The Alpha’s Last Bride

Four stones and a storm

Damien

I could have killed her.

One step. One throw. One command to the archers still watching from the ridge.

And yet I stood there, sword in hand, and watched her vanish into the trees.

Her cloak caught on a thorn bush, tearing as she ran — I saw the flash of pale skin, the blur of bloodied boots, the wild defiance still carved into her spine. The storm swallowed her whole, and I did nothing.

“She’s gone,” Garrick said behind me. “You want me to send riders?”

I didn’t answer right away. My jaw was tight, the grip on my sword too firm. The weight of her last words clung to the air like smoke.

If you want to kill me, Alpha, you’ll have to find me first.

Something about it had stopped me. Not the threat — it was laughable. She’d been trembling. Exhausted. Alone. One clean arrow and it would’ve been done.

But there was something else. She hadn’t looked away.

Not from me. Not from death. Not even when every soul around her had bowed their heads to survive.

“No,” I said finally. “Let her run.”

Garrick frowned. “Damien, she’s dangerous. She has the crowd’s loyalty. Their sympathy.”

“She has no weapons. No army. No chance.”

“Doesn’t take much to start a fire.”

I looked back toward the trees, where the shadows had swallowed her whole. “She’s not the fire,” I said. “She’s the smoke that lingers after.”

Garrick didn’t press me further. He knew better. But I could feel his questions in the silence between us.

I didn’t understand it either. I’d ended Rowan without a second thought — one clean strike, no hesitation. That was war. That was mercy.

But her?

I should have done it. Should have taken the final piece off the board. Should have silenced the last voice of that rebellion before it could grow teeth again.

Instead, I let her go.

“Burn the camp,” I said, finally turning away. “There’s nothing left here worth salvaging.”

Garrick nodded once and turned to bark the orders. I heard the rush of movement behind me — soldiers moving, fires being set, the wet thud of metal scraping through rubble and ash.

But I kept walking, the mud thick beneath my boots, the storm still raging above.

And in the back of my mind, I kept seeing her eyes.

The way she looked at me.

Not like a victim.

Not like a soldier.

Like a mirror.

By the time I returned to Stormwatch, the fires were still smoldering in the eastern hearths. The keep never warmed easily — too much stone, too much shadow — but today it felt colder than usual.

I didn’t go to the war room. Not yet.

Instead, I walked the upper corridor, letting the storm-slick hallways dry from my cloak, letting the weight of the day settle where no one could see it. My boots echoed on the flagstones. Rain tapped the glass in erratic rhythms like it had something to say.

Garrick was waiting outside my study.

“There’s a letter,” he said. “Bastion seal.”

I didn’t ask what it said. I already knew. I broke the wax and read it anyway, hoping for a different threat this time.

There wasn’t.

“They’ve given me until the next Bastion Alliance meeting,” I said flatly, setting the parchment down. “To name a wife. Or present an heir.”

“And if not?” Garrick asked, though I could hear it in his voice — he already knew the answer.

“They’ll call a vote,” I said. “The Bastion Alliance will petition to revoke Stormwatch’s seat.”

Garrick muttered a curse. “They wouldn’t.”

“They would,” I replied. “And they’ve done it before. You remember the Hollow Rift Pack. No Alpha. No line. The council stripped their title and carved their territory like a carcass.”

“That was years ago—”

“Doesn’t matter,” I cut in. “The rule stands. Every pack in Aruyios must have an Alpha and a clear line of succession. No exceptions. Not even Stormwatch.”

“And still no noble house will send their daughters.”

“Would you?” I asked. “Four Lunas in the ground. No heir. No explanation.”

Garrick didn’t speak.

“I’ve been Alpha since my first shift at seventeen,” I said quietly, crossing to the cold hearth. “Fourteen years. The bloodline ends with me unless I keep a wife alive long enough to carry it forward.”

He looked up, wary. “You’re not considering… naming a successor?”

I turned. “And start a war within the packs?”

It wasn’t just about choosing someone. It was about who I didn’t choose. Every Alpha with more than one son would demand his be named heir. Factions would rise. Allegiances would fracture. The border would weaken. Stormwatch would collapse under its own weight before a crown was even passed.

“The only clean way forward,” I said, “is to have a son of my own.”

“And if you don’t?” Garrick asked quietly.

I didn’t answer him right away. The question had lived inside me for years — in the silence after each burial, in the eyes of the messengers who no longer delivered marriage proposals, in the way the keep’s halls echoed too loudly at night.

“If I don’t,” I said, “Stormwatch ends with me.”

Garrick left without another word. I didn’t stop him.

The door shut with a quiet finality that echoed louder than it should have. I stayed where I was, standing in the center of my study, the parchment still on the desk beside me. The seal from the Bastion Alliance was cracked down the middle, the ink already smudging from where I’d gripped it too tightly.

The storm scratched at the windows behind me, long, clawing strokes against glass. The fire in the hearth hadn’t been lit in weeks. I didn’t care. Cold suited me.

This room was meant for strategy — maps, scrolls, bloodlines, banners. But now it held nothing but silence and the ghost of a woman I hadn’t killed.

I should have ended her when I had the chance.

