The Lost Alpha

Chapter 6

Harper’s POV

The forest was too quiet.

After the battle, Crescent Moon territory should’ve been filled with noise wolves tending wounds, scouts reporting, pups crying for their mothers. But instead, a heavy silence draped over the pack like a shroud.

It wasn’t the victory we carried home. It was unease.

Lucas walked beside me, his hand firm on my back as if afraid I might vanish again. Blood streaked his skin, his chest rising and falling like he hadn’t stopped fighting even after Marcus fled. His golden eyes flickered too often now, that strange shadow leaking into them, like something else watched through him.

And I hated that no one else seemed to notice.

“They’re afraid of you,” I whispered when we reached the packhouse.

He stilled, his hand tightening against me. “I know.”

“You don’t care?”

His jaw clenched. “I don’t have the luxury of caring. Not if the traitor is still here.”

I looked away, my heart twisting. He was right. Someone close to someone we trusted had betrayed us, five years ago, and tonight. But suspicion could tear the pack apart just as quickly as Marcus ever could.

“Harper,” Lucas said suddenly, catching my chin and forcing my gaze up to his. His voice softened, raw in a way I hadn’t heard in years. “Tell me you believe me. That I’m not… lost.”

For a heartbeat, the room seemed to shrink until there was only us. My chest ached with the weight of what I felt fear, yes, but also the same unshakable bond that had never broken, even when I tried to rip it out of my heart.

“I believe you,” I whispered. “Even when I shouldn’t.”

The tension in his body eased just enough for his lips to brush mine. It wasn’t a kiss for passion, not yet it was a kiss for survival. For grounding. For holding together the pieces of two wolves who’d been broken too long.

But the moment was shattered when the door burst open.

“Alpha!” Ethan’s voice was strained, urgent. “We found something.”

Lucas and I followed him down to the pack hall. A group of scouts stood waiting, their faces pale. On the long table lay a torn piece of fabric soaked in blood.

Not just any fabric.

The pack crest.

Crescent Moon’s own colors.

The scent clinging to it was unmistakable.

My heart plummeted.

“No,” I whispered.

Lucas’ expression hardened into stone. “Daniel.”

Daniel. My cousin. The wolf who had sworn loyalty to me after Lucas disappeared. The one who had been at my side every step of the last five years.

The air turned suffocating.

“No, Lucas” I started, my voice cracking. “It can’t be him. He’s family.”

Lucas’ golden eyes burned. “Family doesn’t chain you and leave you to die.”

The room went silent, the truth cutting sharper than any blade.

I wanted to deny it, to scream that Daniel would never betray us. But deep inside, something cold settled in my chest. Because I remembered too clearly: the night Lucas vanished, Daniel was the one who led the last search party. He was the one who swore he’d found nothing.

Lucas turned to Ethan. “Bring him to me.”

But before Ethan could move, a howl split the night. Not a call for help an alarm.

Wolves scrambled, shouting, rushing toward the eastern border. Lucas grabbed my hand, pulling me with him into the chaos. The air was sharp with fear, the kind that claws under your skin.

And then I saw it.

The pack’s outer wall burned. Flames licked high into the night sky, devouring wood and stone, painting the trees with hell’s glow. Wolves fought to smother it, but the fire spread too fast.

And standing just beyond the flames, illuminated by the inferno.

Daniel.

His eyes glowed red, not gold. A cruel smile twisted his mouth as shadows coiled around him like living things.

The traitor wasn’t just ours.

He belonged to the same darkness Lucas had bargained with.

“Lucas!” I screamed, clutching his arm as his wolf surged beneath his skin, trembling on the edge of unleashing.

For a moment, I saw the war in his eyes Alpha, lover, beast. The choice he made next would decide whether Crescent Moon survived… or burned with the traitor’s fire.

The traitor is revealed to be Daniel, Harper’s cousin, now corrupted by the same dark force tied to Lucas. As the pack burns, Lucas must choose between embracing the monster within or losing Eve.