The Feral Alpha's Captive-Chapter 53: Beggar’s Are Not Choosers

🦋ALTHEA

The threat was clear as crystal, but even in my horror I could not believe what I was hearing. She was threatening me with her own people. People who bore the same silver marks as she did. Vargans like her who had known nothing but egregious subjugation and suffering. Parents forced into pits where they would never return, their charred remains turned to ash. The ones who would die in the dangerous silver mines, crushed by falling rocks.

The Vargans had bled for thirty years because of one woman’s sins—and now another was using that blood as currency.

"You are disgusting," I spat, surprising myself.

She just shrugged. "What are the lives of Vargans I don’t know to the clan I would lay down my life for? So now, you will listen to me. If you tell Thorne, I assure you he won’t be able to save them, because I will make sure my allies in your pack will make more of your slaves fucking pay. The only way you leave my clan and my daughter’s betrothed without blood on your hands is if you cooperate."

She looked at me, waiting, her expression expectant.

My mind fractured.

Clean breaks, sharp enough to cut if I moved wrong. And Yana’s face rose first. Not as she was now—thin and watchful. Even her testimony that damned me in the case of the attack on Circe had been forced out of her, her arm twisted so far it still haunted me. And then there was her son, Thal. He had fed me the scraps he could find when I was in that dank cell, barely clinging to the idea of life.

I felt the weight of them settle behind my ribs.

I had been unable to save them when I could still be the Silvermoth, because I had foolishly thought I had more time—and that those being carted away to other territories and packs I could not reach needed me the most.

And even if, by law and stipulations, I had never had a full conversation with any of them, they had been steady presences in my life—anchors when it all went to hell with Draven.

I could not save them before, so I would do it now.

But even as my eyes flicked back to the woman as I nodded, I knew I had made the decision long before this moment.

And it would be better that I was no longer in Thorne’s life, or a hitch in the well-oiled machine that his clan was. I was sure the vigilant Alpha would sniff out the traitor when the moon chose. He was the Hell Hound for a reason.

He would figure it out, and I would be long gone.

And the weight of our bond would die in the hands of the fate my mother had in store for me.

She smiled, the curl of her lip neither manic nor wide—just fucking satisfied.

"As expected," she said softly, straightening as if the matter were settled, as if my consent were a ledger entry finally balanced. "I will inform my correspondence."

The word landed heavier than a confession. Correspondence. They were not allies. And most definitely not accomplices—even now she tried to convince herself that she had not committed the greatest sin against her own clan and race.

"For now," she continued, smoothing the front of her sleeves, "the slaves remain alive."

She glanced at me sideways, measuring the impact.

"Spared," she clarified lightly, as if discussing livestock.

My stomach lurched violently.

"Do not mistake restraint for mercy," she went on. "It is merely... deferred consequence."

She stepped back, giving me space at last, though it felt more like she was reclaiming territory than granting reprieve. "Hollowhowl has agreed to the exchange."

My head snapped up.

"Hollowhowl Pack?" I whispered.

Her eyes gleamed. "Two slaves. Yours. And a handful more—strong backs, unbroken spines. Returned to the clan as a gesture of goodwill."

Goodwill.

"The moment you cross the boundary," she said, tapping a finger against the doorframe, "they will be released. Alive. Unmarked."

A pause.

"So your sacrifice will not be for nothing."

The words were honeyed. Poisonous.

"And if you refuse," she added, voice sharpening just enough to draw blood, "if you cling to sentiment and defiance and all those pretty stories—then I suppose that will tell us everything we need to know about this Silvermoth you claim to be."

Her gaze dragged over me, slow and disdainful.

"The heroic liberator," she mocked. "So revered. So righteous."

Her lips curled.

"Tell me, Althea—does a true Silvermoth hesitate when the cost is inconvenient. Does a moth flee from fire even if it burns?"

She leaned closer, lowering her voice to something intimate and vile.

"Or is she only brave when it costs her nothing?"

My jaw tightened.

"You wear the name like armor," the woman went on. "But armor is useless if it cracks under pressure."

She straightened again, dismissive now. Finished.

"After all," she said lightly, turning toward the door, "anyone can free slaves when it is easy. When it is distant. When it earns them songs."

She glanced back over her shoulder, eyes glinting.

"But when the price is you—"

A smile.

"Well. We will see what kind of moth you really are."

The door opened.

She paused once more, just long enough to deliver the final cut.

"Do try not to disappoint us," she said. "It would be such a shame to learn that the famed Silvermoth is nothing more than a creature who flutters loudly... and burns when the fire gets too close."

Then she was gone.

The door closed with a soft, definitive click.

I stood there long after, heart pounding, lungs shallow, the weight of my choice settling into my bones like a sentence already passed.

Two lives.

More, if Hollowhowl kept its word.

If...

But beggars were not choosers.

And me—walking willingly into exile, into silence, into the slow death of a bond that should never have existed.

If this was what it meant to be the Silvermoth—

I would fly close enough to the flames to burn.