CHAPTER 28: CHAPTER 28

This psycho Alpha didn’t want a servant. He wanted a shadow. He wanted me. And now, I couldn’t move without feeling his madness pressed against my skin. From sunrise to sunset, he refused to let me out of sight. If I stepped into the hallway, his boots echoed behind me. If I lingered in the courtyard, his shadow stretched across mine until it swallowed me whole. Once, desperate for a moment of air, I slipped toward the back gardens, heart hammering, praying he was busy. I made it ten steps before the familiar chill prickled down my spine.

"Running, little omega?" His voice slid through the silence like a knife.

I froze, my breath catching. Slowly, I turned. There he was. Leaning against the tree with his arms folded, watching me as though he had been there all along. His eyes glittered in a way that made my stomach twist.

"You can run," he continued, pushing off the tree, his steps slow and deliberate. "But you’ll never get away. Do you know why?"

I swallowed, unable to speak.

"Because I already live inside your head." His smile was sharp, feral. "Every step you take, every breath you draw you think of me. I haunt you even when I’m not here."

He was right. And that truth broke something inside me.

At meals, he made me sit beside him, too close, his arm brushing mine deliberately as he lifted his fork. The other omegas gossiped, glaring daggers at me, but their whispers didn’t matter. What mattered was the Alpha’s hand on the table, inching close to mine, tapping a rhythm that matched my heartbeat. He leaned down, murmuring low enough for only me to hear. "Do you feel how your pulse races when I touch the table? You’re already anticipating me. Your body begs for me even when your mouth lies."

I flinched, pulling my hand away. His smirk deepened. "Fear is still hunger, Ellie. It just tastes sharper."

The nights were worse.

Always the same the click of the lock, the creak of the door, the shift in the air before I even opened my eyes. My body knew before my mind did: he was here. When I looked, he was seated in the chair by the window, or standing in the shadows, or on the nights that broke me most leaning over me, his breath ghosting across my cheek. He whispered then, not to me, but to himself. His inner thoughts bleeding out like poison, words I was never meant to hear but could never unhear.

"Inner voice: Look at her. So small, so fragile. I could snap her neck and end her in a second. But why would I? Breaking her too fast would ruin the game."

"Inner voice: I want her afraid. I want her trembling. Every shiver tells me she knows she belongs to me."

"Sometimes I think about locking her away. Caging her where no one can see her. Just me and her, forever. She’d cry at first. But she’d learn. She’d learn to smile only for me."

I pressed the blanket to my mouth to smother the sound of my breathing. But he heard it anyway.

"Inner voice: Ah," he whispered, tilting his head. "Even the way she hides excites me. She thinks she can keep herself from me, but she can’t. She’s already mine. She will die mine."

My tears soaked the pillow. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. But my body was paralyzed with terror. And he just smiled, sinking into the chair, his eyes glowing faintly. "Perfect little pet. You don’t even realize how beautiful you are when you’re terrified. I could watch you like this forever."

Day after day, his madness deepened. When he held council meetings, he placed me on a cushion by his chair. Not outside. Not down the hall. At his feet, where his hand could rest on my hair as he spoke to the other alphas.

"Why here?" I whispered once, my voice trembling.

His lips brushed my ear, his words venomous silk. "Inner voice: Because when they look at me, I want them to see you. I want them to know what I own."

The word own left bruises on my heart. He stroked my hair idly as he spoke to his men, his voice steady, commanding, as though discussing war strategies. And yet, between the pauses, his whispers dropped like blades into me.

"Inner voice: you are mine, my omega. And You will never escape."

And the others pretended not to hear. They bowed to him, not me. They left me to drown in his madness alone.

Joan was the only one who noticed how my life had turned upside down the moment I started living with the Alpha. She found me in the laundry, my hands shaking so badly I could barely fold a sheet.

"Ellie..." she whispered, glancing around nervously. "Are you okay? You are pale. Oh moon goddess you’re trembling again.

