Moonbound Alpha

Chapter 5 - The Dying Pup

Elara POV

The west wing wasn’t as welcoming as Ronan had led me to believe it might be. Then again, I was starting to understand that comfort had never been his goal in placing me here. The hallway alone was colder than the rest of the house, a damp chill that clung to my clothes and made the stone walls feel closer than they were. Even after I scrubbed away the dust and coaxed a reluctant fire into the old hearth, the infirmary still smelled of rosemary, salt, and old fear, the kind that settled deep in the walls and never truly left.

The fire snapped behind the grate, casting restless, twitching light over the faded blue wallpaper and rows of empty bedframes pushed against the walls. Shadows gathered in the corners, huddled like they were waiting for something. A single droplet of water fell from a ceiling beam above the tall window, landing on the sill with a rhythmic tick. Then another. And another. The sound was maddening in its constancy, slow, deliberate, a dripping metronome keeping time for something unseen.

I counted without meaning to.

Seventy-one. Seventy-two. Seventy…

The door banged once, hard, sharp, impatient.

Not the quick double-knock of a guard checking in. This wasn’t polite. It was the kind of knock that said: I don’t need permission.

I was already moving when I heard the lock click. Whoever it was had a key.

I tensed as the door swung open and filled with the solid frame of a man I recognized immediately. Kieran, the Beta. His ash-blond hair was the same unruly shade as Ronan’s, though it looked like it had seen a blade more recently. His arms were bare this time, revealing a sleeve of intricate, inked runes that crawled up his skin like a binding spell. His presence carried weight, calm but watchful, the way a coiled spring waits.

But it wasn’t just him.

I turned my eyes to the man who entered just behind him. He moved with sharpness, the kind you didn’t notice until it was too late. Tall and lean, with short-cropped black hair that barely bent to any breeze. His face was expressionless, but his pale gray-green eyes were all edge. His gaze cut through the room like a blade, tracing walls, exits, and shadows. Calculating.

And he smelled like iron and engine oil, not blood, not sweat, but something mechanical and cold. Manufactured.

“Who are you?” I asked, eyeing the stranger.

“Rafe. Delta.” His voice was clipped, guttural, as if introductions were beneath him, a box to tick before getting to the real business.

He didn’t look at me when he spoke. His eyes kept moving, like a predator scanning for sudden motion. I could practically feel him measuring the distance from me to the fireplace poker, the rusted hinges of the window latch, the length of chain still trailing from my wrists.

Kieran’s attention, on the other hand, was focused entirely on me. He studied my stance, the angle of my feet, the way I’d instinctively shifted slightly toward the wall, calculating how fast I might bolt, how easily I might fight.

“Up,” Rafe snapped.

I was already standing, but I straightened a little further anyway, mostly out of spite.

Kieran didn’t raise his voice, but the urgency in it was unmistakable. “We need you.”

I didn’t move. Not yet. It was those three words, the unspoken desperation behind them, and the expression on Kieran’s face that made me pause. He didn’t look at me like I was a prisoner. He looked at me like I was the only option they had left.

“What kind?” I asked, wary.

“Breathing’s wrong,” Kieran said, his voice quieter now, like the words themselves might spook fate. “Shallow. Fast. I think it’s a fever.”

He stopped, uncertain, and I used the silence to press.

“A pup.”

His eyes met mine. He gave one tight nod.

“How old?”

“Six.”

I exhaled through my nose, sharp and involuntary. Too young to shift. Too weak to fight off whatever was burning through their body.

“Then let me go.” I lifted my hands, the silver cuffs catching the firelight with a mocking gleam. “The cuffs will kill him faster than the fever will.”

Rafe’s lip curled, not in amusement, but in disgust. “You think I’ll just hand you freedom because you said please?”

“No.” I met his gaze, unflinching. “I think you came here instead of to your Alpha because you already know what he’d say. You’re buying time you don’t have, hoping I’ll say yes without strings.”

Rafe’s jaw tensed. He didn’t answer, but his silence shouted enough.

Kieran didn’t say anything either. His quiet was agreement.

