The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 44: We Should Not Be Bonded

🔹️THORNE

"You will be staying in my room from now on," I told her as she settled into the second bed I had prepared for her.

She did not meet my gaze as she nodded.

Kael was in a coma.

I was about ready to lose my mind.

Guilt fell on me like a boulder, remembering how I had thought that his injuries were not extensive enough compared to Althea’s. There had been more beneath the surface, but a part of me harbored other suspicions as to what could have happened. The traitor was still within the clan.

The poison could have been administered from within the clan itself, and I had an inkling that could destroy all we had done to get here.

I could not risk a divide.

I had to keep the Silvermoth alive until I knew the name Kael had wanted to say.

The last thing I needed was even more proximity with my mate. We had already had too much of it during the weeks of Kael’s abduction, but that had been limited to an hour or two in her cell. This was different. She would now be in the most intimate part of my domain at all times.

"Althea," I said, trying not to sneer at how easily her name slid from my mouth.

Her eyes hesitantly lifted to me.

Umbra stirred beneath my skin, eager, closing in on her features, desire coiling like a tight spring.

Have some fucking decorum.

I snapped internally. Umbra bristled in response, hackles raised.

The discord would only grow—there was no universe in which I would accept her as my mate, even if my wolf wanted to leap out of my skin.

She is mine.

Fuck off, I growled back.

I needed to make this clear. Now. Before Umbra’s insistence eroded what little control I had left.

"You’re here for your safety," I said, my voice flat, stripped of anything that could be mistaken for warmth. "Nothing more. Don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re anything beyond that."

She flinched.

Good.

She needed to understand.

"You are not special to me," I continued, each word deliberate, cutting. "You are a complication. A problem that needs managing until I decide what to do with you."

Her hands twisted in her lap, but she said nothing.

"Your history means nothing to me," I pressed on, ignoring the way Umbra snarled and clawed at my insides. "What you’ve been through, what was done to you—I don’t care. It doesn’t change what you are or why you’re here."

The lie tasted like ash, but I forced it out anyway.

"When the time comes," I said, my tone dropping into something harder, colder, "I will reject you. Whether that rejection comes through your death at my hands or me simply letting you go depends entirely on how you behave."

Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating.

"Do you understand?" I asked.

She nodded once, jerky, her gaze fixed firmly on the floor.

"Ivanna spoke the truth," I added, driving the blade deeper. "She is my betrothed. She is a pillar of this clan. You are—" I paused, choosing the words that would hurt most. "You are nothing. A loose end. A liability I am forced to manage."

I watched something crumble in her expression—something fragile and half-formed, like hope trying to take root in scorched earth.

Hurt.

Raw, unfiltered hurt crossed her face, open and devastating.

And I felt it.

Like a physical blow.

My chest tightened. My breath caught. The room tilted slightly, and for one horrible moment I thought I might drop to my knees.

The mate bond screamed.

It clawed at me from the inside, raking furrows through my resolve, demanding I take back every word, demanding I cross the space between us and—

No.

Umbra howled, furious and betrayed.

You’re hurting her. You’re hurting us.

Shut up.

I forced my expression to remain neutral, my posture rigid, even as my insides felt like they were being torn apart.

She looked away, her hands trembling as she pulled the thin blanket around her shoulders like armor.

"I understand," she whispered, barely audible.

I should have felt relief.

I should have felt vindicated.

Instead, it felt like I had committed an act of violence worse than any I had inflicted in battle.

The bond pulsed again—not with desire this time, but with something closer to anguish, tugging at me, begging me to fix what I had just broken.

I turned away before I could do something stupid.

"Get some rest," I said curtly, moving toward the door. "Tomorrow will be difficult."

I left without looking back, but I felt her gaze on me the entire way out—heavy, wounded, resigned.

The moment the door closed behind me, I sagged against the wall, my fist pressing hard into my sternum as though I could physically restrain the bond.

Umbra writhed inside me, furious and grieving.

You hurt her. You hurt her.

I know.

Then why—

Because she is Morgana’s daughter, I snarled back. Because accepting her means betraying everything we’ve fought for. Because if I let myself feel what you’re demanding I feel, this entire clan will fracture.

Umbra did not respond.

But I felt his rage, his grief, his absolute refusal to accept what I had just done.

And beneath it all—quieter, but no less insistent—

My own.

Kael was in a coma.

There was a traitor in the clan.

Althea was Morgana Nocturne’s daughter.

And I had just shattered whatever fragile trust might have been forming between us.

But it was necessary.

It had to be.

Because the alternative—accepting her, claiming her, binding myself to the daughter of my mother’s murderer—

That was unthinkable.

Even if every fiber of my being screamed that I had just made the worst mistake of my life.

"It is for the best," her voice was quiet; I barely heard it.

I stopped and turned back to her. "What?"

She did not hesitate. She didn’t even flinch. "It is for the best. There is no world where we should be bonded."

Her words rang true, but they hit like a slap.

Umbra whined low like a kicked puppy—no howl of anger, no growl of defiance—as my heart seemed to forget how to beat.

He was hurt.

I was—

But I swallowed the discomfort overtaking me and nodded.