"I can’t stop," I choked out. "He’s everywhere, Joan. He doesn’t leave me alone. Even when he’s not near, I hear him everywhere My throat closed, tears stinging my eyes. "He says things, Joan. Things that... haunt me."

Her eyes widened, fear darkening them. "You have to be careful. If he’s showing you his mind... Ellie, that’s not obsession. That’s possession. You’re not his omega. You’re his prisoner. "Wait! Are you the Alpha’s Mate?"

"What? Never, I can never be his mate i shouted.

"Are you sure Ellie Joan asked again.

"Yes, I’m sure. Joan stayed with me for a while before going back to her duty post.

That night, I woke to find him not at the window, not in the chair but lying on the floor beside my bed. His face was turned toward me, his arm stretched across the rug like he’d fallen asleep watching.

Except he wasn’t asleep. The moment I shifted, his eyes opened, gleaming with hunger.

"Finally awake," he whispered, voice hoarse with something I couldn’t name. "Inner voice: I’ve been listening to you breathe for hours."

I recoiled, pressing against the wall. "Alpha, please—"

"Please?" he echoed, rising fluidly to his feet. "Please what? Please leave? Please stay? You don’t even know what you’re begging for."

His hand braced against the wall beside my head, trapping me. His gaze burned, his words spilling out like poison.

"Sometimes I imagine breaking your legs so you can’t run. Would you hate me then? Or would you finally understand that you’re mine?"

Terror choked me.

"Inner voice: Other times, I imagine locking you underground. No light, no sound, just me. You’d go mad, but at least you’d go mad with me. And isn’t that better than being sane without me?"

My body shook violently. Tears streamed down my face. "Why are you doing this to me?"

His smile was slow, chilling. "Because I can’t stop. Because the moment I saw you, I knew. You’re the only thing in this cursed world that makes me feel alive. And if I have to destroy you to keep that feeling, I will."

I sobbed, pressing my hands to my face. He leaned closer, his breath hot against my ear. "Inner voice: You will never escape toad, Even if you run, I’ll find you. Even if you die, I’ll dig you up. You belong to me until the end of everything."

When he finally stepped back, I collapsed against the bedframe, gasping for air.

He watched me for a long moment, then smirked, satisfied. "Beautiful. You look most beautiful when you break."

And then he left. The door closed. The room was silent.

But his words his horrifying, obsessive thoughts stayed behind, etched into my bones. And I knew then, with a sinking, soul-crushing certainty, that my life is over. I’m stuck here in this werewolf world forever. I had begun to realize that the walls of the Alpha’s quarters weren’t made of stone, but of him. The crazy psycho is everywhere I turned, every step I took, every breath I dared to draw, his presence was there. Looming. Heavy. Impossible to escape. He had made me his personal omega, not his mate, not his equal his possession. He claimed it wasn’t the same as marking me, but it felt worse somehow. With a mate-bond, at least there was fate’s hand in the strings. With Zach, there was only his will, raw and suffocating, pulling I me tighter and tighter into the cage of his obsession. By day, his eyes followed me. In the corridors. At meals. Even when I went to fetch water, I could feel the weight of him standing somewhere nearby. His shadow became my shadow. And by night By night, he stole the little scraps of peace I tried to find. I had known for weeks that he came into my room when the moon rose, his footsteps barely whispering on the stone floor. At first I thought I was dreaming. The feeling of being watched had woken me from sleep, my heart thudding too loudly in the quiet. I would open my eyes to darkness and convince myself it was my mind playing tricks. But then... then I began to see the faint silhouette near the window, or the chair in the corner. Him. Always him. Watching me breathe. Watching me dream. And every morning, when the dawn crept through the curtains, there was never a trace of him. No words spoken, no evidence left behind except for the tightening knot of dread in my chest. I had learned to sleep with the blanket pulled all the way to my chin, as though that could protect me from his gaze. But that night, something changed. That night, I woke up not because of the cold stillness of his stare, but because of warmth. Heat pressed against my back, solid and unrelenting. My body stiffened instantly, dread crawling up my spine. His scent the unmistakable, suffocating mix of pine and smoke and something darker wrapped around me like chains. I didn’t even need to turn. I knew. Alpha the crazy Alpha was in my bed. My breath hitched, sharp and frantic, as I forced myself to move slowly, inch by inch. When I turned my head, my heart nearly stopped.

