From Hell to Alpha

Chapter 6 — The Locking Room

Wind still scraped along the cliff when Jones arrived. He didn't look at me first. He looked down—past me—saw the pale flare of Sophia's dress on the ledge, and shifted without hesitation. Bones lengthened. Fur rippled. The wolf took him in one efficient breath. He dropped over the edge with claws that bit stone and a speed that belonged to muscle and rage.

He reached her and changed back, steam rising from skin. “Where are you hurt?" His hands were steady. His voice was not.

“My ankle," she whispered. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. This is my fault. I shouldn't have come back. If I weren't here, she—" Her words blurred like ink in rain. She never said I pushed her. She never said I didn't. She kept the shape of the story soft.

“I held on to her," I said. “She pulled free."

He did not answer me. He lifted Sophia with care and climbed. At the top, he stood between us, breathing hard, eyes dark. Water ran off his hair and onto his collar.

“What did you do?" he asked me, like the answer had already been written and he needed to hear me say it.

“Saved her," I said. “She leaned back on purpose. She pried my hand loose."

“Enough." His voice cut through the fog. “You will not say more." He turned, wrapped his jacket around Sophia. She shivered into him like a bird into a nest.

“Jones," I said. I used his name because it was mine to use. “Look at me."

He looked. The door in his face shut. “Guards," he said.

Two warriors came out of the trees. They did not touch me. They stood close enough that I could feel the heat of their arms.

“I can walk," I said. “Send the physician to her."

“He is on his way," Jones answered. He did not look at me. He only adjusted the jacket at Sophia's shoulders when she made a small sound and tipped her head into his chest.

Something in me snapped tight. “I didn't push Sophia," I said, louder. “Jones, I did not push her."

Sophia flinched and shrank against him, eyes wide, hands clutching the fabric. “Please," she whispered toward him. “Don't be angry with her. I said terrible things. I'm the reason she lost control." She didn't say she had asked me to meet. She only set her guilt in the open like a pretty plate and let him choose how to read it.

His jaw hardened. “Escort the Luna to the holding room," he told the guards.

“Jones!" I stared. “I didn't do this. You can't do this to me." The words came out stronger than I meant them to, scraped raw by disbelief.

He didn't answer. He lifted Sophia again and started down the path toward the house. She kept her face turned toward his throat like it was the only place air lived.

The guards followed my steps through the trees and gravel and doorways I knew better than the lines on my palms. They put me in the holding room—white walls, narrow window, a bench against stone, and a steel ring set into the floor like a promise someone once meant to keep. The door closed with a soft click that sounded polite.

I sat. I kept my breath even. Anger doesn't help if it takes your air.

Time shifted without telling me. Footsteps came and stopped. Elder Miriam entered, braid silver and tight, eyes that had looked at hard things without blinking. Elder Rowan and Elder Crispin followed, paper already in their hands.

Miriam stood straight. “Isabella," she said. “Tell us what happened, and tell it plain."

I told it plain. “I received a message from Jones's number. It asked me to meet. I went. Sophia was there. She said I didn't belong with him. She moved toward the edge. I grabbed her. She twisted free. She fell to the first ledge. He arrived. He carried her up. He told the guards to take me."

Rowan's pen paused. “The Alpha says you reached for her, she stepped back, and fell."

“He was not there when she pulled away," I said. “He saw the end of a scene he did not watch begin."

Crispin looked at the ring in the floor and then at me. “There will be a hearing," he said. “But the Alpha wants you secured until then."

I laughed once, short. “Secured. That's a kind word."

“Isabella." Miriam's tone softened by a fraction. “Stay calm. Speak carefully tonight."

“I always do," I said.

They left. The door closed. I was alone with my breath and the sound of rain reaching the narrow window like fingers.

Guards came when the lamps outside turned the hall yellow. They led me through corridors that smelled like lemon polish and stone. In the council chamber a long table sat under a line of portraits. Chairs faced it in a crescent. At the far right, a cot had been set up like a small stage. Sophia lay there, ankle bandaged, hair fanned over a pillow, cheeks pale and perfect. Her gaze dropped when I looked. Her hand found the edge of the blanket in a way that would draw sympathy without asking for it.

Jones stood near the center, pack seal bright against his jacket. He did not look at me when I entered. He looked at the elders as if their faces were a map to the outcome he wanted.

Rowan cleared his throat. “We are convened."

Jones spoke first. He always does. “At dusk, near the east cliff, the Luna confronted Sophia. Patrolmen heard raised voices. When I arrived, Sophia had fallen to a lower ledge. I descended and retrieved her. The Luna was at the edge. Sophia reports the Luna reached for her, and that is when she fell."

