Caught Between Two Alphas

Chapter Ten

Alcyde

She's driving me to the edge of sanity.

The way Sophia moves through the compound has fundamentally altered—three weeks since I pulled her half-dead from those rogues, and she's transformed into something that makes my wolf pace ceaselessly beneath my skin. That deliberate sway wasn't there before, each step calculated to draw eyes she pretends not to notice.

My hands remember the softness of her waist during training, the way her breath hitched when I corrected her stance, how her pulse hammered against my fingers when I showed her the proper way to break a chokehold.

From my position against the oak fifty yards from Anson's office, I watch her approach in that emerald dress Lisa helped her choose. The fabric clings to curves that have sharpened through brutal training, highlighting the strength she's built beneath skin that still carries enough softness to make my mouth water. She pauses at his door, squaring her shoulders in a way that makes the dress shift, revealing the long line of her throat.

My jaw clenches hard enough to crack molars. This was my plan—use her to get close to my brother, gather evidence of his instability, position myself as the obvious replacement when the Council comes calling. Simple. Clean. Necessary.

But watching her lean across his desk, the calculated display of cleavage as she passes him documents, her lower lip caught between her teeth while he speaks—it ignites something primal and possessive that has nothing to do with strategy. Her laugh rings out, bright and genuine in a way she never laughs with me, and my chest constricts like a fist closing around my ribs.

Through the dusty window, I watch her fingers trail along his shoulder as she moves past his chair. The gesture is perfectly calibrated—intimate enough to hold his attention, distant enough to leave him wanting. She's learned to wield her body like a weapon, and the precision of it should impress me.

Instead, it makes me want to tear through that wall and claim her in front of him, make it absolutely clear who she belongs to.

Allura watches from the doorway, white-blonde hair catching afternoon light like spun silver. Her ethereal priestess mask cracks enough to show raw venom as she watches this nobody omega captivate both brothers. Her hands clench into fists at her sides, tendons standing out like wire. Good. Let her see her carefully laid plans unraveling.

"Beta Alcyde."

Elder Roland's voice cuts through my spiral. Three elders stand behind me—Roland, Patricia, and Garrett, their expressions carefully neutral but their scents betraying calculation.

"Elders."

Patricia's weathered face remains impassive. "The Alpha missed morning patrol briefing. And yesterday's territory inspection. The western border remains unchecked for three days now."

"He's processing grief."

"He's drowning in bourbon before noon," Roland cuts through pretense with the bluntness that made him valuable. "The pack needs leadership, not a ghost wearing an Alpha's skin."

They want me to challenge him. The formal challenge that would grant legitimate claim, make the transition clean in the Council's eyes. But eagerness would raise questions, and questions lead to investigations that uncover inconvenient truths.

"He's my brother."

Garrett leans heavily on his carved cane, ancient eyes seeing through decades of pack politics. "Your brother is dissolving. The Council sent another message—they want answers about the Luna's death. Real answers, not the suicide story that insults everyone's intelligence."

Through the window, Sophia stands to leave, fingers dragging along Anson's desk in a way that makes his hand twitch toward her. He catches her wrist, says something that makes her tilt her head, exposing the elegant line of her neck. The gesture is so familiar it makes my blood run cold—Hannah used to do exactly that when she was considering something.

"What do you want me to do?"

Patricia's hand brushes my arm, brief but meaningful. "What needs doing. The pack comes first. Always."

They leave me standing there, invitation hanging like smoke in the air. Inside, Anson's still holding Sophia's wrist, thumb stroking over her pulse point while she maintains that perfect balance of invitation and distance.

My wolf snarls, and I'm moving before conscious thought catches up.

I intercept her behind the kitchens where the shadows run deep and the walls muffle sound. My hands bracket her against ancient brick before she can speak, caging her with my body.

"Having fun?"

Her breath catches, but defiance flashes in those dark eyes. "Doing what you asked."

"He was touching you." My hand slides to her throat, thumb pressing against the spot where her pulse betrays her calm facade. The connection sends electricity through my palm, and I feel her swallow against my touch.

"Jealous?"

The word is a challenge, accompanied by that slight arch of her eyebrow that makes heat pool low in my gut. Instead of answering, she grabs my belt and yanks me against her with surprising strength. Our mouths crash together, all teeth and desperation and barely leashed violence. She tastes like bourbon—she's been drinking with him—and the thought makes me bite her lower lip hard enough to draw a gasp I swallow greedily.

Her hands are everywhere at once, sliding under my shirt to rake nails down my back with enough force to leave marks I'll feel for days. The pain mingles with pleasure until I can't separate them, don't want to. I pin her wrists above her head with one hand, the other sliding up her thigh to find nothing but warm skin underneath that dress.

"No underwear to meet my brother?"

She rolls her hips against mine, the friction making coherent thought fracture. "Disappointed?"

"Furious."

I release her wrists to grip her thigh, lifting it around my waist. The new angle brings us into alignment that makes us both groan, the sound echoing off narrow walls. Her hand works between us, finding me already hard, palming me through denim with confidence that speaks of experience I don't want to think about.

"Let me fix that."

She works my belt open with practiced efficiency, hand wrapping around me with exactly the right pressure to make my hips buck involuntarily. Her thumb circles the tip, spreading moisture while her other hand grips my hair, holding me close enough that I breathe in her scent—lavender and rage and something uniquely hers.

I come harder than I have in years, her name torn from my throat like a confession.

She wipes her hand clean on my shirt with a smirk that makes me want to drop to my knees and worship her until she screams. But footsteps echo nearby, and she slips away before I can catch my breath, leaving me wrecked against the wall with her taste still on my tongue.

"Same time tomorrow?"