She’d run into the forest like she knew I wouldn’t. Long, dark ginger hair plastered to her back with rain, boots slipping in the mud, blood on her palms and fire in her eyes. Not a soldier. Just a girl too stubborn to kneel.

And I had let her go.

She wasn’t beautiful in the way noble daughters were trained to be — not polished, not poised. She was dirt and defiance. But something about her still lingered behind my eyes. Something about the way she looked at me like she dared me to try.

The fire in her eyes was brighter than anything left in this keep.

I turned away from the window, jaw tight.

And found Elias Voss already making himself comfortable in the chair by the fire.

“Well, well,” he said, swirling a glass of brandy I hadn’t offered. “They said you came back soaked in blood and looking like death. I suppose I expected more of a limp.”

I didn’t look up. “Elias.”

My second cousin strolled into the room like he owned it, hands clasped behind his back, boots deliberately too loud against the marble floor. He wore a dark red waistcoat — velvet, of course — and smelled faintly of wine and something expensive. Probably someone’s perfume.

He poured himself a glass of something he didn’t ask for, then took the chair across from me without being invited.

“I heard I missed quite the display,” he said. “Rebellion. Fire. Blood. All very dramatic. I would’ve ridden out, of course, but my tailor was delayed, and you know how cold my horse gets.”

I finally looked at him. Elias Voss was shorter than most wolves — thick around the middle, with a pale, sharp-featured face and a mouth that always looked like it was holding in a secret. He was the kind of man who never fought but always knew exactly what you’d done wrong.

And he’d been spoiled since birth.

His family had wealth in spades. He had no role in the Stormwatch hierarchy, no bloodline pressure, no military history to uphold. Just endless leisure, and far too much time to think.

“I take it you’ve heard the Alliance’s message,” I said.

“Oh yes,” he replied, swirling the drink. “A marriage or an heir. Or they revoke our seat. Such tedious people. But you must admit — it’s a delicious little problem. Everyone loves a cursed Alpha.”

I didn’t reply.

He leaned back, watching me over the rim of his glass. “You’re what now, thirty-one?”

“Thirty-two next moon.”

“Ancient,” he said with mock solemnity. “Four wives, no heirs. The noble girls are fleeing faster than your last Luna’s pulse.”

I stood slowly, not because I was angry, but because I knew it irritated him when I loomed. “Say what you came to say.”

Elias only smiled. “Just wondering if it’s time to… diversify. Perhaps stop insisting the line must come from you.”

I didn’t move.

He held up a hand. “Not me. Gods, no. But there are other options, aren’t there? Strong-blooded sons in trusted houses. A vote, a shift in the structure. We’ve weathered worse.”

“No,” I said flatly.

“Because of the curse?”

“Because of the risk,” I said. “Naming a successor invites ambition. And ambition splits packs.”

Elias tsked under his breath. “You always were so dramatic.”

“I always had something to protect,” I said.

He didn’t flinch at that, but his smile faded into something harder.

“I hope you know,” he said, finishing his drink, “that when the Bastion votes — and they will — it won’t be the curse they care about. It’ll be power. If they can take it from you, they will. And if they can’t… they’ll give it to someone else.”

I let the silence answer.

He rose, brushing invisible lint from his sleeve. “You should get some rest, cousin. You look like a man who’s running out of time.”

He didn’t wait for a reply before slipping out, boots clicking against the floor like a clock counting down.

The Stormwatch graveyard wasn’t far from the keep, but I still made the walk alone.

No guards. No ceremony. No sound but the storm ebbing into drizzle. The ground was slick beneath my boots, softened by days of rain. The moon slipped between clouds like it was trying not to look.

I hated this place.

It sat on the edge of the forest, ringed by blackthorn trees and old iron fencing. No marble here. No gold or polished epitaphs. Just four stones in a line — simple, weather-worn, and far too close together.

I stopped in front of the newest one.

Donna Vellin.

No dates. No title carved beneath. Just the name. The stone was barely dry, still rough from the mason’s chisel. The earth around it had sunk, still uneven.

I crouched and laid the wildflowers down — not roses. Just whatever I’d picked from the slope on the way here. Pale white blossoms, small and shivering in the breeze.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

I didn’t love her. Not her, not any of them.

Elsabeth had been quiet, devout. Kira, full of fire she’d never gotten to use. Thalia, sweet and simple. Donna… sharp-edged. Too proud to pretend. We’d barely spoken outside council dinners and ceremonial appearances. She hadn’t wanted tenderness. I hadn’t offered it.

And still, she died under my roof, just like the rest.

I sat back on my heels, hands resting on my thighs, staring at the four markers like they might shift if I blinked.

They never did.

“I didn’t love you,” I said. “But I was supposed to protect you.”

The words sat there, cold and hollow. I thought of the Alliance letter. The empty bedchamber. The way the maids had flinched when they cleaned the blood.

Four Lunas. Four stones.

There wouldn’t be a fifth, not if I could help it.

“I’m sorry you joined them,” I murmured, eyes fixed on Donna’s name. “You deserved better than this.”

A gust of wind stirred the wildflowers. One petal blew loose, carried down the hill toward the keep — toward the life I still had to rule, the weight I still had to carry.

I stood, and walked away without looking back.