The Alpha’s cage
1041 Words
Chapter Two
The Alpha’s Cage
Lyra woke with a start.
The fire had died down to embers, the room cloaked in heavy silence. She touched her belly instinctively — the child within was still, resting, just as she had trained herself to be since that fated night. It was how she survived.
But now she was in the lion’s den. The Moonblood Keep was less a home and more a prison carved from stone, surrounded by thick walls and thicker secrets. She could hear the howls outside — patrols shifting under the moonlight, warriors with blades strapped to their backs and loyalty tattooed across their spines.
Kael’s pack.
And she was the intruder. The mistake. The omega who’d been claimed but never wanted.
She stood and crossed to the narrow window. The land stretched out in silver and black: jagged peaks, a sea of forest, distant fires on the border. Her former pack had roamed near the edge of that ridge — the Shadowbane wolves. Gone now. Scattered. Slaughtered.
Kael had done that too.
She clenched her fists.
If she could survive him once, she could do it again.
⸻
Elsewhere in the Keep
Kael paced before the long hearth in the council chamber, his Beta Roran watching him silently.
“She shouldn’t be here,” Kael muttered.
“She’s already here,” Roran replied. “And she’s not just anyone. She’s your mate.”
“I rejected that bond.”
Roran raised an eyebrow. “Did you? Or did you just pretend it never happened because you were afraid of what it would cost you?”
Kael growled low in his throat.
“I remember the night,” Roran said. “Blood moon rising. You disappeared for hours. Came back like something had torn straight through you.”
“I didn’t know who she was,” Kael snapped. “I thought she was just some rogue—”
“But you marked her.”
The words landed like a blade.
Kael turned to the fire, jaw clenched. “I felt the pull. I tried to resist. But when I saw her… it was like the wolf took over. I thought I could ignore it afterward. Thought it would fade.”
Roran crossed his arms. “It didn’t. And now she’s back. With your heir.”
“Don’t call it that.”
“Why not? You think she made this up? You think the Moon Goddess gives marks by mistake?”
Kael didn’t answer.
He couldn’t.
⸻
A Warning in the Dark
Later that night, the door to Lyra’s chamber opened again — not with force this time, but with slow, quiet intent. She was sitting at the edge of the bed, arms wrapped protectively around herself.
Kael stood there.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The firelight cast shadows across his face, making his eyes seem darker than ever.
“I should lock you away,” he said coldly. “You’re a threat to the balance of my pack.”
Lyra laughed — short and bitter. “You’re welcome to try.”
He stepped inside. “You don’t seem to understand what you’ve walked into.”
“I understand perfectly,” she said. “I’m carrying your child. Which means you won’t kill me — at least not yet.”
Kael’s eyes narrowed. “You think this makes you powerful?”
“No,” she said. “I think it makes me necessary.”
He hated how calm she was. How much steel lived beneath her brokenness. She should’ve been afraid of him — most were. But she looked at him like he was just a man. A man who’d used her. A man who’d left her behind.
“I didn’t know who you were that night,” he said, voice low. “If I had—”
“Would you have stopped?” she asked softly.
He didn’t answer.
She nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
“I won’t let you use this child against me.”
“I don’t want your power, Kael. I don’t want your pack. I came here because I had nowhere else to go. I’ll leave when I can.”
“You think I’ll just let you walk away?”
“I think,” she said, standing slowly, “that if you try to stop me, the bond will tear you apart.”
Their gazes locked. The air between them thickened, crackled, like storm-charged air before a strike.
“You still feel it, don’t you?” she whispered.
Kael didn’t move. But his hands trembled.
Then he turned and walked away, slamming the door behind him.
⸻
Flashback — The Blood Moon
Lyra hadn’t meant to stumble into his path.
She’d been running — chased by rogues who had caught the scent of Shadowbane blood on her skin. Her pack had been burned from the inside out by traitors. She’d barely escaped with her life.
And then she’d seen him — a stranger in the woods, tall and wild-eyed, radiating heat and danger and something… ancient. He hadn’t spoken. Neither had she. But the moment their eyes met, her wolf had howled — mate.
She didn’t believe in fate. But that night, she gave in.
It was raw. Wordless. Stars above, dirt beneath. His mouth on her neck, her claws in his back. A union sealed not in love, but in fire.
And then he was gone.
No name. No promise. Just the mark burning into her skin as she sobbed beneath the full moon, changed forever.
⸻
Now
Roran found Kael again outside, staring at the sky like it might give him answers.
“She’s stronger than I thought,” Kael admitted.
“She survived more than you know,” Roran said. “Word is she watched her entire pack die. And now she’s carrying a child into a world that doesn’t want her.”
Kael looked at him.
Roran didn’t flinch. “The prophecy, Kael. It said the Moonblood heir would come from two lines — one pure, one broken. Born beneath blood. Marked by both shadow and flame.”
Kael closed his eyes.
“Maybe,” Roran said, “the Moon Goddess knew exactly what she was doing.”
- Writer
