CHAPTER 106: CHAPTER 106

When I woke up, the air felt wrong.

The first thing I noticed was the silence that thick, unnatural kind that made the hairs on my arms rise. The second was the scent. It wasn’t the usual clean sterility of the clinic. No this was darker, heavier. A storm pressed into the walls, breathing down my neck.

Then came the whispers. Not from outside. From inside the room. From the trembling lips of the nurses surrounding my bed.

"Don’t move."

"Keep your head down."

"Don’t make eye contact."

Their voices quivered, breaking around every word.

My eyes fluttered open. Bright light stabbed at them, forcing me to blink through the haze. The world slowly took shape white sheets, IV tubes, shaking hands. And then him. The Alpha.

He stood in the far corner like a shadow carved out of the air itself. His back was straight, his head slightly lowered, but his eyes gods, those eyes were fixed on me with a silence that cut deeper than any roar.

Every nurse in the room trembled. The pack doctor, Mira, stood closest to me. Sweat trickled down her temple as she tried to adjust the IV line with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.

"Alpha," she whispered, voice barely audible. "She’s stable now. Her fever broke."

His voice came low and even. "You said that last night."

Mira froze. Her knuckles went white around the edge of the bed.

"Y-yes, Alpha. But her body is still weak. I need more time to—"

"Time?" His tone didn’t rise, but the entire room seemed to shrink with that single word. "You’ve had time. You let her burn in fever for two days before doing anything."

"I—I didn’t know how severe-"

A sound cut through her words. Not a growl, not quite. Something quieter. More dangerous. The kind of sound that made you want to disappear.

I felt the weight of his gaze shift from the doctor to me. It was like being touched without being touched — his attention crawling over my skin, tracing every line, every breath.

"Leave," he said finally.

Mira’s eyes widened. "Alpha?"

"I said leave."

The nurses didn’t need to be told twice. They fled silent, swift, leaving the room like smoke sucked from a flame. Only Mira hesitated.

"Alpha, please, I must monitor her vitals—"

He turned his head slightly. Just slightly.

And that was enough.

Her words died in her throat. She bowed deeply, murmured something I couldn’t hear, and fled too.

The door closed behind her.

And then it was just us.

Me, lying half-awake in a hospital bed.

And him the monster in human skin standing at the edge of the light.

For a long moment, he didn’t move. Neither did I. The faint hum of the heart monitor filled the silence, steady and fragile.

When he finally spoke, his voice was softer. Almost gentle. That was the worst part.

"They were careless with you."

My throat felt dry. "They tried their best."

He took a step closer. His boots clicked against the floor.

"Best?" He almost smiled. "You nearly died in their hands. If I hadn’t come back last night..." His voice trailed off, curling around something dark. "Do you know what I told them?"

I shook my head.

He leaned forward, resting one hand on the bed’s railing. His fingers brushed the metal slow, deliberate, as if testing how much pressure it would take to crush it.

"I told them if you died," he said quietly, "I would break every neck in this building starting with the doctor’s."

My breath hitched.

He tilted his head slightly, studying me. "Does that frighten you?"

It did. Every part of me was trembling. But fear was dangerous around him. He fed on it.

"No," I whispered, lying through my teeth.

He smiled faintly. Not warm never warm. It was the kind of smile that made you wonder if he was imagining something terrible.

"Good," he murmured. "Because I don’t want you to fear me, wildflower." His voice dipped, soft as silk and twice as suffocating. "I want you to understand me."

Understand him? How could anyone understand madness dressed as power?

"You shouldn’t be here," I managed to say, my voice trembling. "The pack.

"The pack doesn’t decide what I do." His tone was sharp again, cutting through my words. "They don’t tell me who to protect."

Protect. The word sounded foreign on his tongue.

"You don’t need to protect me, Alpha."

He moved closer until I could feel his breath on my cheek heat, steady and possessive. His eyes dropped to my lips, then back to my eyes.

"I disagree," he said quietly. "You’re mine to protect. Mine to break if I choose. Mine to keep alive."

My pulse thundered in my chest. I could feel his scent that mix of smoke and pine wrapping around me like invisible chains.

"Why?" The word slipped out before I could stop it. "Why me?"

His expression changed barely, but enough. A flicker of something unreadable passed through his eyes. Then it was gone.

"I told myself I didn’t care," he said, almost to himself. "But when I saw you lying there... you weren’t breathing right. Your skin was ice." He exhaled, the sound rough. "I’ve killed enemies with my own hands and never felt anything. But seeing you that way—"

He stopped. His fingers tightened around the bed’s railing. The metal creaked under his grip.

