MATED TO THE SECRET ALPHA

The sound of the leader's sword plunging into one of their comrade's stomach silenced the others, freezing their minds in dread.

The victim's eyes widened in agony, clutching at the sword now lodged in his abdomen. The leader tried to abandon the sword, but instead, pulled the sword out and cut down another comrade.

'Fuck you, bastard!' Filled with rage and indignation, the leader locked eyes with Ryder, believing him to be the mastermind. He pointed the sword at him, 'I'll chop you into pieces!' He growled in his mind, as he readied to attack him, but the next moment, he found himself slicing off another comrade's head.

'Ahhhh!!' he couldn't take it anymore and tried to abandon the weapon, but his hands wouldn't do what he asked. Left with no other choice, he attempted to shift, which would mean leaving his scent behind, but his wolf failed to surface either.

Instead, his legs moved, leading him to his remaining comrades, weapon lifted, cutting down his brethrens with insane precision.

The last man standing, with tears of pain and hatred in his eyes, waited for Ryder to draw near, his heart filled with deadly schemes. But the next moment, the leader lifted the sword to his own throat…

Eyes bulging with panic, he screamed; No, no, no, don't do–

He drew the sword across his own neck. The leader's eyes, still fixed on Ryder, seemed to hold a fleeting moment of regret, of horror, before they glazed over, and his body crumpled to the ground, joining the carnage that surrounded him.

An oppressive silence filled the air but it seemed not to affect Ryder, who stood there, watching the corpses with a cold, intense look that could have frozen the little blood remaining in their veins.

Just then, Ryder's ears twitched, catching a faint sound that seemed to come from nowhere. He turned and strode away, leaving behind only the horror he had created.

"I heard the scream coming from the Luna's quarters," an urgent voice whispered.

"The air is thick with the scent of blood. Shift!" another voice growled.

Few minutes later, a pack of wolves burst into the Luna's quarters, their paws pounding the floor with a mix of urgency and trepidation. But before they could reach the hallway, they were met with a sight that made their hackles rise: a bloodbath of unimaginable proportions, the scent of death and carnage hanging heavy in the air, and the gruesome remains of these strange people in black.

"Awooooo!!" one of the wolves cried out, raising alarm as the pack's anxiety reached a fever pitch. A few others sped into the hallway, rushing to check up on their Luna, their hearts racing with fear for her safety.

Meanwhile, the haunting howls of the wolves pierced the night, jolting Reana awake. She sat up with a start, her heart racing, just as a massive brown wolf burst into her bedchambers. In a flash of instinct, Reana hurled a silver dagger at the intruder, but the wolf expected that and quickly dodged while shifting in mid-air. When it landed, it was Kira.

"Kira?" Reana's voice was laced with a mix of relief and confusion, realizing too late that her instincts had almost led her astray.

"Thank the goddess you're fine," Kira breathed, relief washing over her.

"What's happening?" Reana asked, but she was already in motion, swiftly rising from her bed and striding towards the door, her expression set in a determined mask.

Kira cast a glance at her nightdress, a fleeting thought crossed her mind. But the gravity of the situation quickly dispelled such concerns. The pack was under attack, and trivial matters like attire were irrelevant.

With a swift motion, she fell into step beside Reana, who was already striding purposefully out of the room. "The pack is under attack," Kira reported, her voice low and urgent, as she rapidly conveyed the little she had gleaned from her brief observation.

….

The dungeon lay shrouded in an eerie silence after a fierce battle that lasted minutes. Dead bodies from masked men in black, and the pack's warriors littered the floor, their lifeless forms a grim testament to the brutality of the clash. The air was heavy with the stench of blood and sweat, the only sound the faint rustling of the torches that cast flickering shadows on the walls.

Despite this victory, a sense of unease settled over the warriors of Black Moon Pack, their minds racing with the daunting task of explaining their failure to Reana - in the chaos, Vivian had managed to escape.

The Luna would be mad. But when the pack warriors caught sight of the leader of the Intruders locked behind the cold cell, they felt a glimmer of hope.

"I'll inform the Beta," one of the warriors said, turning to leave, but another held him back with a cautionary grip.

"Inform the Gamma instead," he uttered.

The rumors of Beta Ryan's alleged infidelity with Vivian was still a huge matter. Although the Luna had been silent, her silence could mean anything. Plus, this attack and Vivian's escape couldn't be a mere coincidence.

In their eyes, Beta Ryan was the prime suspect. And it would be best to keep him out of the investigation, at least for now.

Understanding his comrade's thoughts, the warrior nodded before turning to leave the dungeon, his footsteps echoing off the cold stone walls.

From the dungeon to the pack house was a long walk, a distance that seemed to stretch even further in times of crisis. It was mainly for this reason that the fight which had taken place inside the dungeon had gone undetected by the rest of the pack.

But upon arriving at the pack house, the warrior's exhaustion and unease gave way to outright shock of dead bodies littering the floor. The warrior's mind reeled as he struggled to process the carnage before him.

And before he could even begin to make sense of it all, a frantic servant rushed over, her eyes wide with fear, and delivered a report that made the warrior's blood run cold: "Luna, the servant quarters was attacked!"

Reana's gaze snapped away from the lifeless bodies, her eyes locking onto the servant with an unnerving intensity that made the poor girl take a step back.

But Reana's focus was already elsewhere, her mind racing with a single, terrifying thought: 'Ryder!' The name echoed through her mind like a desperate prayer, and in an instant, she was in motion, hurrying towards the servant quarters with a speed that belied her usual calm demeanor.

Her heart pounded in her chest, her mind a jumble of worst-case scenarios, as she prayed, hoped, and wished with every fiber of her being that nothing had happened to him. The thought of losing Ryder was a prospect too terrible to contemplate, and Reana's anxiety drove her forward, her senses on high alert as she rushed towards the servant quarters,

Kira was alarmed at the manner in which Reana lost her composure. She wasn't like this when her family and mate were killed. How could she be like this now over a servant who wasn't even her mate?