Alpha's Last Regret

The door opened with a soft scrape, and Lisa stepped in carrying a tray. Steam rose from the bowl; the smell was mild and warm. “Please eat," she said. Isabella sat on the narrow bed and watched the bowl without moving. The room—stone walls, a small barred window, a lock that clicked from the outside—had taught her the weight of silence. Shackles at her wrists had been removed weeks ago, but the cuff at her ankle remained, its chain describing a pale ring on the floor. She could walk to the window and no farther. “Don't call me 'My Lady,'" Isabella said, though she kept her voice low. In this place, words traveled. “I have to," Lisa answered. “It is his order. I cannot disobey." Isabella's stomach was empty, but pride was loud. She took the spoon anyway. The porridge was simple, honey just touching the edge of taste. Lisa stood by the wall, trying to be small. She was not Isabella's person. She was his. She carried his words and his rules. She watched Isabella the way a person watches a flame: with care and with fear. Isabella ate three spoons and set the spoon down. Warmth touched old memories, and the door in her mind opened whether she wished it or not. Three years earlier, she had not been a prisoner. She had been the daughter of the alpha, beloved by the people of the ridge who called her the little princess when they thought she could not hear. She disliked the name, but she loved the mountains. The mountains did not lie. They gave what they had and kept what they must. On the day that would change her life, she went up the north path to gather herbs. Storms had passed two nights before; water still ran in thin lines down the rock faces, and the ground smelled like iron and green things. She carried a basket and a small knife. She knew where feverfew curled and where goldthread hid its roots. She found him in a hollow below a ledge. At first she thought he was only a shadow. Then she saw the blood, dried in dark streaks along his ribs. His side was open—deep, ugly, the kind of wound that speaks of claws and teeth and stubborn will. His eyes were gray, open but dull. He tried to move and failed. Isabella dropped the basket. She spoke in a calm voice because that is what wounded bodies need. She told the stranger she could help. His answer was a sound between laugh and groan. She did not wait for permission. She cut strips from her skirt, pressed clean moss into the wound, and held there until her hands trembled. “Breathe with me," she said. “In for four, out for six." They did this until the bleeding slowed. When she asked his name, he gave it after a long pause—Liam. The word felt strange in her mouth, like a seed she did not yet know. She told him her name in return and told him she would not leave him to die in a hollow like a trapped animal. He blinked once, then again, and the second blink looked like trust. She accepted it as a promise. He was too heavy to carry in her arms the whole way down. She made a sled with cut branches and a strap, looped the strap across her chest, and dragged him over leaf and stone. When the path was too steep, she moved him a little, then the sled, then him again. Rope, knots, breath—that was all her mind allowed. Hours later they reached the lower trail and then the gate. The guards knew her. They opened the way and asked no questions that mattered. She brought him to a quiet room away from the hall, boiled water, and cleaned the wound again. She stitched the edges with her own hand. She had practiced on sheep and soldiers. She worked slow and did not shake. When he woke, her needle was still in the light, and the thread was clean. “Drink," she said, and he did. “Eat," she said, and he obeyed. When fever rose, she sat until the sweat broke and the heat left his skin. He spoke little for two days, watching her hands as she worked. On the third day he asked about a jar that smelled sharp and sweet. “Woundwort," she told him, and explained its use. He asked about the little yellow flowers she had set by the bed. “Tansy," she said. “I like how they look like small suns." He began to speak more. He asked about the ridge—names of streams, safe paths across scree. He listened like a student, repeating each name until he got it right. He said he had no pack. He spoke once of old debts in a flat voice and then went quiet again. She did not press. She did not yet know which questions were knives. He could not climb, so she climbed for both of them. When she went out, he watched from the window. When she came back, he asked what she had seen. She told him about the hawk that hunted near the south cliff, blackberries that were just beginning to ripen, and the goat that had escaped to chew the beadwork off the gate banner. He laughed at that—a sound he had not made in years. Sometimes she needed plants that grew in dangerous places. On a day when the wind was low and the rock dry, she went after silverleaf, good for fever and pain. It grew