MATED TO THE COLD ALPHA

Chapter 8

Sera POV

I stood on my feet before the door opened.

Two men entered. Neither of them was the Alpha. I recognised one of them instantly. The stone-faced guard who had brought me into this room when I first arrived. The other was new. Taller. Broader. His green gaze cut through the shadows as someone swept over a situation they had already analysed before entering it.

His unblinking eyes… tracked the frantic pulse hammering in my bare throat.

"Let's go." The first man said. Uttering no other explanation.

"Where to?" I asked.

"That's none of your concern."

My eyes darted between them. The silent one tracked me, dead-still and unblinking. It wasn't a peaceful quiet; it was the coiled, heavy vibration of a wolf waiting for the snap of a trap.

"I'm not moving until someone tells me where I'm being taken to," I said.

The first guard's expression changed. He took one step forward.

Then the second man raised his hand slightly. Just barely. And the first guard stopped in his tracks.

Then the second man looked at me directly for the first time and said, calm and unhurried. "You're being moved to a different room. That's all."

His voice didn't freeze the room like the Alpha's. It was a low, steady rumble smoothing over jagged glass, keeping the animal chained just beneath his voice.

I looked at him for a moment.

"Why?" I asked.

A muscle twitched near his mouth, melting his harsh glare into a dark, razor-thin smirk.

"Because the Alpha said so." He said. "Don't make this any more difficult than it already is."

I picked up nothing. I had nothing to pick up. I crossed the room and walked out the door between them.

—------

The estate looked way different at this hour.

The house seemed way quieter, but not empty. Two men in black clothing moved past us at the far end without glancing in our direction, speaking in low-toned voices about something to do with the northern perimeter rotation. A door stood open on the left side of the hall, illuminating warm light out across the floor and through it I caught a brief glimpse of a large room, a long table, maps spread across it, and a man in the corner writing something in a notebook.

I filed every detail away automatically.

The second man walked slightly ahead of me. The first stayed close behind me. We moved through the main corridor and turned left, then right, and then up a flight of stairs, in which I stepped onto a wider hallway with higher ceilings and darker walls.

This hall looks entirely different from the one downstairs.

The rooms up here were spaced much further apart. The doors looked way heavier. The lighting was lower and warmer. Everything about this floor felt deliberately removed from the ground level, quieter. More contained.

We stopped outside a door near the end of the hall.

The second man pushed it open and stepped back.

I stepped in and looked inside.

It was larger than the chamber room I was just in. Considerably. A proper bed against the wall, not a single cot, an actual bed with dark covers and real pillows. A window that still looked latched shut from the outside but bigger and wider than the last one. A brown wooden desk in the corner with a chair. A lamp on the bedside table casts warm yellow light across the room. An open door showing a bigger bathroom with a proper mirror placed on the wall.

I stood there and didn't move for a moment.

“Well, this sure looks like an upgrade,” Tala said quietly in the back of my mind.

I didn't respond to her.

"Someone will start bringing food to you." The second man said from behind me.

“Huh? really?” I said, sounding confused.

“Don't ask any more questions.” He responded.

I turned around. "Who are you exactly?" I asked.

His green eyes locked onto mine, hard and flat as twin chips of jade.

"Cael." He said. Just the name. Nothing attached to it.

Something about the way he said it, no rank, no title, no explanation, told me the name was supposed to mean something. I filed it away alongside everything else.

"Why did he move me here?” I asked.

"You'll have to ask him that yourself."

"I'm asking you."

Cael stared at me for a moment. Then said, "Get some sleep." He guided me into the room and pulled the door shut behind me.

The lock clicked from the outside. Leaving only the sound of my ragged breathing in the cold, lit room.

—------

Morning came in through the latched window in thin grey strips before the lamp had a chance to matter anymore.

I hadn't slept. Not properly. I had lain on top of the covers with my jacket still on and my eyes open. My thoughts spun like static, loud and blurred, offering no escape.

The door opened at what I guessed was just past seven.

A young woman came in carrying a tray. She was small and dark-haired, walking in careful movements and eyes that moved to me once and then stayed carefully on the tray instead. She set it on the desk without a word.