"I almost lost control," he whispered.

The heart monitor beeped faster. So did my pulse.

He noticed. Of course he did. His lips twitched half amusement, half warning.

"You shouldn’t look at me like that," he murmured. "You’ll make me forget I’m supposed to be careful."

He straightened, pulling away slightly. The distance should have made me feel safer. It didn’t. It only made me ache with confusion fear tangled with something I couldn’t name.

His gaze lingered a moment longer, and then he turned toward the door. "Rest. The doctor will keep you alive. I made sure of it."

He started to leave, but then paused hand on the doorknob. His voice dropped lower, dark velvet against my nerves.

"If anyone touches you without my permission," he said, "they die."

The door shut behind him.

The silence that followed was heavier than before.

Hours passed before Mira dared return. Her eyes darted around the room like a hunted animal. She checked the monitors quickly, avoiding my gaze.

"Are you... alright?" she whispered.

I didn’t know how to answer that.

"He said he’d" She stopped herself, pressing trembling hands to her face. "He came back at midnight, Ellie. He made us all stand by your bed. He said if you didn’t wake up, he’d kill every one of us before sunrise."

My stomach twisted. "He wouldn’t—"

"He would," she said, voice breaking. "He meant it."

I looked away. My hands gripped the sheets until my knuckles turned white.

He was a monster. A beautiful, careful monster who thought his violence was a kind of affection.

And somehow... I was the reason for it.

That night, I didn’t sleep. Every sound made me flinch. Every shadow looked like him. I could still feel the ghost of his presence in the room the air thick where he’d stood, his scent still clinging to the pillow.

But worse than the scent was the silence inside my head. His inner voice the one that used to slip through like whispers in the dark was gone.

And that silence scared me more than anything he’d said aloud.

Because silence meant he was thinking.

And when he thought, people bled.

I pulled the blanket to my chest and tried to breathe. But the longer I stared into the dark, the clearer one truth became he wasn’t finished with me.

I was trapped under his shadow now.

And no matter how much I wanted to escape, part of me already knew the truth.

The Alpha wasn’t just dangerous.

He was addicted.

By morning, my fever had broken. The doctor seemed relieved not for me, but for herself.

"You can return to your quarters tomorrow," she said quickly, avoiding my eyes. "You’ll need rest for another few days. Don’t... don’t overexert yourself."

I nodded.

Outside the clinic window, sunlight streamed through the trees. The pack’s training grounds were visible in the distance wolves running drills, commands echoing. Life went on as if I hadn’t almost died.

But I felt different now. Like something inside me had shifted.

I could feel his presence even when he wasn’t there.

Later that day, the door opened.

The doctor froze mid-step. The nurses went pale. He had returned.

Alpha Zach stepped inside without a word. His gaze swept over the room, cold and precise, before landing on me.

"How is she?" he asked.

"She’s stable, Alpha," Mira stammered. "The fever’s gone."

"Good."

He walked closer, slow, measured steps that made my pulse stutter. When he stopped beside my bed, the air around me changed.

For a long moment, he just looked at me. His eyes traced the curve of my jaw, the faint bruise near my collarbone from the IV. His expression didn’t shift, but something flickered behind it something dark and unreadable.

"You scared them," I whispered before I could stop myself.

His eyes narrowed. "Did I?"

"They were shaking."

"They should be," he said simply.

The quiet that followed was unbearable.

Then, softer, his voice slipped into my mind again words he didn’t say aloud.

"I should have killed them for letting you suffer."

I flinched. He tilted his head slightly, studying my reaction, but said nothing else. He didn’t know I’d heard.

"I’ll have food brought for you," he said aloud. "Eat. Get stronger."

Then he turned to leave.

"Alpha," the doctor blurted, "she’ll be fine—"

He cut her off with a look. "She better be."

And then he was gone again, like a shadow that vanished the second you tried to reach it.

When the door shut, I exhaled for what felt like the first time in hours.

The nurses started moving again, whispering in frantic tones. Mira muttered something about the Moon Goddess and fate, but I barely heard her.

All I could hear was his voice still echoing in my head.

"I should have killed them for letting you suffer."

He’d meant it. Every word.

And somehow, that terrified me more than his threats. Because part of me believed that if anyone else dared to hurt me, he would kill them. And part of me wasn’t sure I wanted him to stop.