on a narrow shelf below a spill of shale. She tied a rope around her waist and around a fir trunk and went down. The stone shifted under her feet and sliced her palm. She pressed close to the rock, found a safer angle, and reached the plant. When she came back up, Liam was at the window, hands white on the sill. “You'll fall," he said when she came in. “I didn't," she answered, holding up silverleaf and the cut hand. “And I won't." He turned her palm to see the cut. He did not kiss it. He cleaned and wrapped it with care. “Sit still," he said for once, and she stood beside him anyway, naming the ridges again while he repeated them, making few mistakes. At night he could not sleep. Pain wakes the body when it would rather rest. She gave him willow bark tea and told him a story about the first woman who learned to listen to plants. He said it sounded like a prayer. She said it was only a habit. He closed his eyes and slept for an hour. She slept in the chair with her feet on a stool and her head against the wall. In the morning he said thank you in a voice that made the word feel new. Days became a line of small tasks. She changed dressings, fetched water, taught him which jar was comfrey and which was mint. He tried to stand and failed, then tried again and managed two breaths. He told a poor joke and she laughed because joy is also medicine. He stood longer the next day and reached the chair by the window the day after. He looked at the sky like a thirsty man at a river. He was handsome; she saw that, though the word did not matter then. He was also wounded, stubborn, careful with her time, and quiet when she needed quiet. He did not grab or jeer. He did not ask to be touched. He learned her rhythms and she learned his: bread, broth, check the wound, cool cloth, sleep. Repeat. After two weeks he could walk the corridor, moving like a man who refused to fall in front of her. He went with her to the garden and stood while she clipped leaves. “Sit if you're dizzy," she said. He scoffed and then sat when the world lurched. She hid a smile and pretended to study a plant so he could keep his pride. He wanted to help, so he did what he could—grinding roots with a stone, fetching water, watching how she measured drops and matching her hand. Once he went out alone for low herbs near the south wall. He came back with a torn sleeve, a bleeding knuckle, and a grin. “I am useful," he said. “You are," she answered, and meant it. Two days later he climbed the wall again, returned with a sprained wrist, and apologized. She wrapped it and did not scold him. She understood the ache behind small rebellions; he needed to feel like more than a patient. She let him feel that. It did not seem a mistake at the time. When the scar tightened and his pain dulled to a steady throb, he began to ask about her father. He had seen the alpha in the yard from the window. “He looks like a man standing between storms," Liam said. “Close enough," Isabella replied. He asked whether her father would accept a stranger at their table. “He accepts strength, truth, and a steady hand," she told him. “I can offer at least two," he said, and she smiled, missing the weight in his words. She made a plan. She would tell her father the man she had brought in was no longer just a body she had saved. He was the person she spoke to when the house was too loud or too quiet. She would speak plainly and ask plainly. She braided her hair that morning. She chose a clean dress. She put honey on a slice of bread and told Liam he needed the sugar. He stood in the doorway with his cup and said he would go with her after a small errand—an hour, no more. He would come back before the sun crossed one hand on the wall. He did not return in one hour. He did not return that day. She waited by the window until her legs went numb, then went to the gate to ask the guards if they had seen him. They had not. She walked the south wall and checked the ledge where she had found the silverleaf. She called his name. She found a scrap of cloth on a thorn and nothing else. On the second day she sent two scouts up the north path. They found the prints of a large wolf, then the scuff marks of a quick shift to human, and lost the trail at the stream where stones and water turn all signs into blankness. On the third day she went herself, walking until her feet blistered and her throat burned. She followed every side path she knew. She found no fresh blood and no body. The mountain offered only wind and the same blue sky. On the fourth day she stopped searching and started listening, because when a person vanishes, news grows in the gaps. A rumor first in the yard—border trouble to the east. The same near the gate—Snow Sword had moved. Then a messenger who did not know her face spoke it plain: the neighboring Snow Sword pack had crossed into her land. Isabella stood very still. Snow Sword had invaded her territory. She heard it and was stunned—and there the day ended.