The Alpha’s Last Bride

The ghosts in the halls

Ayla

The sheets were soaked through with sweat again. My body burned beneath the thick covers, but when I pushed them off, the cold struck me like a slap. My teeth chattered uncontrollably.

Damn it. Not again.

I pressed a trembling hand to my chest, then to my throat. Burning. Every inch of me throbbed with fever, like something inside was churning too fast, demanding release. This wasn’t illness. I’d tended illness. This was something else. A storm in my blood, rolling hotter with each passing hour.

I staggered from the bed, barely making it to the bellpull by the door before my legs gave out. A maid answered eventually—a girl I hadn’t seen before. Her eyes widened when she saw me on the floor.

“I need... the medicine,” I rasped. “The one they gave me before. Please.”

She hesitated, clearly unsure. “I was told not to disturb the apothecary unless—”

“Please,” I said again, louder this time. “If you don’t get it, I’ll claw my own skin off.”

That did the trick. She returned minutes later with a small vial. The moment I swallowed it, I felt the cool relief bloom in my veins, like stepping into deep water after being set on fire. My breath slowed. My skin stopped screaming.

But the shame didn’t.

I lay back against the pillows, chest rising and falling in shallow bursts. I hated the dependency. Hated that I’d begged. But worse still was knowing the potion had worked. Fast. Too fast. It wasn’t herbal. It wasn’t basic fever medicine.

Later, when the shivers were gone and the fever had dulled to a throb, I dressed in one of the simpler gowns that had been left in my wardrobe—a soft grey wool, far less regal than the silk monstrosity from the night before—and stepped into the corridor.

I needed to move. To think. To be somewhere that didn’t smell like him.

Somewhere I could breathe. The medicine had dulled the fever, but not the restlessness. It was barely past dawn when I cracked the door open and found no one standing outside.

No guards. No posted sentries. Just a quiet, empty corridor painted gold by the slanted morning light. My eyes scanned both directions, pulse ticking up—not with fear, but with curiosity. Caution whispered that something was wrong, but I ignored it. If Damien had truly meant to cage me, he would’ve bolted the door. Or left a man with sharper teeth and stricter orders.

Instead, there was nothing. And nothing was invitation enough.

I stepped into the hall, barefoot, the stone cool beneath my feet. My shift swayed around my legs as I moved quietly, soft as a shadow, ears straining for any sound. The keep was unnaturally still. No footsteps, no voices, not even the distant clang of the kitchens or the low murmur of stablehands.

It felt… abandoned.

I turned down the eastern wing, past oil paintings of ancestors too proud to smile. I’d avoided exploring until now—first because I’d been too weak, then because I hadn’t wanted to run into him. But the quiet today was thick, blanketed, like Stormwatch itself was asleep. Or holding its breath.

At the end of a long corridor, I found a door I hadn’t noticed before—smaller, set into the wall like a secret. It groaned open beneath my hand, revealing a winding staircase cloaked in dust and filtered light. I hesitated, then stepped through.

The stairwell led up, narrow and old, its air stale with disuse. As I climbed, the silence deepened. A few more steps, and I emerged into what must have once been the eastern study wing—now clearly abandoned. Windows were shuttered. Bookshelves loomed like forgotten sentries. Faded rugs stretched beneath a thin layer of grime.

Then I saw the portraits. Dozens of them, hung in careful rows.

Women. Pale, poised, dressed in white. The Lunas of Stormwatch.

A chill spread beneath my skin. I moved closer, squinting at the placards etched with names I didn’t recognize. Most of the women were young—too young. Their eyes all held the same expression. Distant. Composed. Resigned.

And then I reached the end of the row.

One frame had been defaced.

Clawed, not slashed—four clean gouges cutting through the paint like talons, raking across the woman’s throat. The plaque beneath had been pried off. All that remained was a smear of dried pigment and the faint shape of her veil, torn across what used to be a face.

I stared at it for a long time, my pulse growing loud in my ears.

What happened to her?

Was she the last Luna before me?

The urge to step back gripped me, but my body wouldn’t move. My breath fogged slightly in the cool air, and that’s when I realized: the temperature here was lower. Much lower. As if this part of the keep had turned its back on the sun.

