The Alpha Who Waited

Chapter 7: The Fear I Didn't Expect

The alarm was still ringing in my ears when I ran outside and saw the warriors moving.

Not walking. Running. Full sprint toward the southern gate, formation already forming around them the way I'd only seen in training drills. My grandmother grabbed my arm the second I stepped off the porch.

"Wren, stay inside."

"What's happening?"

"I don't know yet. Get inside."

I didn't get inside. I stood on the porch steps and watched the warriors disappear into the treeline, and somewhere in the middle of that formation, I caught sight of him. Cassian. Already shifted, already running at a speed that shouldn't have been possible for something his size, leading from the front instead of behind it.

My chest did something strange and immediate, something I didn't have a name for yet.

"Wren." My grandmother's voice again, sharper this time. "Inside."

I finally listened, but I didn't stop watching through the window. Tobias came down the stairs two at a time, pulling a shirt over his head, already moving toward the door.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"To help."

"You're not a warrior here. You're not even a warrior yet."

"I trained at Ashwood for two years. I'm not going to sit in a kitchen while people fight."

Our grandfather stepped into the hallway before either of us could argue further, blocking Tobias with an authority that surprised me, given how gentle he'd been with us since we arrived.

"You're a guest in this territory," Rowan said. "You do not run toward an unclaimed threat without an invitation. That's not caution, that's respect. Let the Alpha's own warriors handle their own border."

Tobias looked furious, but he stopped moving.

I stayed by the window instead, watching the treeline for any sign of movement, any flash of color that might tell me what was happening out there. Minutes stretched into something that felt much longer. My grandmother made tea no one drank. My grandfather paced the length of the kitchen twice before forcing himself to sit down.

I kept thinking about Cassian's face at the gate three days ago. The strange, careful way he'd looked at me, like he was holding something back that he didn't trust himself to say out loud. I thought about the way he'd left the back room today without answering my question, moving fast, jaw tight, toward whatever that alarm meant.

I told myself I was worried for the territory. For the safety of a place my family now depended on for shelter. That was the reasonable explanation, the one that made sense given everything we'd just run from.

It wasn't the whole truth, and some part of me knew it even as I tried to convince myself otherwise.

An hour passed before we heard anything. A runner came up the path toward the house, out of breath, relaying word to my grandfather in a low voice I strained to hear.

"Rogue pack testing the border," the runner said. "Three wolves, maybe scouts for something bigger. Alpha Vale engaged them personally before they could cross into the residential zone."

My stomach dropped. "Engaged them how?"

The runner glanced at me, clearly unused to being questioned by someone outside the chain of command, then answered anyway. "Hand to hand, mostly. He doesn't let his warriors take unnecessary risks if he can take the risk himself first."

That sounded exactly like something a proud, stubborn Alpha would do, and exactly the sort of thing that should have made me angry on behalf of his warriors instead of afraid for him specifically. I wasn't angry. I was afraid, sharp and sudden and entirely out of proportion to a man I'd known for three days.

"Is he hurt?" I asked, before I could stop myself.

The runner's eyebrows lifted slightly at the question, and I felt heat climb up my neck.

"Wounded, not seriously. He's already back at the main hall, refusing to see the healer until his warriors are checked first."

Of course he was.

I didn't say anything else, but I noticed my grandmother watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read, something between curiosity and quiet understanding. She didn't press, and I was grateful for that, because I didn't have an answer I trusted myself to give.

Later that night, long after the house had gone quiet and everyone else had gone to bed, I sat by the window and stared out at the dark shape of the main hall in the distance, a single light still burning somewhere inside it.

I told myself I was only checking that the territory was safe. That the light meant the Alpha was awake, doing whatever Alphas did after a border skirmish, and it had nothing to do with the strange, hollow feeling in my chest that hadn't eased since I watched him run past the porch.

I told myself a lot of things that night.

None of them explained why I stayed at that window until the light finally went out, or why some small, stubborn part of me only relaxed once I knew, without any real proof at all, that he was still standing on the other side of it.