Chapter 91: Chapter 91
Alpha Zach hadn’t spoken a single word to me since the night before. He’d come back late, his face unreadable, his aura heavy and dangerous, and then gone straight into his room without so much as a glance in my direction.
He didn’t need to speak to frighten me. His silence did it better.
Still, when dawn broke, I forced myself up. My body ached from sleeping half-sitting on the cold couch, but I pushed through the stiffness and straightened my uniform. The air inside the Alpha’s quarters felt thick, charged like the entire house held its breath waiting for his next move.
I tried not to think about last night, about the way his eyes had cut through me before he disappeared behind his door. Instead, I focused on the only thing I could still control the morning routine which is cooking.
I gathered my courage and left the quarters, heading for the pack’s kitchen. The corridor was quiet, lined with portraits of former Alphas glaring down from their frames. My footsteps echoed, and I hated how small I sounded in that big, haunted place.
When I entered the kitchen, I didn’t even know what to make. My mind was blank. Usually, I would prepare something simple eggs, bread, maybe tea. But today, even those choices felt wrong.
The Alpha liked order. He liked precision. He hated when things were missing, when people wasted time.
So, I made his usual bread, eggs, hot black coffee, no sugar.
The smell filled the air as I worked, and for a brief, fragile moment, I pretended I was just a normal maid preparing breakfast for a normal man. But the moment I thought that, the illusion cracked.
Alpha Zach was not a normal man.
He was the kind of man who smiled while talking about pain. The kind who would tilt his head and murmur cruel things only I could hear thoughts no one else knew he had. And sometimes, when I accidentally met his eyes, I swore I saw two people looking back at me: one calm and composed, the other dark, fractured, and hungry for control.
When I finished, I placed everything carefully on a tray and began walking back to his quarters. My heart thudded faster with every step.
I paused outside his door and took a breath before knocking softly. "Alpha," I called. "Your breakfast is ready."
No answer.
I knocked again, a little louder this time. "Alpha Zach?"
Still nothing. Something inside me began to twist. I turned the handle slowly and peeked in. The room was empty. The bed untouched.
He was gone. Again. For a moment, I just stood there with the tray in my hands, unsure what to do. The coffee’s steam rose into the air, curling like ghosts between my fingers. My throat tightened painfully.
He hadn’t even bothered to tell me he was leaving. Carefully, I set the tray on the table, staring at it as though the silence might give me some kind of answer. But it didn’t. It never did. I sat down on the edge of the bed, letting out a long, shaky breath. The scent of his cologne still clung to the air —sharp, earthy, faintly metallic. It wrapped around me, suffocating and intimate.
I hated how it made my chest tighten.
He’d been gone before, but this felt different. The uneasiness in my stomach wouldn’t settle. My mind raced with questions I didn’t want to ask. Where had he gone? When would he return? Would he be angry that I touched his things? Would he? No, no Stop. I pressed my palms to my face and forced myself to breathe. Calm down, Ellie.
I couldn’t keep living like this tiptoeing around fear. But even thinking that felt like rebellion. Fear had become part of me now, the rhythm of my existence. Hours passed.
I didn’t eat. I didn’t leave. I sat there and watched the sunlight move slowly across the floor, inch by inch.
By evening, the shadows began to creep in, swallowing the light until only the faint glow of the bedside lamp kept the darkness at bay.
He still hadn’t come back.
I considered returning to the omega’s quarters for the night, but the thought of facing Elizabeth or the other omegas made my stomach knot. They would ask questions questions I couldn’t answer. Besides, the Alpha might come back and find me missing. And if he did I didn’t want to imagine what he might do. So I decided to stay.
I spread a blanket on the floor beside the couch and sat down, hugging my knees to my chest. The tiles were cold, but I didn’t care. I stared at the door, waiting, until my eyes grew heavy and my head started to droop.
Eventually, exhaustion won.
My breathing slowed, and I drifted into uneasy sleep.
The dream came fast.
I was standing in a forest, barefoot, fog swirling around my legs. I could hear someone whispering my name, over and over. The voice was familiar deep, commanding, soft with mockery.
Ellie!
I turned, but no one was there. Then suddenly, the whisper became a low laugh, echoing all around me. I tried to run, but the fog thickened until I couldn’t see anything.
When I looked down, the ground beneath me was gone. I was falling.
"Ellie."
