Bound To the Cruel Alpha

Chapter Eleven

Seraya

Seraya’s lips curved in a mirthless scoff. It unnerved her how they went on debating her death while she sat chained like a dog at Draven’s feet. Their voices rose, fell, tangled together, and not once did any of them look at her as though she were human.

“She is not worthy,” another growled, his heavy jaw working. “She is nothing. Kill her, and the bond will break—”

“It will not break,” Draven’s sister cut in, her voice steel. “You know it. I know it. My brother knows it. To kill her is to condemn him to torment for the rest of his life. And for what? So you can keep your hands on the reins of power, so you can whisper in his ear and steer him where you please?” She turned in a slow circle, her crimson skirts brushing the marble floor like blood trailing across snow. “Do not think I do not see you. You would sooner shatter him than surrender your hold.”

“Enough, Lady Kaelen,” Varros snarled, his staff thudding against the floor. “This is not your place.”

Lady Kaelen. Seraya filed the name away, tasting it like iron on her tongue.

“Not my place?” Kaelen’s laugh rang out, rich and bitter. “My brother’s life, my brother’s sanity, and you would tell me it is not my place?” She stepped closer to the table, close enough that Varros leaned back from her heat. “You would rather s*******r a girl fated by the Goddess herself than allow my brother’s sanity. Do you think I do not see your games? Replace him with a puppet, was it? Tell me, Lord Varros, who do you have in mind for the strings?”

Murmurs rippled again, this time darker, sharp as the hiss of blades being drawn in a hall of silence.

Seraya’s heart thudded in her chest, not for herself but for the twisted theater of it all. She sat at the center of the storm, the subject of every voice, yet she was no more present to them than the chair beneath her. They talked of her life as though it were grain, to be bartered and measured. As though she were not listening, not breathing.

Her eyes slid to Draven.

He sat back in his throne, expression unreadable, gaze fixed on the Council. He had not intervened. Not once. Not when they called for her death, not when they clawed at the idea of severing the bond, not when his sister threw herself into the storm in his defense.

Seraya’s stomach twisted. She could not tell if his silence was strategy, cruelty, or both.

Then Varros stepped forward again, slower this time, every movement deliberate. His eyes were darker than before, as if bitterness had hollowed something out of him.

“You’re all fools,” he said, his voice raw with venom. “You argue over blood and bonds, over oaths and politics. Do you think the scandal is that she is a rogue? Do you think the danger is that she is undeserving?”

His gaze cut to Seraya.

“No. The worst thing is not that she is a rogue.”

The silence was sudden, heavy, the Council hanging on the pause.

“It is that she carries magic.”

The words dropped like a blade, and the chamber seemed to freeze around them.

For one long breath, no one moved. Then a hiss broke the stillness.

One of the grey-cloaked councilors surged up from his seat, knuckles white against the table. “Magic. Of course. That is how she snared him. How else could the Goddess bind an Alpha to such filth? She has bewitched him.”

Murmurs rose like a tide, heads nodding, eyes narrowing toward Seraya.

“She poisoned the bond.”

“She must have meddled with the moon’s choosing.”

“Dark arts, nothing less.”

A woman with hair braided in silver leaned forward, voice taut with fear. “Do you not see it? The Goddess may have chosen him, but she… she has polluted it. She wears the bond like a shroud to cloak her wickedness.”

Seraya’s mouth curled, though she did not speak. If they wanted a witch, she would let them choke on the word.

Kaelen’s voice cut clean through the clamor. “Enough. You insult the bond itself. Do you think the Goddess’s will is so weak it can be bent by tricks and smoke?”

Her words should have ended it, but suspicion was already coiled too deep.

“She is no ordinary rogue,” someone insisted, slamming a fist against the table. “Look at her eyes, the way they burn. What if she is masking a spell even now? What if her power spreads through him every moment she breathes?”

Another leaned in, his tone trembling, greedy with terror. “We have heard tales of rogues with magic in their veins, cursed children of the Moon’s shadow. What if she is one of them? How can we know if she has cursed magic or not?”

“She cannot be killed,” another countered, a tremor of fear lacing his tone. “If she dies, the Alpha is broken. You said it yourself.”

“And yet she cannot be left to walk free!” The grey cloak again, spittle flashing at the corner of his mouth. “Would you have a witch at the side of our Alpha? At the head of our armies?”

The chamber darkened with muttering, the tide pulling faster now. Fear, anger, hunger for control—they fed each other, rising until the air itself felt thick with it.

Varros’s staff struck once more against the marble, demanding silence. He leaned forward, face carved with disdain. “Then let her rot. A prison, warded, sealed against her power. She will live, and the bond will remain intact. But she will be nothing. Caged. Forgotten. My lord Alpha need not so much as look upon her face again.”

The idea slithered into the room and settled there.

Murmurs rose once more, this time lower, heavier, like the shifting of earth before a grave is filled. Some voices already agreeing. Others hesitating. None speaking of her as though she still had breath, blood, will of her own.

Seraya’s hands clenched in her lap, the chains biting deep. To be killed was one thing. But to be erased… to live like a ghost while her enemy sat enthroned above her, was a cruelty she had never imagined.

Her gaze flicked to Draven again. He had not moved, had not spoken. But his silence no longer felt like power. It felt like danger.

And for the first time, Seraya wondered—not if she would survive this hall, but if surviving was the cruellest fate of all.