She opened the cover, and what I saw caught my attention. A small loaf of bread, fresh fried eggs and bacon on a plate, a glass of yellow juice that looks like pineapple, and a bottle of water.

After placing it on the deck, she turned around and was about to leave.

"Hey," I called.

Her boots froze. Slowly, her neck twisted, dragging her gaze back over a tense shoulder.

"What's your name?" I asked.

Silence stretched, heavy and tense. Her throat bobbed as she glanced toward the door, checking for invisible chains.

"Mara." She said quietly.

"How long have you worked in this house, Mara?"

Her eyes went to the door. Then back to me. "For two years now."

"Do you live in this pack house?"

"Most of the pack does." She said, her throat instantly tightened as her jaw went rigid with regret.

I forced my jaw to loosen, smoothing my face into the soft, harmless mask I used on caged animals.

"The food smells so good," I said. "Thank you."

Her rigid posture cracked, a flicker of confusion washing over her tight features. She gave a stiff nod and bolted for the door.

The lock clicked behind her. Probably one of the guards who locked it for her.

I stood up and walked towards the desk. My chair scraped the floor. I pulled the heavy silver tray close, the rich scent hitting my tongue before the first bite. I chewed mechanically, swallowing past a dry throat while my eyes swept the sharp angles of the unfamiliar walls.

“She seemed nice,” Tala offered.

“She seemed careful,” I said. “There's a difference.”

“Maybe it's both.”

I took a glass of pineapple juice after finishing half of my food already. It tasted so much sweeter than I expected.

Most of the pack lives in this house. That was useful information. That meant this building was larger than what I had seen. That meant more people moving through it daily. More routines. More patterns.

Hopefully, there would be more potential gaps for my escape.

The heavy oak door clicked, slicing through my thoughts as the door swung wide.

Not Mara this time.

Cael stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He looked at the tray, half empty, then at me. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall near the door, sinking into the wall like a wolf claiming a new den.

"Did you sleep well?" He said. A question.

"Barely," I said.

"But you've eaten, though, right?"

"I need to keep my strength up," I said. "Considering—"

A dark shadow fell across his features. "Considering what?"

"Considering I'm being held here against my own will by an Alpha who won't tell me what he plans to do with me," My voice stayed dead-flat, dropping the words between us like cold stones.

Cael stared at me for a moment. "But you're no longer in a cell at least."

"The door is always locked from the outside," I said. "The window is also latched shut. Bringing me food only on a scheduled basis." I looked at him directly. "What would you call that?"

He stayed silent. His green gaze dragged slowly over my skin, heavy and calculating as a wolf tracking a scent.

"You're from the Ashbone pack, isn't that right?" He said.

"Yes."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-two." I paused. "Why?"

Silence. His unblinking stare scraped over my face, stripping me bare while hiding everything behind a wall of cold stone.

"Is there a reason why you're here?" I said. "Or is this just how mornings work in this pack, by checking in on locked prisoners?"

The corner of his mouth moved. Just slightly. Was there and gone in an instant.

"The Alpha wants to know if you need medical attention." He said. "For your shoulder."

My muscles froze.

A dull throbbing had pulsed in my left shoulder since the woods incident, a fire I’d tried to smother with forced ignorance. The fact that the Alpha had noticed, or cared enough to send someone to check in on me, sparked a strange, unwelcome warmth deep into my chest.

I didn't let it show.

"I'm fine, I've been healing gradually with the help of my wolf powers since yesterday, it isn't anything serious," I said.

Cael pushed himself off the wall. Moved toward the door. Then stopped with his hand on the handle and looked back at me one more time.

"I know what you are to him." His voice dropped low. "And I want you to understand something very clearly." His green stare hardened into twin chips of jade. "If you were lying about any of it. If there is any part of your story that isn't what you've told us to be true so far. You will regret it"

The heavy oak door swung open and swallowed his frame before slamming shut.

The sharp clack of the lock from outside echoed in the sudden silence, leaving his threat hanging in the air like heavy smoke.