The casual question thrown over her shoulder makes me want to chase her down, press her against every surface between here and wherever she's going, mark her so thoroughly that everyone knows exactly who she belongs to.

The evening patrol briefing falls to me because Anson is passed out in his office, bourbon bottle empty beside scattered reports he hasn't touched in days. The warriors look to me for orders without hesitation now, the natural assumption of power that comes when leadership fails.

"Council wants another report," Bill, our communications Beta, hands me the sealed message with careful neutrality.

I break the seal, scanning demands couched in bureaucratic language that barely conceals threats. "Tell them we're conducting internal reviews."

He nods and leaves. More pack members filter through with the mundane tasks that keep a territory functional—disputes over hunting rights, training schedules, supply requisitions. They defer to me without question, murmuring about grief and understanding, about how fortunate the pack is to have stability in uncertain times.

I find Sophia at the training grounds after sunset, but she's not alone. Lisa stands beside her, along with Holly, Ashley, and six omega females arranged in a defensive circle. Sophia demonstrates a throw using Lisa as her partner, and the movement is all wrong for someone who supposedly just learned it. She shifts her weight like a seasoned warrior, controls Lisa's fall with the kind of precision that takes years to develop.

"See how you use their momentum against them?"

She guides young Violet through the motion with infinite patience, but I catc

h the tells—the automatic correction of foot placement, the way her hands know exactly where to apply pressure for maximum effect. This isn't newly acquired knowledge. It's muscle memory she shouldn't possess.

When they disperse, she stays behind, working through advanced forms in the moonlight. Each movement flows into the next with deadly grace, her body finding rhythms it shouldn't know.

"Enjoying the show?"

"Always." I press against her back, hands settling on her hips. The contact sends heat through my palms, and I feel her lean into me slightly. "You're full of surprises."

"You have no idea."

She turns in my arms, eyes dark with promise and secrets. "Walk me home?"

But she doesn't lead toward Lisa's cabin. Instead, we end up in the abandoned guard post at the territory's edge, dust motes dancing in moonbeams through broken windows. She pushes me onto an old cot that creaks dangerously, then drops to her knees between my thighs with fluid grace.

"Sophia—"

"Shut up. Just... let me."

She takes me in her mouth without preamble, and my head falls back, hands tangling in her hair. She works me with lips and tongue and just enough teeth to make my hips jerk involuntarily. The wet heat of her mouth, the way she takes me deeper with each pass, throat relaxing to accommodate—it's almost too much.

There's calculation in her movements, the way she watches me through her lashes, gauging every response. She's playing me the same way she plays Anson, using pleasure as currency, as control.

The realization should make me pull away. Instead, it makes me harder.

She hums around me, the vibration making my grip tighten. Her nails dig crescents into my thighs, holding me still when instinct demands I thrust. She controls the pace, the depth, everything.

"You're manipulating me."

She pulls off slowly, lips swollen and glistening. "Yes."

"I don't care."

"I know."

She takes me back with something almost tender in the way her hand works what her mouth can't reach. The combination of sensations builds until I'm shaking, until vision whites out and I'm coming with her name like a prayer on my lips.

She sits back on her heels, wiping her mouth with deliberate slowness. In the fractured moonlight, she looks otherworldly—dangerous and beautiful and nothing like the broken omega I found by the creek.

"Maybe I'm as stupid as my brother."

"Maybe." She straddles my lap, kissing me deep enough that I taste myself on her tongue. "Or maybe we're using each other exactly the way we need to."

She's right. We're both weapons aimed at the same target, even if our motivations differ. She wants something from Anson—revenge, justice, truth. I want the throne. If we destroy each other in the process, at least the explosion will be spectacular.

"The elders want me to challenge him."

"Will you?"

"When the time's right. When you've gotten what you need from him."

My fingers slide under her dress, finding her wet and ready. She gasps as I stroke through her folds, her hips rolling against my hand with increasing desperation.

"And if what I need destroys us all?"

"Then we burn together."

I work her with my fingers, adding pressure and rhythm until she's trembling, until she's coming apart in my lap with my name torn from her throat.

The sight of her lost to pleasure, the way she clenches around my fingers, the broken sounds she makes—I'll gladly be her fool if it means I get to keep this.

We stay tangled together as our breathing slows, her forehead resting against mine. In the distance, a wolf howls—long and mournful, calling for something lost.

"He's starting to remember," she says quietly. "Today, when he held my wrist, there was recognition. Not complete, but enough."

"Then we accelerate the timeline."

She pulls back to study my face. "You're not afraid?"

"Of Anson? No. Of losing you?" My hand cups her face, thumb stroking her cheekbone. "Terrified."

The admission hangs between us, more intimate than anything we've done physically. She leans into my touch, eyes closing briefly.

"There's something I need to tell you. About who I really—"

A howl cuts through her words—not distant this time but close, urgent. Pack emergency. We separate quickly, adjusting clothes with practiced efficiency.

"Go," I tell her. "Take the north path back. I'll handle whatever this is."

She hesitates, then pulls me down for a kiss that feels like goodbye. "Be careful."

I watch her disappear into darkness before heading toward the alarm. But her almost-confession echoes in my mind.

Who is she really? And when I find out, will it change everything or nothing at all?

The moon overhead is nearly dark—the new moon approaching when shadows reign and secrets surface. Whatever Sophia's hiding, whatever truth she carries, we're running out of time to use it.

And despite everything—the plan, the throne, the pack's future—all I can think about is the way she looked coming apart in my hands, the way she said my name like salvation and damnation combined.

I'm going to lose her. I know it with the certainty of gravity. The only question is whether I'll survive the loss, or if she'll take me down with her when she burns.

Either way, I'm already too far gone to save.