He was there beside me, stretched out on his side like he belonged, one powerful arm locked tightly around my waist. His face was buried in my hair, his chest rising and falling against my back. He was holding me like I was something he could lose, something he refused to let go of even in sleep. Terror washed through me, leaving me trembling. My hands curled into fists against the mattress to stop myself from shaking the bed. I wanted to scream, but the sound lodged in my throat like a stone.

Not the voice. Not the cruel, mocking tone of his inner voice that usually hissed words of possession into the air. Tonight, the voice was silent. Instead, there were fragments. Broken whispers, torn from his lips in sleep.

"No... not her... don’t—" His brow furrowed, his hold around me tightening until I could barely breathe. His voice cracked, low and pained. "Blood... everywhere. Stop. Please. I’ll... I’ll kill you. I’ll kill—"

I froze, my eyes wide in the dark. He was dreaming. This psycho is actually having a nightmare?" His body jerked slightly against mine, his arm tightening even more, pulling me flush against his chest. His face twisted, and for the first time since I’d known him, he didn’t look like the cruel, untouchable Alpha. He looked broken.

"Alpha," I whispered before I could stop myself. My voice was barely audible, a tremor in the night. He flinched, his breath hitching, but he didn’t wake. Instead, more fragments spilled out.

"They burned her... I couldn’t no, no!His words dissolved into a ragged growl, and then softer, almost pleading: "Mine. Don’t take her. Don’t take her away."

A shiver ran through me. My chest felt too tight. I wanted to shove him off, to scream, to run but something in his voice rooted me there. I had seen him furious. I had seen him mocking, cruel, terrifying. But this... this was something else. He was afraid. The thought unsettled me more than his grip. Because if the psycho Alpha, the Alpha everyone talked about in fear, the man who haunted my every step, could be afraid what nightmare was strong enough to haunt him? I swallowed hard, trying to steady my shaking. His fingers dug into my hip as though he was holding onto me for dear life. I tried to breathe evenly, terrified of waking him, terrified of what he would say or do if he realized I had caught him like this. And yet my heart twisted when I felt the faintest tremor run through his body. A shudder, as though whatever he was seeing in his dream tore him apart from the inside. For a moment just a single, impossible moment I wondered if this was what the silence of his inner voice meant. If the thing that usually taunted me, claimed me, possessed me... had been drowned out by a different kind of torment. His nightmare. I should have hated him. I should have used the chance to slip away from his grasp, to crawl out of bed and run to the furthest corner of the quarters. But I didn’t.

I couldn’t. Because his face... gods, his face. Even in the dim light, I could see the anguish etched into every line. His jaw clenched tight, his lips drawn in a grimace of pain. His brow creased as though he were reliving something that destroyed him. And then his voice broke again, hoarse and desperate.

"Ellie.. he whispered almost pleading The world seemed to tilt beneath me. I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to understand. But the sound of it made something heavy settle in my chest. His breath fanned against my neck, uneven and hot, and though my skin crawled with fear, my heart betrayed me by beating too fast, too confused. This was still crazy psycho, the Alpha who tormented me, who refused to let me breathe without his permission. But for the first time, I could see the cracks. The nightmare leaking through. help me God, a part of me wanted to know why. His grip softened slightly, his breathing hitching as the nightmare began to loosen its hold. Slowly, the lines on his face eased, though his arm never let me go. He sighed in his sleep, a low sound that vibrated against my back. I stayed still, rigid in his arms, staring into the darkness. Every part of me screamed that I should push him away. That I should claw my way free and put as much distance between us as possible. But I didn’t move, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t move. Because for the first time since I had been dragged into his world, the monster looked human.