My eyes snapped open.
For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. The shadows of the Alpha’s quarters loomed above me. The light from the moon poured in through the window, silver and cold. My breath hitched as I realized I wasn’t alone. Someone was standing by the door. It was Him. Alpha Zach. He was back. He hadn’t turned on any lights, but I could see the faint outline of his form against the moonlight. He was tall, still, almost statuesque. His coat was half-unbuttoned, his hands in his pockets. He was watching me. I froze, every muscle in my body locking into place. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it hurt.
"Alpha..." I whispered, my voice trembling. "You’re back."
He didn’t answer.
He just stood there, eyes fixed on me like he was studying a specimen. Then slowly, he tilted his head, his expression unreadable.
I wanted to get up, to say something else, but my body wouldn’t move.
The silence between us was suffocating. I could hear every tick of the clock, every shallow breath I took.
Finally, he walked past me, his footsteps slow, deliberate. The faint scent of metal followed him blood. My stomach turned. He didn’t look at me as he passed, didn’t acknowledge me at all. He simply went to his room and closed the door behind him. That was it. No words. No questions. No anger. Just silence.
I sat there for a long time after the door closed, staring at the empty space he’d left behind.
The sound of my own breathing filled the room.
I should’ve been relieved that he didn’t shout, that he didn’t hurt me. But somehow, the quiet was worse. It felt heavier, more dangerous like the calm before something terrible.
When I finally lay back down, I kept my eyes open for a long time, staring at the door.
I could hear faint movement from inside his room, the sound of water running, the soft thud of boots hitting the floor. Normal things. Ordinary sounds.
But to me, every one of them sounded like a warning.
Eventually, the noises stopped, and I was left alone with the darkness again.
Sleep didn’t come easily. My thoughts kept circling back to the same question.
Why does he keep coming back late? Where does he go?
And deep down, beneath all that fear, another question whispered the one I didn’t want to ask. And why do I keep waiting for him?
I turned on my side, pulling the blanket up to my chin. The moonlight fell across the floor in silver lines, and I watched it fade inch by inch until I drifted off again, into another uneasy, haunted sleep. I sat on the cold marble floor, hugging my knees, the faint scent of cedarwood and wild musk still lingering in the air his scent.
I had been here since dawn. Waiting. Preparing. Hoping he would come back. But Alpha Zach never did. He had vanished before breakfast and didn’t return even as the sun dipped beyond the forest ridge.
The uneaten food on the table mocked me cold, untouched, forgotten. Just like me.
I sighed quietly, my breath fogging up in the air. "He didn’t even come back..." I murmured to myself. Maybe it was better that way. When he was around, I never knew whether I’d be ignored or strangled.
Still, a part of me hated the silence. It was too loud. Every creak of the floorboards, every whisper of wind through the open window made my chest tighten. The Alpha’s quarters were enormous, but to me, it felt like a trap the kind that smiled at you with luxury before it snapped shut.
I couldn’t bring myself to go back to the omegas’ quarters tonight. Not after last time. The other omegas stared at me like I was cursed the lunatic who survived the Psycho Alpha’s temper.
So, I laid down on the floor near the hearth, clutching my blanket around me. The faint warmth of the dying embers brushed against my cheek. The exhaustion of waiting finally pulled me under.
But something or someone stirred me awake.
A faint sound. Barely audible. Like the whisper of fabric against stone.
My eyes snapped open. The room was still dim, the moonlight spilling through the curtains in fractured shards. My body went rigid, instinct screaming that I wasn’t alone.
And then I felt it. That gaze. Cold. Unblinking. Watching.
I froze, pretending to still be asleep as my breath slowed to a soft rhythm. But the air shifted heavy, deliberate. Every part of me screamed that he was there.
Slowly, through half-lidded eyes, I caught the faint outline of a tall figure by the doorway.
Alpha Zach. He stood completely still, his broad shoulders blocking the moonlight. His expression was unreadable his jaw tight, eyes like molten silver fixed on me. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He just watched.
I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, loud and panicked. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Why was he just standing there, in the dark, staring like that? Was he angry? Was he deciding whether to kill me?
My fingers trembled slightly under the blanket. I dared not move. If I made a sound, I might trigger that volatile darkness that lived inside him the same one that made his guards flinch when he walked by. Then I heard his inner voice.
"Inner voice: Pathetic little thing still here.