weight of centuries of dealing with male stupidity.

"Men," she said simply, shaking her head.

"What?" I snapped.

"Men," she repeated, her voice dripping with weary exasperation. "You stand there, spiraling because you love her, unable to breathe at the thought of her with someone else, ready to go to war to get her back—" she gestured at me dismissively, "—and in the same breath, you claim you can’t love her because of her rank. That she belongs to you like property. That she should die rather than be happy with another."

"She won’t be happy with him," I snarled. "He’s the Hell Hound. He hates her bloodline. He’ll—"

"Probably treat her better than you did," Morgana cut me off, and the words hit like a slap. "At the very least, he won’t use her for her blood and then throw her away when she’s no longer useful."

"I didn’t—"

"You did." Her voice turned cold, final. "You rejected your fated mate because she wasn’t high enough rank for your precious image. Used her to save your pack. Took credit for her miracle. And then sent her to die because keeping her around was inconvenient." She stepped closer, her eye boring into mine. "And now you’re shocked—shocked—that fate gave her a second chance with someone else? That the universe decided she deserved better than an puppet Alpha who couldn’t admit he loved her until she was already gone?"

I had no answer. Couldn’t speak past the truth choking me.

"So here’s what’s going to happen," Morgana continued, her voice carrying absolute authority. "You’re going to pull yourself together. Stop spiraling like a lovesick fool. And decide what matters more—your pride, or getting her back. Because right now?" She looked me up and down with barely concealed contempt. "You’re acting like a child who broke his favorite toy and is throwing a tantrum because someone else picked up the pieces."

"She’s not a toy—"

"Oh she is," Morgana actually cackled, and the sound was sharp, cruel. "Not that I’m complaining. She deserves all she’s getting. But you are so damn pathetic about it."

The words should have stung. Should have made me rage, defend myself, lash out.

But I could not afford that.

I simply eyed her warily.

"The arm and the letter have already been sent in," the High Alpha’s voice cut through the tension, smooth and cold and utterly devoid of emotion. "And whatever inkling of fallacy of bonding and fate that the Hell Hound might have begun to entertain concerning her would have already started to crumble by now."

He picked up the response letter from the North clan—the one that had sent me spiraling—fiddling with it through his fingers, his pitch-black eyes managing to glimmer with something that might have been satisfaction.

"The moon has been good to us. Someone else in the so-called tight-knit clan wants what we want." He smiled, and the expression was cold, calculated. "Enough to give us an arm just to make the plan stick just right. It’s beautiful, actually. Absolutely perfect."

"And if the Hell Hound kills her?" Morgana asked, her tone casual, as if discussing weather rather than her daughter’s potential execution. "If he decides she’s too much of a threat and simply executes her for treason?"

"Then her remains are returned to us," the High Alpha said simply, setting down the letter with deliberate care. "And I can still extract value from what’s left. Her blood retains its properties even after death—for a time. Her bones can be ground for certain rituals. Her organs preserved for study." He tilted his head, considering. "She won’t go completely to waste. Though alive would be... preferable."

My stomach turned.

They were discussing Althea like she was livestock. A resource to be harvested whether living or dead. My mate—my rejected mate—reduced to components and usefulness.

And I had helped put her in this position.

Had sent her to the Labyrinth knowing the High Alpha wanted her. Had participated in the plan to frame her, to make the Hell Hound see her as a threat. Had stood here listening to them calculate her worth in pieces.

"Of course," the High Alpha continued, his pitch-black eyes gleaming, "if the Hell Hound possesses more emotional maturity and a higher intellect than our dear Alpha Draven here—" the words were pointed, mocking, "—he may not fall for the frame job quite so easily. May question the convenient timing. The perfect placement of evidence. The letter that’s almost too damning."

"Then what?" I forced out, my voice rough.

"Then we move to the next plan." The High Alpha’s smile widened, and something cold slithered down my spine at the expression.

He turned, gesturing to the far corner of the room.

My eyes followed the movement—and my blood froze. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

I’d been so consumed with my own spiral, so focused on Morgana and the High Alpha, that I hadn’t noticed the two figures huddled in the shadows.

Thal.

The boy was chained to the wall, silver manacles around his wrists and ankles. His face was bruised, one eye swollen nearly shut, blood crusted at the corner of his mouth. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen—young, terrified, shaking so violently the chains rattled.

And beside him—

Yana. His mother.