The Alpha's Broken Oath

The gates of Black Hollow looked smaller than I remembered. Not physically—they were still the same towering black iron that had once scared me enough to keep my head down every time we passed them—but smaller in the way memories shrink when you grow older. Back then, they looked like a wall too high to ever climb. Now, all I saw was rust in the corners and chains that made noises when they opened. I hadn’t been back in almost ten years. Not since the night I stood in front of Kael Donovan and told him something I hadn’t even understood myself—that the Moon had tied us together. That I was his mate. He didn’t even hesitate when he said no. Now here I was again, not by choice but by duty. The driver stopped the jeep just outside the inner border. The tires cracked over the gravel like bones. No one spoke. Talia sat next to me, silent for once, her fingers tapping nervously against the handle of her bag. The guard at the gate stared at my ID like it had grown horns. “Seraphina Quinn,” he read. “You’re the healer they called for?” “I am.” He looked at me like he expected a lie. Maybe he saw one in my face. I didn’t care. Behind the gate, the land looked half-dead. I could feel the sickness here. Wolves were shifting too early, some too violently. Word had it that one of the Omega pups had gotten stuck mid-shift for hours. His bones wouldn’t settle. His screams carried past the tree line. That’s why I was called. The Alpha’s wolves were breaking—and apparently, I was the only one left with the training to do something about it. The guard let us in without another word. I kept my eyes ahead as we passed the old training ground. The fence was bent, the sand pit unlevel. I saw claw marks in the wood and something dark dried along the edge. “We could still turn around,” Talia said quietly. “We don’t owe them anything.” “I owe the sick,” I replied. “Not the Alpha.” She didn’t push. She never did. We were taken to the old infirmary at the edge of the Alpha’s estate,I felt it—like a pulse under the floorboards. Something wasn’t just broken here. Something was rotting. Malik was waiting inside. He didn’t say hello, just nodded once and handed me a leather folder. “The last five wolves infected are in that file. All males. All between fifteen and twenty.” “That’s young.” He nodded again. “It’s spreading.” “How long has it been happening?” “First signs started two months ago. We thought it was just the flu until the second boy never came back from his shift. He got stuck in half-form. Died before sunrise.” Talia covered her mouth. I didn’t blink. “How long before the next outbreak?” I asked. “We don’t know. It’s not linear. One day it’s calm. The next, three wolves are down.” I opened the file. There were pictures. Test results. Names I half-recognized. It didn’t feel real yet. Not until I saw the handwriting on the last page. Kael’s signature. I felt it like a hit to the chest. My throat tightened. I didn’t want it to. I thought I was over it. “Where is he?” I asked without lifting my head. Malik hesitated. “He’s still Alpha. He’s in the main house. He wanted to meet with you first.” I shut the file. “Then he can wait.” We started work immediately. I ordered a cleanse of the rooms. Talia and I unpacked our herbs, lined the cabinets, reworked the ritual table. I didn’t ask anyone else for help. I didn’t want their pity, and I definitely didn’t want their stares. Some recognized me. Some whispered when I walked past. I ignored them all. That first night, I stayed late. Talia went to rest after dinner, but I stayed, sitting on the floor with the file in my lap and a dozen herbs laid out around me. I was tracing symptoms, checking dates, trying to find a pattern. But all I could think about was that moment. That single memory. I was sixteen, standing in the training yard, trembling like a rabbit, my palms bleeding from the shift that had taken hours to calm. Kael had just been named future Alpha. He was nineteen. Tall. Cold-eyed. Beautiful in a way that made girls lose sleep. When I told him we were fated, he didn’t just say no—he laughed. “Don’t lie, Seraphina,” he said in front of his friends. “You think you’re my mate? The girl from the outskirts? You must be dreaming.” I remember the look in his eyes like it was branded in me. I left that night. Elias covered my escape. And now I was back in his territory. Sitting in a room touched by his hands. There was a knock on the door. Before I could speak, it opened. Kael Donovan walked in like the past hadn’t happened at all. He was taller than I remembered. His black shirt fit like it was tailored to every inch of him. His eyes—those storm-gray eyes that used to look right through me—landed on my face and held. He didn’t speak. Neither did I. For a long second, it was just air between us. Air and ten years of things unsaid. “You’re here,” he finally said. “You requested a healer. I came.” His jaw clenched. “I didn’t think you’d agree.” “I didn’t come for you.” He stepped closer. “Still sharp, I see.” “Still a liar, I see.” His eyes narrowed slightly. But he didn’t rise to it. Instead, he looked around the room, took in the herbs, the markings on the wall. “You haven’t changed,” he said. “You have.” He blinked. “How?” “You’re pretending you haven’t.” That made him pause. Something flickered in his expression. Then he walked toward the desk, slowly, like he wasn’t sure how close he was allowed to get. “You felt it,” he said, voice quieter now. “Didn’t you?” I didn’t answer. “I felt you the second you crossed the border. My wolf reacted before I even knew why.” “I didn’t come back to reopen old wounds,” I said. “I came to stop this sickness. Nothing more.” “That sickness started with us,” he said. His voice was different now. Not cocky. Not commanding. Honest. I stood up. “You think the pack is sick because you rejected me?” “I think the bond was never supposed to be broken. I think when I did, something started unraveling. And now it’s here. In the wolves. In the ground.” “You’re not that important,” I snapped. “And neither am I.” He looked at me then. Really looked. “I know what I did. I know I can’t fix it with words. But you’re back, Sera. And I can feel the bond again. Stronger. Louder. Like it’s trying to fix itself whether we want it to or not.” My chest ached. I hated that it did. “I’m not that girl anymore,” I said. “I know.” I grabbed the file, walked past him, and stopped in the doorway. “Don’t come back unless you’re ready to tell me the whole truth,” I said. “Not just about us. About this place. About what really happened ten years ago.” His voice stopped me just as I reached the hall. “There’s a reason I said no back then. It wasn’t what you thought.” I turned, slowly. “Then what was it?” I asked. He hesitated. “My mother told me if I didn’t reject you, she’d make you disappear.” The air left my lungs. “What?” “She threatened you. Said she’d destroy you quietly. Said I had to choose between the title and you. I chose wrong.” Everything inside me went still. “I didn’t know,” I whispered. “I didn’t want you to.” For a second, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know whether to scream or fall. I just walked away, one step at a time, down the hall that smelled like ash and rosemary. And when I got back to the infirmary, I didn’t cry. I didn’t shake. I opened my grandmother’s journal, flipped to the page I’d avoided for years, and stared at the old moon markings. The bond hadn’t died. It had been buried. And now something was digging it back up.