To Choose An Alpha

Chapter 6

RAVENNA



I got up before the sun did.

The weight of warmth that I didn't know clung to my skin and got stuck in sheets that weren't mine. For a split second, I forgot where I was. I could only hear the steady breathing next to me, smell the ash, pine, and something that was definitely male, and feel the dull aching between my thighs like a promise I had forgotten.

And then it all came back.

The woods. The rain. The wolves.

Kael. The Rogue Alpha.

I cautiously turned my head, almost scared to see him. He was still sleeping, the sheets kicked down to his hips, displaying naked flesh marked with scars—faded memories engraved into muscle. His black hair was tangled, his mouth slack with slumber, and despite everything, something about the way he slept made him appear... human. Peaceful, even.

I had no right to think him lovely.

My throat clenched. I sat up slowly, pushing my palm to the wooden frame of the bed to remain firm. My body resisted the movement, hurting in areas I hadn't felt in years, but my heart was louder. It slammed against my ribs like a warning bell.

I had to go.

This wasn’t my life. This wasn’t even my land. I was a fugitive. A healer. A coward. And I had just spent the night wrapped in the arms of the most deadly Alpha outside the Queen’s court.

The very Queen who would burn me alive if she ever found me again.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, breath clutched fast in my chest. My clothing were in a heap on the hardwood floor, crumpled and still moist from yesterday night’s rain. I pulled them on softly, ignoring the tightness in my limbs, the bite of remorse.

My fingers stretched for the tiny leather purse I always carried around my neck, only to grip at air.

I panicked. I sank to my knees, searched the floor, beneath the bed, beneath the tangle of blankets. Nothing.

The necklace. The one my mother had given me before she died. A sliver of moonstone cut into the shape of a crescent, wrapped with antique Elvarim silver. A piece of my history I could not afford to lose.

I glanced at Kael.

Still sleeping.

I didn’t have time to keep seeking.

I placed a shaking palm to my lips and pushed myself to stand. I’d lost too much already—my house, my title, my place in the Elvarim court. I could endure losing one more item, even if it seemed like I was leaving a piece of myself behind.

The wooden door creaked as I opened it. I froze, half-expecting him to awaken, to sit up and demand to know where I was going. But Kael didn’t move or speak. Just slept, like nothing had happened.

Like I was nothing more than a shadow that had gone by.

And maybe that’s all I ever was.

I strolled out into the cold.

The air smelt like damp leaves and earth, tinted subtly with the fading fragrance of Kael’s wolves. The woodland was quiet, no howling, and no footsteps. Just wind winding through the trees and the thrum of faraway birds.

My boots slipped into the mud as I moved, but I didn’t glance back.

I couldn’t.

Hours passed before I made it to the border. I crossed it without ceremony. I stripped myself of smell, hid my aura, and wrapped myself in the illusion of someone else, someone less deadly—not like I ever was, someone less Elvarim.

From there, it was roads. Long, twisting routes through neutral woodlands and human communities. I kept my hood up, my head down, selling healing skills for rides and food. I never disclosed my true name.

By the time I reached Windmere, a little human village tucked between hills, I was someone new.

Cera Grey.

I fit in effortlessly. Humans didn’t notice the way my fingers worked too surely when handling medication, or how my eyes flashed toward wounds a second too soon. They attributed it up to instinct. Luck. Intuition.

They didn’t know I’d once stood by a Queen and drew death back from the edge more times than I could count.

But every time I glanced in the mirror, I recalled.

And every time I closed my eyes at night, I saw him.

Kael.

His hands on my hips. The way his voice had dropped when I told him I didn’t want to be alone that night, the way I didn’t want to feel empty, at least for once.

I wondered whether he’d searched for me when he wokeup. If he’d discovered the necklace. If he’d flung it aside or… kept it.

The notion made something twist inside me.

I shouldn’t care.

But I did.

Gods help me, I did.

It didn’t take long for Windmere to become familiar.

A week passed. Then two. My hands found rhythm in daily tasks—grinding herbs, wrapping salves, preparing tonics with human-approved components. I kept my Elvarim knowledge tucked away like a secret sword. There were plants I would never discuss, powers I dared not touch, but the essentials were plenty.

Mira was appreciative for the aid. She granted me free lodging in the attic over the business. It smelled of rosemary and old wood, and I’d learned to appreciate the creak in the floorboards and the way the sunshine poured across the blankets in the morning. No wolves. No court. No threats.

Just a calm existence.

Sometimes I nearly believed it might endure.

"Cera," Mira said one afternoon as she went into the storeroom, bringing up a container of crushed dandelion root. "Boy from the south farms came by again. His cough’s worse. Think you can stroll down and check?"

"Of course," I answered, wiping my hands on my apron.

The humans didn’t realize that their ailment resulted from mold spores that were being brought in from a dying piece of land just beyond the hills. Their healers treated symptoms. I, on the other hand, could determine the main problem with nothing more than a nose and a gaze.

But I did my part brilliantly.

The boy’s lungs were inflamed, his mother weary. I put a bag of steaming herbs by his bed, applied some Elvarim powder to his body while no one was watching. His breathing calmed by the time I went back out into the brightness.

A woman passing by spotted me and smiled.

“She’s the apothecary’s girl,” she informed her buddy. “They say her hands are magic.”

I froze, my pulse blazing, but they walked on. Laughing. Harmless.

Still, the term stayed in my skin like a thorn.

Magic.

Even here, it followed me.

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

I sat by the attic window, legs tucked beneath me, peering out at the warm glow of lanterns flashing over town. Humans lived so simply. They had brief lives and yet they were filled with confidence. A bakery in the morning. Church bells in the twilight. Lovers talking amid apple trees. Parents scolding youngsters that ran too quickly.

They didn’t know what it was like to live centuries. To carry blood that could form bone, repair flesh, or murder without touching a sword.

I envied them.

My hand reached for my neck, instinctive—and encountered naked skin again.

The necklace.

Gone.

The knowledge never ceased stinging. That necklace was more than a souvenir, it was my mother’s last present. She had pushed it into my hand the night she died, muttering in Elvarim dialect, “For protection, my moonflower. When all else crumbles, let this link you to who you are.”

And now it was lost. Left behind in the bed of a man I barely knew.

No, not barely.

I knew enough.

The intensity in Kael’s stare. The way his jaw tensed as I touched his scars. The silent anguish underlying his power.

He was danger. He was rogue. But that night… he had been the first secure refuge I’d discovered in months. He was also my mate. Something I clearly do not understand yet. I thought I was only mated to Darian. But when Kael and I came together, I felt it.

And I bolted from him nevertheless.