The Alpha Prisoners Obsession

Chp 8

Zyra POV

The door slammed so hard behind him that the candle flames flickered, shrinking into thin streams of smoke. For a long moment, I simply stood there, staring at the wood as though he might burst back through it and finish what he’d started.

My throat throbbed with the outline of his fingers. His warning echoed louder than the slam had.

One hour. Leave or suffer.

I didn’t move.

Not because I wasn’t terrified. I was. Fear settled in my stomach like ice, sharp and jagged, scraping every breath. Dael wasn’t just any alpha, he was the kind the elders whispered about late at night, when they thought pups were asleep. The kind born for war, not classrooms. The kind who should’ve been locked behind iron gates, not given a leadership badge to pin on his chest.

But fear wouldn’t feed me.

Fear wouldn’t shelter me.

Fear wouldn’t keep me alive.

And I had already survived worse.

My feet finally began to move, but not toward my dorm…

and not toward the exits of the academy.

I went to the only place in this fortress that didn’t feel like it hated me on sight.

The library had another room, it had books which contained all about psychology, only meant for psychology students.

By the time I pushed open the heavy doors, my breath was shaking. The scent of old parchment wrapped around me like a blanket, comforting in a way nothing else had since Lira. The silence was thick, soft, almost warm, the kind that made you feel hidden even in a room full of shadows.

I crossed the marble floor slowly, the sound of my footsteps echoing in a space too big, too ancient. Rows of towering bookshelves rose like silent guardians, stretching so high that the upper shelves were swallowed by darkness.

I went all the way to the farthest corner, where no one ever came. The cold stone wall met my back as I sank to the ground. My muscles trembled the moment I stopped moving, all the forced bravery leaking out of me like water from a cracked cup.

I pulled my knees to my chest and buried my face against them.

The tears spilled before I could swallow them down.

Not loud. Not messy.

Silent, like everything else about me.

I cried for the threat he spat against my skin.

I cried for the silver strand that betrayed me.

I cried for Lira.

I cried for the pack I never belonged to.

I cried for the child who watched flames and thought fire sounded like screams.

But most of all, I cried because there was nowhere left to go.

Nothing left to return to.

Nothing except this academy, a place that hated me even before it knew who I was.

My breathing hitched as the memories clawed their way up, uninvited and merciless, memories of the past which I would never forget.

The forest was darker in my mind than in reality. Shadows bent and twisted as Lira ran, holding me so tightly her heartbeat drowned out the sounds behind us. I was small, barely six the same age pups learned to shift their claws for the first time. I didn’t have wolf senses yet, but I could smell smoke. It poured into the air, thick and choking, heavy with something worse than burning wood.

Fear.

Lira’s steps thundered against the earth, even though I knew she was trying to be quiet. Every time a branch snapped beneath her feet, she flinched, it meant they were close. It meant they could still see the silver hair I hadn’t learned to hide.

“Don’t look back, little moon,” she whispered into my ear. Her voice shook, but her arms never did, not even when the fire swallowed the sky behind us. “Your mother wanted you safe. I promised her. I promised.”

I remembered turning my head anyway.

I remembered the way the flames curled around the pack houses like hungry fingers.

I remembered the howl, one long, broken, dying.

And I remembered Lira’s arms tightening painfully as she said, “No. Look at me. Only me.”

But even now, all these years later, the flames were still burned into the insides of my eyelids.

I lifted my head only when the ache in my chest became too sharp, too heavy. Tears blurred the lines of the marble floor until the world looked like watercolor.

Lira was gone.

My mother was gone.

My pack was gone.

And Dael… he wanted me gone too.

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. I had been crying for so long that my skin felt raw, like it might crack open if I rubbed too hard. The cold floor seeped through my bones, shaking me from the inside out.

But leaving wasn’t an option.

Not because I was brave.

Not because I was strong.

But because I had no choice.

If I left this academy, I would die within days and not from an alpha like Dael.

From the world itself.

A silver wolf without a pack was a curse waiting to be hunted.

My only chance at surviving was hidden somewhere between these books, these walls, these rules. If I could graduate, if I could earn a place, any place, I might live long enough to find something beyond running.

Lira had died for me to get here.

I wasn’t throwing that sacrifice away.

My tears slowed eventually, leaving behind a dull pounding in my head. I lifted my gaze toward the nearest bookshelf, the titles blurred from crying. Ancient histories. Pack treaties. Books on shifting laws. Wolf psychology. Everything Dael probably memorized at age nine.

I didn’t belong here.

Not truly.

But I needed to pretend I did.

For my own survival.

I leaned my head back against the wall, closing my eyes as I forced my breathing steady again. One inhale. One exhale. Over and over. Slow. Controlled.

Dael would come back.

He would expect an empty room.

He would expect me gone.

The image of his face twisted in rage flashed behind my eyelids, the flaring nostrils, the clenching jaw, the way his pupils expanded until almost no red remained. For a moment, he looked less like a wolf and more like something forged from war and fury.

He wanted me out. He wanted me to be frightened.

But I had lived through fire.

I had lived through hunters.

I had lived through the death of the only woman who ever loved me.

Dael was terrifying, yes.

But he wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever faced.

And he wasn’t going to be the thing that broke me.

I shifted, hugging my legs tighter as the library’s cold tried to seep deeper into my skin. My tears had dried, but the ache remained. It always did. Loss had a way of teaching you which pains stayed and which faded.

This one wasn’t fading.

My mind drifted back to Lira, the last good thing that had survived the burning. I remembered how she brushed my hair before bed, her fingers gentle, careful not to snag on the silver strands she always hid beneath dark dyes. I remembered how she whispered stories of my mother, stories no one else dared to repeat.

“She loved you more than the sun,” Lira used to say, smoothing hair behind my ear. “Silver wolves are rare, envied. Hated by some. Revered by others. Your mother believed you were born for something greater.”

But Lira was gone before she could ever tell me what “greater” meant.

All I had left was this academy.

These books.

This cold floor beneath my shaking hands.

And the knowledge that Dael, for whatever reason, hated me with a passion that felt personal, even though he didn’t know me at all.

At least, not yet. I drew a breath, long and trembling.

Let him return.

Let him rage.

Let him threaten.

I wasn’t leaving, I couldn’t because if I stepped outside these walls, there would be no Lira to carry me through the fire. No mother to shield me. No second chance.

This academy wasn’t home.

But it was the only place left where survival was possible.

And I would stay. Even if Dael’s fury burned hotter than the flames that destroyed my pack. Even if I had to fight every instinct screaming at me to run.

He gave me an hour. He thought fear would chase me out but fear had chased me my entire life.

I refused to let it win here too. I wiped the last streak of wetness from my cheek and turned my face toward the library doors, waiting, listening, breathing.

Dael would be back soon and when he returned, he would find me exactly where he left me…

Still here.

Still unbroken.

Still fighting for the one future I had left.