Chapter 5: Beneath the Alpha Skin
1652 Words
POV Dorian
The second it happened, I felt it.
Like fire under the skin. Like a wave of heat rolled through the pack-bond — except it didn’t come from any wolf I knew. It came from her. From Beatrice.
I dropped the glass in my hand, didn’t even watch it shatter. My lungs locked. My heart skipped once. Then again. And then it hit me like a war drum — that pulse of ancient magic, wild and bright and wrong and right all at once. She’d awakened. Not fully — not yet — but the spark was there.
The Moon had answered her.
I leaned against the wall of the lodge, bracing one hand against the cold stone. The wolf inside me was clawing forward, ears up, teeth bared, not out of rage — out of recognition.
She’s waking. She’s real. She’s mine.
No. Not mine. I couldn’t think like that. I couldn’t afford to.
But the bond had deepened. I could feel her emotions now — sharp flickers across my skin like phantom lightning. Panic. Pain. Power.
And something else. Something primal.
She wasn’t just marked.
She was chosen.
I didn’t wait.
Didn’t shift.
Didn’t call Zane.
I threw on a jacket and stormed toward the meeting hall.
The elders were already waiting.
Of course they were.
Old bastards felt it too.
Three of them — stone-faced, silver-eyed, dressed like they never left the past century. They sat around the black table like kings waiting to judge a traitor. Only I wasn’t a traitor. Not yet.
“You felt it,” I said.
Elder Rhys nodded. “Impossible not to.”
“She’s waking.”
“Clearly.”
The silence dragged long enough for the oldest of them — Orlen, the bitter one — to speak next.
“And this awakening,” he said slowly, “didn’t come from us. Didn’t come from you. And she’s not pack.”
“She’s connected.”
“She’s a human,” he spat. “Or was.”
“She’s not anymore.”
That shut him up.
I paced once around the table.
“I need to know what this means.”
“You know what it means,” Rhys said. “You just don’t want to believe it.”
“Say it.”
“She’s a Conduit.”
The word dropped like a bomb in the room.
A conduit. A bridge. A vessel. Rare. Dangerous. Born only once every few generations — if that. Beings with blood that doesn’t just carry the Moon’s mark… it channels it.
Untrained, unstable, unpredictable.
“What happens if she breaks?” I asked.
Orlen gave a sharp grin. “Then we break with her.”
“She won’t break.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Because I’d seen it in her eyes. She was strong. Not because she knew what she was doing. Because she didn’t — and still stood her ground.
“She needs to be brought in,” Rhys said. “Guided.”
“No,” I snapped. “Not yet. She doesn’t trust us.”
“She’s not supposed to trust. She’s supposed to obey.”
I slammed my palm on the table.
“She’s not one of us. Not yet.”
Orlen leaned forward. “But she will be. Or she’ll die.”
I left before I killed him.
—
Outside, the wind had picked up. I could smell the shift in the air. Smoke. Bark. Blood.
She was still in the forest.
And she wasn’t alone.
I stood still for a moment, letting the wind wrap around me, listening. Not with ears. With the part of me that lived in shadow and claw.
She was breathing fast. Someone else’s scent was nearby.
Zane.
Of course.
He was always too close.
And I hated how much I didn’t hate it.
Because if it wasn’t him, it might’ve been Fenric.
That name still tasted like ash in my mouth.
I shifted in a single motion — bones tearing, fur rushing to the surface — and bolted through the woods, silent and fast. The pack wouldn’t question it. Not tonight. Not when the Moon sang like this.
I wasn’t hunting an enemy.
I was hunting the only thing that had ever made me feel like I wasn’t just a beast in a man’s skin.
And if she didn’t want me near her...
Too bad.
Because she was no longer walking in their world.
She was in mine.
***
I found them in the clearing where the forest breathes differently. Where the air is thicker and the trees lean in as if they’re listening. They didn’t hear me approach. That alone pissed me off.
