The Alpha’s Fallen Angel

Chapter 7: What am I

Storme’s POV;

I hear the slam before I see them. Big shoes, bigger shadows. My body does the thing it always does, shrinks into itself and counts heartbeats like a prayer.

Not the kind of prayer that asks for miracles. The kind that repeats a name until it’s a mantra: Moon, don’t let them cut me to pieces today. Please let me still be me when this ends.

The brown-eyed man—Nico—stands in the doorway with his sleeves rolled like he’s about to do yard work. He looks younger than I expect. That makes me want to roll my eyes. Great. Kid with anger issues and a knife. My mouth is dry. I don’t answer. My throat is a locked room.

“Ready to talk?” he asks, casual as a barista asking if you want a croissant.

I pretend not to hear. Silence is safer than a lie. If I open my mouth, I might say the wrong thing. If I say anything at all, they’ll pin it to me like a medal and call it proof.

He sighs. The guard unlocks the cell. Keys clink like a metronome counting down. The guard’s hands are big enough to bruise an apple. I slide back until my spine hits stone. Cold presses into my bones. This is fine. Totally fine. Survive, don’t be dramatic. I tell myself it’s fine because saying anything else would sound like whining and whining gets you cut.

Nico steps closer and the smell of mint and strength fills the space between us. He rolls his sleeves higher, veins mapping his arms. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” he says. I watch his jaw. He’s doing the intimidation routine. It’s for the audience.

I don’t move. I don’t speak. Inside, my head hums like something electric. Lucy’s face flashes—if only she were here. If only someone would believe me without looking for a reason not to. The thought squeezes. Faith, you coward. Pray now if you ever cared for her. My prayer is thin and sharp.

“How did you get in?” Nico repeats. “Who sent you? Why swap places with the Luna?”

My silence answers him better than words could. Saying nothing is a kind of weapon—one I didn’t plan but now hold. He makes a small disgusted sound. I can feel him stepping closer, the shadow of his impatience falling over me.

He motions. The guard produces a knife like it’s a tool. Metallic shine. My muscles want to pull, but pain already lives in my limbs and that’s enough to keep me fenced. He sets the blade against my leg. Hot pain lances up; I cry out before the thought finishes forming. Sound comes out like a broken thing. Sorry, delicate dignity. You’re canceled.

Nico’s face hardens. He crouches, close enough for me to see the tiny scar by his lip. Up close, he looks less like a joke and more like a threat that learned to smile. “Talk,” he says. “Make it easy.”

I can feel his frustration as if it were a physical thing. He expected me to crack. He expected heat and then confession. Silence is not in his playbook. It’s infuriating him and that gives me the tiniest, guilty relief. Frustrate the big men. Tiny victories.

Then the door opens wider. The air shifts—thicker, colder. Another scent cuts through the mint: iron and command. Alpha Zade fills the doorway like night swallowing a candle. He moves slow, measured. Everything about him says finality.

“You’re too soft, Nico,” Zade tells him. The words are simple but they fall like a verdict. Nico straightens, the knife forgotten in his hand as if a child had been told to put a toy away.

Zade walks over, unhooks a heavy chain from the ceiling. The chain drops and the clink sounds like a bell tolling. “Clasp her,” he says to the guard, voice flat as a slab.

I feel the chain before the guard touches me—wolfsbane on the metal burning my palms in a tasteless instant. Pain blooms and I gag. They flip me upside down and blood rushes to my head. Gravity betrays me. The world becomes a slow blur. My inner voice hisses: Amazing. Upside-down looks great on everyone. Not.

Zade’s shadow falls across my face. He leans close enough that I can see the small cruelty threaded into the corner of his mouth. “I will make you break,” he says softly, like promising the weather.

I want to beg. I want to plead to the Moon or to Lucy or to any merciful thing. Instead, my mind does the ugly, sarcastic thing it always does to cope. Please, Universe, let this be the part where I wake up. Also, buy me a coffee if you’ve got one left up there. The joke dies in my throat because the syringe sparks under his hand and they push cold into my veins.

The world tilts, the static in my skull grows louder, and suddenly my body answers with a light that feels foreign and wrong. My hair lifts, the blue pulsing brighter than before. Air prickles my skin. The mushrooms in the corner wither as if even small life can’t stand near me.

They step back. For the first time since I arrived, I hear a real, small sound from them: a collective intake. Zade’s voice drops to a near whisper, more to himself than to me. “What… are you?”

My mind scrambles for something brave to say. My lips are dry and heavy. I don’t answer. Inside, though, I think: Me? I’m trying not to die. That’s the full-time job right now.

They don’t have an answer. Neither do I. I only have silence and a small, stubborn pulse of hope that keeps me breathing.

“Don’t test my patience,” He c****d his head, walking toward me with a dangerous gleam in his eyes.