“I want one hour,” I said, clearly. “No silver. No cuffs. Hands-free. You can keep a blade to my spine the whole time if it makes you feel better, but I’ll return when the pup breathes right, or not at all.”

Rafe’s eyes flicked toward the hallway, then back to me. His silence cracked for a single, begrudging word. “Alpha decides.”

Of course he does. I didn’t bother hiding the bitterness that curled in my chest. All of this, the fire, the cuffs, the guard rotations outside my door came back to Ronan.

And right on cue, the doorway filled with him.

Alpha Ronan didn’t storm into rooms. He entered the way falling trees did, impossible to ignore, somehow louder than they should be.

His gaze found mine. Those gray eyes always unsettled me. They weren’t cruel, not exactly. Just unreadable. And in that moment, I forgot the cuffs burning into my wrists.

“What do you need?” he asked, his voice low, too gentle. It was the kind of tone meant to soften edges. A hunter’s whisper.

“Freedom,” I said. “For one hour.”

He held my gaze, something unreadable tightening behind his eyes. Then, he nodded.

“I’ll allow it,” he said, stepping in close enough that I could smell the leather and cedar on his skin. “But if you try anything…”

“I’ll die before I run,” I cut in. “That’s a promise, not a threat.”

His eyes darkened at the interruption, but he didn’t correct me. Maybe he knew I meant it.

Everything moved quickly after that. The cuffs were removed slowly, like they expected me to lunge the moment the silver left my skin. I didn’t. The pack’s inner circle fell into a tight formation around me, every angle covered. I could feel the blades, the eyes, the teeth, all ready to strike.

We moved from the cold room with a sharp urgency, boots echoing off the stone floors like war drums. Down the narrow hallways, past oil lamps that barely kept the dark at bay, I followed them through the packhouse with a strange clarity. They were afraid, not of me, but of losing a child.

That told me everything.

Ronan cared about children. That much was clear in the tension in his shoulders, the speed of his steps.

But only if they weren’t rogues.

That part? That wasn’t surprising at all.

—-

The room they led me to was thick with the scent of herbs. They were trying to heal him, and clearly failing if they were resorting to asking their prisoner for help. I could smell rosemary, sage, and yarrow. I also smelled something older, heavier… something like fear. It is the kind of fear that settles into the walls and never leaves.

I could see the mother of the child near the back; she was with other women, mothers perhaps. Their hands were pressed to their mouths, and a nurse was crouched near a hospital bed. Her face was pale. The pup was hardly old enough to be on his own, and he lay in the middle of the hospital bed surrounded by blankets. His chest was rising too fast, too shallowly. His lips were turning blue.

I walked over and dropped to my knees beside him. “He’s aspirated.”

Ronan stood behind me. “Translate into something I understand, not medical talk.”

“He has something in his lungs,” I translated. “He is drowning from the inside out.”

He tensed behind me, and I felt the air around him crackle. It wasn’t fear, but anger. “What do you need?” He asked again, quieter this time. I could hear that he would give me whatever I asked for if I could save this child.

“Silence,” I said. “And space. All of you out.”

Kieran frowned. “You think I’ll leave a witch alone with a child?”

I turned, meeting his eyes. “I think that if you stay that your fear will make me clumsy.”

Ronan’s voice cut through the argument between his beta and me. “Out. Everyone out but me.”

Kieran hesitated, then nodded once before ushering everyone out of the door. The door shut, muffling the chorus of whispered prayers and cries for the child to be saved.

Now it was just us… the Alpha, the witch, and a dying child.

The boy’s breathing hitched. I pressed a hand to his chest, and the fever burned like wildfire beneath his skin. I knew immediately what kind of spell I’d need, but it was a forbidden one. It was one that I would do without hesitation.

I closed my eyes, let my breathing sync with the pups. “In through the lungs, out through the blood…” I whispered, and I could hear Ronan crouching beside me.

His presence was electric next to me. “What are you doing?”

“Making room… pain travels easier through a willing vessel.”

I placed my other hand against my own ribs, focusing until the threads of energy connecting us pulsed silver. Light bled between my hand and his chest, bright enough to make Ronan flinch, a movement I could hear as I smelled sage and iron fill the air. My veins burned cold before my skin turned hot.

