Until The Last Alpha Begs

The Stone Beneath the Tongue

POV: Freya

The fog rolled into the valley like thick, gray smoke on the morning the special healer arrived. You couldn't see past the first row of trees in the garden.

Her name was Sable, and she looked ancient. Her skin was lined and creased like weathered parchment, and her eyes were the exact color of a heavy storm cloud right before the lightning cracks.

She didn't carry a medical bag, or tools, or vials of tonic. She just brought this scent with her…old smoke and something much sharper that I couldn't quite put a name to, something that tasted like cooper on the back of my throat.

Zevren didn't just introduce her; he presented her to me. There was this stiff, formal weight to his posture that bordered right on deference. That made me freeze because Alphas like Zevren don't defer to anyone unless they absolutely need something from them.

“She is going to examine you, Freya,” Zevren said, his voice low, his eyes darting between me and the old woman. “Trust her.”

I didn't answer. I just sat on the stone table in the healing room, my hands gripping the edge as Sable stepped closer.

Her hands were freezing when she reached out to check my pulse and look into my eyes, her fingers felt like ice, but they were entirely steady. Then she stepped right up to me and pressed her bare palm flat against my belly.

She held it there. Long past the point of a normal checkup. Long enough that I saw Zevren shift his weight from one foot to the other out of the corner of my eye, his jaw tightening just a fraction.

Underneath Sable's palm, my skin burned. I held my breath, terrified she’d feel what I felt. For a split second, Sable's storm-cloud eyes widened, then a flash of recognition tore through her expression, followed by a quick hit of pure fear, before her face slammed shut into absolute neutrality.

She pulled her hand back, turning slowly toward Zevren.

“The awakening is progressing much faster than we anticipated,” Sable said, her voice sounding like dry leaves scraping across stone. “Her body is absorbing the training with unusual speed. The bloodline is... responsive.”

Zevren’s shoulders instantly squared as this wave of pride practically rolled off him. He stepped forward, his hand settling right on my waist, his fingers digging in just enough to anchor me to his side.

“I told you she was capable,” Zevren murmured, looking down at me with that perfect, practiced warmth.

I looked past his shoulder, toward the frosted glass of the doorway. The shadows of pack members were lingering out there, peering through the windows and the cracks in the frame. They weren't whispering their usual insults today, their faces were different. The contempt was gone, replaced by this tense, quiet wariness.

They didn't see a useless, discarded Shadowbrook Omega anymore, they saw Zevren’s project, his investment. His personal claim.

“They're watching,” I whispered, my voice tight.

“Let them watch,” Zevren said, his grip on my waist tightening. “They are learning where you belong.”

The respect wasn't real. I knew that. It was just a reflection of the teeth Zevren was willing to show on my behalf. But as we walked back down the long corridor and the guards actually stepped aside, bowing their heads instead of spitting near my boots, a sick little knot formed in my chest.

Things were easier now. The food was brought faster, the doors were opened for me, and the hallway insults had completely dried up. I hated myself for it. I hated how much easier my days became just because I was wearing another man's leash, even if the leather was lined with gold.

×××

Sable stayed for the training sessions, and everything changed.

Her methods were entirely different from Zevren’s, in ways I couldn't even put into words at first. When Zevren trained me, it felt like construction. He was always telling me to build walls, to reinforce my boundaries, to grip the control until my knuckles turned white.

But Sable? Her exercises felt like excavation. Like digging through dirt to find a buried skeleton.

“Stop trying to hold the wolf,” Sable said, “Reach past the fur, past the familiar shape of your own mind. Go deeper than that, girl.”

I closed my eyes, my boots sinking into the damp earth. Deeper? What the hell is deeper than the wolf?

I pushed my awareness inward, sliding right past my own thoughts, past the twin fluttering heartbeats of my babies, past the dark fur of my silver-eyed wolf. I kept dropping down into the blackness until my mind brushed against something else.

Something hidden beneath the floorboards of my soul.

I gasped, my eyes flying open as my knees buckled. It wasn't warm like my wolf. It was freezing, ancient, perfectly patient and incredibly hungry. It felt like an endless pit waiting to swallow everything whole.

Sable didn't move to help me up. She just watched me with her face perfectly still. She expected this. She knew it was down there.

“What... what is that?” I breathed, my hands shaking against the wet grass.

“Do not fear it,” Sable murmured, “It has been waiting for you since before you were born, Freya. It is your blood. It is the thread that pulls.”

