Alpha's Ruin: He Betrayed Me, I'll Make Him Kneel

A heavy silence fell over the chamber, broken moments later by the thud of heavy boots. Daniel walked into the room, his jaw set, taking his place in the center of the floor between the Council and his former Alpha.

"We have one question for you, Daniel, and one question only," Elder Magnus said, his gaze locking onto the young warrior. "And the words you speak next will determine whether you leave this fortress with your rank, or leave it in chains."

Daniel swallowed hard, his chest heaving under his leather vest as the scent of stress rolled off him. He nodded once, his voice steady despite the pressure. "I swear my tongue to the truth of the Moon Goddess."

"What happened to Alpha Kaleb’s firstborn son?" the elder demanded.

"The Alpha gave an order," Daniel replied.

Elder Magnus’s gaze furrowed as he leaned forward. "What order?"

Daniel hesitated. He shifted his gaze toward Kaleb for a fraction of a second. Instantly, Kaleb’s eyes flashed a lethal, threatening gold, a silent warning to keep his mouth shut. Daniel flinched, his throat bobbing as the invisible weight of his old alpha’s command pressed against his lungs.

"Please, Daniel," Rhea’s voice broke through the suffocating tension, raw and bleeding with a mother’s agony. "Please."

Daniel’s eyes snapped to Rhea. He saw the silver tears shimmering in her eyes, saw the desperation rolling off her beast, and something inside his loyalty broke. He took a deep, grounding breath, turned his back entirely on Kaleb, and faced the high elders.

"He ordered that the heir be taken from Ironfang," Daniel announced, his voice ringing clearly through the stone chamber.

Instantly, the last remaining color drained from Kaleb’s face. The entire room went dead still, as the truth finally crashed down around them.

"You spineless traitor!" Kaleb roared, a sickening crack echoing through his skeleton as his muzzle half-elongated and thick, gray fur ripped through his skin. His teeth elongated into lethal fangs before he forced the violent half-shift back under his flesh. "I will have your tongue for that!"

"Control your beast, Alpha!" Elder Magnus’s voice detonated across the chamber, his ancient wolf voice bleeding so heavily into his human vocal cords that the glass sconces on the stone walls rattled.

"You are already a corpse, Daniel! How dare you break your blood oath to me?" Kaleb spat, his clawed fingers digging so deeply into the dark wood armrests that the timber began to splinter.

"I never betrayed the pack, Alpha," Daniel shot back, his chest heaving as the scent of his defiance filled the room. "If anyone is a traitor in this hall, it is you. You betrayed every single wolf who ever bled for your crest." He paused, his gaze raking over Kaleb’s trembling, furious frame. "Including your own pup."

Kaleb’s inner wolf snapped its leash before he could stop it. With a guttural howl, he lunged across the floor toward Daniel, whose jaws bared in an instant, instinctive response to meet the strike.

But before their claws could clash, the three high elders unleashed their combined Alpha aura. A crushing, invisible weight slammed down from the dais, flatlining both wolves and pinning them to the cold stone.

"Silence!" Elder Magnus’s voice was a tectonic roar that rolled off the walls, choking the breath right out of both men. "You will force your wolves to calm this instant, or we will have the executioners put them down for you!"

But inside Rhea’s mind, River was not having it. She was thrashing against the mental cage, her phantom claws tearing frantically at their shared consciousness. "Let me out, Rhea! I want in on this bloodbath! This is our chance to rip the throat out of the one who sold our cub!"

"No, River. Hold," Rhea commanded silently, forcing a breath through her nose to steady the violent trembling in her hands. "Not until we have the whole truth. Lie down."

Across the room, Adam leaned back in his carved chair, a dark, dangerous smile playing on his lips. His amber eyes narrowed as he took in the chaotic scene, entirely unmoved by the oppressive pressure of the Council’s aura.

Elder Magnus lowered his heavy gaze back onto Daniel. "Do you have anything more to give this Council regarding the heir?"

"Where is the cub?" Elder Seraphine pressed, her sharp tone cutting through the dense air.

Daniel shook his head, his chest still heaving in ragged bursts as he forced his wolf to submit. "Nothing more. I don’t know what happened after that."

"But he commanded you to take the boy from his bed?" the female elder asked, her thick brows pulling into a tight knot. She whirled her gaze onto Kaleb. "To where? He must have given you a drop-off location."

Daniel shot a fleeting, tense look at Kaleb before shaking his head. "We were ordered to remove the boy from Ironfang territory and wait for his signal in the borderlands. But as I said, the cub was already gone before my warriors could even reach the cradle. Only the Alpha holds the answers to where he went."

Kaleb’s large hands clenched so hard his knuckles turned a bloodless, dead white. He let out a sharp, breathless laugh. "Fine! Yes! I facilitated the boy’s removal from my house! So what?!"

"Then where the hell is my son?! Tell me, you heartless monster!" Rhea erupted from her seat, the veins in her neck bulging like thick ropes as her silver eyes blazed with white-hot agony.

Kaleb cut his eyes toward her, a cruel, mocking smile stretching across his lips. Then, he deliberately turned his head away.

Watching him, Rhea felt her stomach hollow out; she couldn’t tell if the bastard was withholding the location just to torture her, or if he was genuinely ignorant.

"Daniel," Elder Magnus rumbled, ignoring Kaleb’s posturing. "Where exactly was the child meant to be taken?"

"We never got the chance to find out," Daniel revealed, his voice steady. "We were ordered to remove the boy from Ironfang territory."

"Then what happened?" Elder Magnus asked.

"When we reached the nursery," Daniel frowned. "The child was gone."

The entire room froze.

"Gone?" Elder Magnus asked again.

"Yes," Daniel confirmed.

"You will seal your damn jaws this instant!" Kaleb growled into the chamber, his amber eyes flaring with a manic, golden light. "Whatever you saw or heard was under a sacred blood oath as my Beta! You do not owe these old fools a single answer!"

"Then we will get the truth straight from your throat, Duskbane! With your cooperation or with silver force! The choice is yours, and I would choose very wisely," Elder Rowan barked, the tips of his fingers lengthening into thick, black claws as his own beast surged forward.

"Now answer the Council!" Elder Magnus demanded, leaning over the stone rail. "Where are you keeping the boy?"

Kaleb said nothing. The chamber waited. Even the torches seemed to stop crackling. For the first time since entering the hall, uncertainty flickered across Kaleb’s face.

Then, a low, mocking chuckle suddenly echoed through the quiet of the stone chamber. A chair scraped against the stone floor. And Adam stood.

"You are asking the wrong wolf," his smooth baritone cut through the thick air.