The boy’s chest convulsed. A wet gasp escaped his lips, then another. I absorbed the sickness with every breath I stole. The fever settled beneath my skin, fever-hot, crawling, alive. The room spun, and I swayed.

Ronan steadied me. “Stop, you’re burning yourself.”

“Not yet… Almost…”

The light flared again, silver-tinted with red. A hiss filled the air, though I didn’t know where the sound came from. I screamed, the sound ripping from me short and sharp, as the last of the fever surged up my throat. Then it was gone.

Silence.

Then the boy gasped again. A clean sound this time, slightly wet-sounding, but steady. His fingers flexed once, then curled into the blanket for comfort. The color returned to his features, and the blue faded from his lips.

Ronan didn’t speak. He just knelt beside me and placed two fingers against the child’s pulse. It was steady.

When he finally looked at me, something unguarded flickered behind his eyes. I knew that look. It was awe, but something else too. It was something that scared him.

“You shouldn’t be able to do that.” He said, his voice was so quiet that I almost missed it.

I was a healer. I had been doing this since I was a child. So instead of answering, I simply shrugged and moved to my feet. Outside the door, I could hear the murmurs of wolves whispering about witches. Their tone now wasn’t fear, but newly found wonder in their hope that I could save the pup.

Ronan stood next to me. “Open the door.” He announced.

The doorway filled with faces, wide-eyed and cautious. The gaggle of mothers gasped when they saw the pup, breathing and looking normal. One mother fell to her knees, and the others followed.

The crowd parted for me as I moved to leave to go back to my room. Instead of shrinking back like they normally do, they parted for me to let me pass without incident.

An hour later, Rafe led me outside to a balcony that I could use as long as I wore the silver cuffs they deemed necessary. I was left alone with my thoughts, which I appreciated.

I sat on the low bench near the railing, looking out at the sunset. The orange and pink hues were being cast over the forest, making it look beautiful and ominous. The fever I had absorbed was gone, but the exhaustion stayed. The night air bit at my lungs like punishment for what I had done.

Footsteps echoed behind me. They were heavy, measured, and unmistakable.

“It’s freezing, you shouldn’t be out here,” Ronan said, his words announcing his presence if his footsteps hadn’t.

I didn’t turn to look at him. “I’ve survived worse weather than guilt.”

He didn’t take the bait. “You saved him.”

“I saved what was left of him,” I said. “The rest is up to your nurses and doctors.”

He came to stand beside me, the smell of smoke and pine lingering on his jacket. In his hands, a folded cloak rested. It was thick, black, and lined with fur. He held it out. “If you insist on staying out here, take it.”

I shook my head. “It’s too heavy.”

“You’re shivering.” He insisted.

“I’m remembering.”

That made him pause. “Remembering what?”

“How it feels to be useful…”

He exhaled, a long, low sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t sounded so tired. “The elders want your execution delayed.”

“Delayed? I didn’t even know it had been ordered.”

“They can’t hang a miracle in daylight.”

I almost smiled at his words. “So they’ll wait until night.”

“I’ll keep you alive.” He sounded quiet, but certain in his commitment.

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes.”

Our eyes met in the light, and something between us shifted. It was something small, but dangerous. Respect edged with fear, not of each other, but of what the other meant.

The wind picked up, carrying ash from firepits across the courtyard under us. The ash glimmered faintly in the light like tiny ghosts dancing in the air.

He broke the silence first. “You’ll have rooms with heat tomorrow.”

“How generous of you.”

“Strategic,” he corrected. “You’re no use to me frozen and shivering.”

“I wasn’t aware I’d become useful.”

He looked at me, then, really looked. “You already were.”

For a moment, neither of us moved. The cold turned sharp as the sky got darker with night. I could see his control slipping. He was the Alpha, trying not to admit the witch was becoming a necessity. A necessity he didn’t want to need.

He turned, the cloak still in hand. “One hour of freedom has become two,” he said. “You’ve earned that.”

He left, and the sound of his footsteps receded into the Keep.

The wind rose again, and I watched the ashes drift off until my vision blurred, and whispered to no one, to Selene, and to the land itself…

“Let me be more than what they fear.”