Zane was crouched beside her, eyes soft, voice low — too soft, too close. She was leaning toward him, lips slightly parted, like she was hanging on every damn word. I smelled adrenaline. I smelled fear. And underneath that — connection.
My chest tightened.
My claws itched beneath the skin.
I stepped into the open without sound. No growl. No warning. Just presence.
Zane looked up first.
His jaw clenched. “Dorian.”
Bea turned next, slowly, eyes wide, lips pressing together like she wasn’t sure whether to run or speak. She didn’t do either.
I let my eyes rest on her — and that was a mistake.
She looked wild. Messy hair, leaves in her hoodie, skin flushed, pupils wide. The glow I’d felt earlier had faded, but traces of it lingered in her aura. Like lightning trapped under her skin. And the worst part? She didn’t look broken. She looked alive.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Zane.
“I could ask you the same.”
I took a step closer. “I didn’t send you.”
“I didn’t ask permission.”
He rose slowly, stepping in front of her — subtle, but not subtle enough.
“Move,” I said.
“No.”
I felt it then — not defiance. Loyalty. But not to me.
To her.
“You’re crossing a line,” I growled.
He didn’t flinch. “Then maybe you should draw clearer ones.”
A low, rumbling growl broke free from my chest. The kind that makes the earth pay attention. Zane tensed, but didn’t back down. That was the problem with raising wolves like him — one day they try to bite the hand that gave them fangs.
Beatrice moved before either of us could go further.
“Enough,” she said. Not a scream. A statement.
She stepped out from behind him and faced me head-on.
Her pulse was loud in my ears.
“You both keep talking like I’m some problem you need to solve,” she said. “But I’m standing right here. So maybe someone should try asking me what I want.”
I stared at her.
The wolf inside me was restless.
The man wanted to say something that would make her understand. The Alpha wanted her to obey. But neither of those were strong enough to override the pull.
“You don’t know what you are,” I said.
Her chin lifted. “Then tell me.”
“You’re a threat.”
“To who?”
“To everything.”
Her breath hitched. But she didn’t step back.
“You don’t get to decide what I become.”
“I don’t,” I agreed. “But I do decide who reaches you first. And it won’t be him.”
Zane exhaled sharply behind her.
“I’m not your enemy, Dorian.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
Bea shook her head, voice quieter. “I’m tired of this.”
“Then wake up,” I snapped. “Because you’re not a student anymore. You’re not just a girl in a hoodie with a weird birthmark. You’re the Moon’s choice. And people are going to try to use you. Or kill you. Or worship you. None of those will end well.”
“And what are you going to do with me?” she asked. “Lock me up? Protect me? Claim me?”
That word.
I stepped closer.
The space between us was molten.
My voice dropped. “I’m going to keep you alive.”
“And if I don’t want your help?”
I met her eyes — black fire to brown flame.
“Then I’ll help you anyway.”
She stared at me like she wanted to tear something out of her own chest just to stop feeling whatever this was. Good. Because I felt the same.
We stood there, tangled in silence, until she broke it.
“I felt it,” she said softly. “When the light came. I thought I was dying. But it felt like… something inside me was waking up.”
I stepped even closer, and this time she didn’t move.
“You were,” I said. “And it’s only the beginning.”
She shivered.
Not from fear.
From knowing.
I turned to Zane.
“Get back to the lodge. Now.”
He hesitated. Then nodded once and disappeared into the dark.
I looked back at her.
And for the first time, let a crack show in the steel.
“You don’t belong to yourself anymore,” I said.
She whispered, “What does that mean?”
“It means from now on, everyone who looks at you will see what I see.”
She swallowed. “And what’s that?”
I didn’t answer.
I stepped away, shifted, and vanished into the trees.
But I left something behind — a scent, a truth, a thread of instinct that would keep pulling at her until she understood.
Until she came to me on her own.
And by then… it might be too late to turn back.
- Writer