He used reports. He used patrolmen. He used words that wear uniforms, so they sound clean.

Miriam turned to me. “Isabella."

I kept my voice even. “Her message came from his phone. She told me I had no place with him. She moved toward the edge. I grabbed her. She forced my fingers apart and leaned back. I climbed down to get her. He arrived."

All at once Sophia sat half‑upright, as if the thought hurt to hold. “Please don't fight because of me," she said. “This is my fault. If I hadn't come back, she wouldn't be in pain. I never wanted this." She didn't say who asked for the meeting. She didn't say who started the walk toward the edge. She let the spaces do the work.

Murmur. Chairs shifted. Someone coughed. The sound of people wanting the simplest answer.

“Enough," Jones said when I drew breath to reply. He still didn't look at me. “She will be confined until we decide. She needs to cool down."

“Jones," I said, and the name came out like a cut. “I didn't push Sophia." I was done using titles to make him feel taller.

He faced me at last. “You will call me Alpha here."

“I will call you what you are," I said. “A man making a mistake."

His mouth thinned. “You have been agitated since she returned. You refused her a room. You argued. Now this." He lifted his hand toward the cot without looking. Sophia folded into herself, small as a folded letter.

I felt heat reach my face. I let it go. “I argued because respect matters. I refused because I won't host my own humiliation. And now I am telling you: I did not push her."

Miriam's gaze moved between us. “We've heard enough. The Council will collect statements and review." She turned to a scribe. “Note that the Luna denies any attempt to harm."

Jones spoke over the scratch of the pen. “She will be confined in the east cell until the Council concludes."

“The east cell?" I asked, voice flat. “Under this roof?"

His eyes were unreadable. “No. At the camp."

The word hit like a hand to the mouth. “No." I stood before I felt myself stand. “No, Jones. You can't send me back. I didn't do anything."

He did not blink. “Escort her."

“I said no!" The last word came loud, before I could stop it. I stepped back from the guards, anger breaking through the careful lines I kept around it. “I didn't push Sophia! You can't do this to me—you can't lock me up because you won't listen!"

Sophia startled at my voice and recoiled into his chest. He moved without thinking, an arm around her shoulders, a shield made of his body. “Enough," he said. “You're proving my point."

“Your point is blindness," I said. “Look at me. I am telling you the truth."

“Take her," he said.

Hands closed on my arms—not rough, not gentle. We moved. The room stretched and failed to hold me. Faces slid past: Crispin with his eyes down, Rowan with his lips pressed tight, Miriam watching me like she was measuring the size of a loss she couldn't stop.

Doors. Corridors. Night air. The back steps. The long black shape of a transport vehicle waiting with its belly open. The smell of oil and wet rope.

I twisted once and the guard on my left grunted. “I didn't push her," I said again because sometimes the only weapon left is repetition. “I did not push her."

He swallowed. He looked at the ground. “I know, Luna," he whispered. “I know."

They put me inside. The door slammed. Metal took the sound into itself. We drove without speaking. The trees on the road in were the same trees as the road out, only this time they felt like teeth.

The camp gate opened with a grinding sound that still lived under my skin. The same chalk line waited on the ground like a joke told twice. The towers watched. The basement door remembered me.

“No," I said when the truck stopped. I dug my heels into the metal floor. “No." The guard on the right shifted, uneasy. The one on the left set his jaw.

“Orders," he said.

They pulled me down. Gravel cut my knees. My wrists were free but my choices were not. Two more guards came from the fence line. I lifted my head and saw him.

Jones.

He stood just beyond the line like a statue of a man who had never had a pulse. The rain had stopped. The air held its breath around him. He did not move. He did not speak. His face was without anything I could use.

“Jones," I said. It scraped my throat. “Jones, look at me."

He watched as they took my elbows. He watched as my steps slid. He watched as I tried to set my feet and failed because the ground was slick with new mud. He watched as I reached for anything that was not a hand on my arm.

“Don't," I said. “Don't do this."

They did it anyway.

The gravel turned to packed dirt. The packed dirt turned to the cement lip before the basement stairs. My palms hit the floor at the top step and slid. I caught the edge too late. Nails scraped. Skin tore. When they pulled, my body dragged, and my hands clawed at the ground without finding purchase. Long red lines marked my path, simple and ugly, proof for no one.

“Stop," I said once, breath tearing. “Please. Stop."

They did not. The stairs took my weight. The air turned colder. The smell of metal rose. Behind me, above me, beyond me, Jones stood and watched.

He did not call me Luna. He did not call me by my name. He did not call out at all.

I went down into the place that makes silence heavy, and the door closed behind me like a mouth.