A soft voice behind me made me jump.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

I whirled. A young maid stood just beyond the doorway, a stack of linens in her arms and worry in her eyes.

“Why not?” I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.

She shifted from foot to foot. “This wing’s not used anymore. It gives people… bad dreams.”

My brow furrowed. “Do you know who that was?” I gestured to the defaced portrait.

She hesitated. “No one talks about her.”

“But you know something.”

Her throat worked. “Some say she died in her sleep. Others say she jumped. But I heard the seamstress say her blood never touched the floor. That it vanished. Like she was taken.”

The words hit me like a slap. I blinked at her, unsure I’d heard right. But she didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away.

“She wasn’t the only one,” the maid added, her voice soft but heavy with meaning.

I stilled. Her hands were clasped in front of her apron, knuckles pale, eyes darting toward the ruined portrait on the wall.

“Four before you. All dead.”

I felt the truth of it settle low in my gut, cold and undeniable. “They all married him?”

She gave a single, grim nod. “Each one. And each one gone within weeks. A fever. A fall. One drowned in the bathing pools. The last… no one’s sure. She just—stopped waking.”

My mouth dried. I swallowed hard. “And no one thought that was strange?”

“They whisper,” she said, voice barely more than a breath. “They say it’s a curse. That the keep doesn’t want a Luna. Or maybe… maybe the Voss men are just born unlucky.”

I stepped closer to the cracked portrait, drawn despite myself. The face was scratched out violently, gouges deep into the paint like claw marks. It looked angry. Like whoever defaced it wanted her erased completely.

“What about his mother?” I asked, sharper than I meant to.

The maid twitched. “She died too. When Alpha Damien was young.”

“How?”

“Childbirth.” Her voice dropped. “The babe didn’t survive either.”

The silence stretched between us, thick and pulsing. My thoughts spun. I’d known something was wrong here. I could feel it in the bones of this place. In the way the staff looked right through me. In the coldness that never quite left the halls. In the things I wasn’t supposed to see.

“How long has this been happening?” I whispered.

She looked over her shoulder like the stone might be listening. “Since the first Luna. Generations ago. Every Alpha has buried his wife. Some didn’t even make it to the wedding night.”

My stomach twisted.

“That’s why the noble houses refused him?” I asked.

She nodded slowly. “That’s why they chose you.”

I took a step back from the painting. I couldn’t stop looking at the scratches. They were brutal. Deliberate.

“Don’t stay here too long,” the maid whispered, barely audible now. “The keep remembers. Even if he tries to forget.”

I didn’t ask any more questions.

The silence that followed pressed too tightly against my ribs, and the gouged-out portrait seemed to glare at me with every step I took back from it. My fingers were numb, my skin cold despite the warmth of the corridor.

I’d had enough adventure for one day.

Heart pounding, I slipped away from the girl and back through the winding stone halls. My footsteps were quiet but purposeful, echoing off the walls as I made my way toward the Luna wing. I didn’t know if the maid would say anything. I wasn’t sure it mattered.

When I turned the final corner, I found two guards stationed stiffly at my door—exactly where they hadn’t been earlier.

Their arms crossed as soon as they saw me, eyes narrowing.

I stopped just short of them and forced a smile I didn’t feel. “Evening.”

Neither replied. I cleared my throat, brushing imagined dust from my sleeve. “If you don’t tell anyone I slipped out… I won’t mention that you weren’t there when I did.”

One of them scowled. The other looked away. Fair trade.

I slipped past them into my suite, locking the door with a sharp click behind me. My hands were still trembling. My body felt drained—too much adrenaline, too many questions with no answers.

I made a beeline for the desk, pulling one of the notebooks Damien had sent me from the drawer. It still smelled like leather and ink, untouched.

I cracked it open and began to write. Names I didn’t know. Portraits with missing faces. A line of dead brides. A mother lost to childbirth. A curse that everyone pretended didn’t exist. I jotted every detail I could remember. Every strange look. Every silence that felt too heavy.

If the keep had secrets—it wouldn’t keep them from me for long.

And if I couldn’t trust anyone else…

At least I’d have this. My own record. My own truth.

And a growing suspicion that I was not the first girl to feel hunted inside Stormwatch Keep.