Waiting for me? Since before I was born? The questions started looping through my head like a fever. If this thing had always been inside me, why did the Shadowbrook tonics make me feel so weak?

Were they suppressing the wolf, or were they trying to keep this hungry, ancient thing from waking up? And what happens to me if it finishes waking?

That night, the dreams changed completely.

The shadows with Zevren's glowing green eyes and Kaelen's face finally receded, disappearing back into the dark corners of my skull. Instead, I found myself standing in an endless field of silver grass under a heavy, grey sky. A few feet away, a woman stood with her back to me.

“Mom?” I called out, my voice sounding incredibly small in the dream.

I snapped awake in the pitch black, my chest heaving.

“God,” I muttered, coughing softly. The taste of blood was thick on my tongue.

I reached under my nightshirt, my fingers instantly searching for the smooth, flat guardian stone Sable had pressed into my palm right before she left the healing room earlier. It was still hot, practically vibrating with a dull warmth against my bare skin.

I slipped out of bed and hid it deep under the heavy mattress, right next to the frame where Zevren’s servants wouldn't find it when they changed the sheets.

I didn't understand what the stone was. I didn't know what kind of magic was trapped inside the dark slate. But I remembered the grip of Sable’s hand when she gave it to me, and the look in her eyes.

She hadn't given it to me out of kindness. She’d given it to me because she was terrified of what was coming, and that scared me more than any shadow ever could.

Three nights after Sable arrived, the fog didn't just stay in the valley. It crept right into my room, smelling like wet dirt and burnt leaves.

I woke up without making a sound, my sharpened senses instantly clicking into overdrive. The door was shut tight, but the air was heavy and thick with smoke. On the floor by the wardrobe, a small clay bowl was resting on the wood, a dark clump of dried herbs smoldering inside it.

And right at the foot of my bed stood Sable.

She looked like a ghost in the moonlight, her parchment skin practically glowing as her lips moved in a tiny, rapid whisper. I stayed completely frozen, keeping my breathing slow and pretending to be dead to the world while my heart slammed against my ribs.

Then, she said the name.

“Annalise.”

My breath caught in my throat. Annalise was my mother's name. She wasn't just praying; she was warning someone. Or something. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, every muscle in my body vibrating with the urge to jump up and demand answers, but I forced myself to stay still.

A few seconds later, the rustle of her heavy skirts faded, and the door clicked shut without a sound. She was gone.

The next morning, I didn't wait for her to start the drills. I caught her by the stone archway before the sun could even burn the morning mist off the grass.

“You were in my room last night,” I said, stepping right into her path, my hands shoved deep into my pockets to hide the shaking. “You burned herbs. And you said my mother's name. Don't lie to me, Sable. How do you know her?”

Sable just stared back at me, perfectly calm, perfectly unbothered by my anger.

“I have no reason to deny it, girl,” she said, her dry voice barely carrying over the wind in the leaves. “I knew Annalise. We came from the exact same root. The same ancient line.”

My mind spun, trying to piece together the fragments of stories I'd been told as a kid. The same line?

“If she had this... whatever this hungry thing is inside me, why didn't she teach me? Why did she let Shadowbrook keep me weak?”

“Because she loved you,” Sable snapped, a sudden, fierce heat breaking through her cold face. “She hid her bloodline and let them think you were just a broken, useless Omega because a ghost is harder to hunt. She did it to protect you from the people who would use that hunger as a weapon.”

“People like Kaelen?” I breathed.

“People like everyone,” Sable said, her gaze shifting intentionally toward the main pack house. “Zevren knows you are valuable, Freya, but he does not know the full extent of what you actually carry. And if you want to keep that child in your belly safe, he never should.”

“Take it back,” I whispered, trying to push her hand away. “I don't want your secrets. I don't want this.”

“Keep it close,” she ordered, her voice cutting through my panic like a blade. “It will wake when you need it most. Do not lose it.”

Suddenly, her grip vanished. Her eyes darted past my shoulder toward the gravel path, and every single drop of emotion instantly emptied out of her face, leaving her looking like a blank stone statue.

A second later, the heavy, even crunch of Zevren's boots sounded on the gravel behind me.

“Good morning,” Zevren’s smooth voice washed over us, drawing the warmth right back out of the air. “You're both out early today.”

I slipped the stone into my pocket and turned to face him with a practiced smile.