After My Mate Drugged Me, I Ran with His Beta

The Alpha Command hit me like a freight train.

One moment I was standing in the dungeon corridor, Ryan's hand still on my arm. The next, an invisible force crushed down on my skull, driving me to my knees. My forehead cracked against the stone floor. Something warm trickled from my nose.

"You will stay here," Cassius said, his voice layered with that supernatural authority that made every cell in my body scream to obey, "until you understand that you belong to me. Until you remember your place."

I tried to lift my head. Couldn't. The weight of his command pinned me like a butterfly under glass.

"She's clearly unstable," he continued, and I realized he was talking to Ryan now, to the other warriors. Building his narrative. "Attacking a high-ranking pack member, trying to flee in the night. She needs time to recover. To heal."

Heal. The word was a joke. A lie wrapped in concern.

"For her own protection," Cassius finished, "she stays in the silver cells."

Silver. My stomach dropped.

Ryan's hands were gentle as he lifted me, but I saw the doubt in his eyes. He'd known me since I was sixteen. He'd watched me fail trial after trial, but he'd also seen me get back up every single time. This didn't fit.

But orders were orders.

The cell door was pure silver, the bars gleaming dully in the torchlight. The moment Ryan guided me inside, my skin began to burn where it touched the metal. I jerked back, but there was nowhere to go. The entire cell was lined with it—bars, chains bolted to the wall, even silver dust scattered across the floor.

For wolves who couldn't shift, silver was just painful. For wolves who could, it was agony. A suppressant that burned through fur and flesh alike.

Cassius thought I was the former. He had no idea what he'd just done.

The door clanged shut. Ryan's footsteps faded. And then there was only silence and the smell of my own blood.

I don't know how long I sat there. Hours, maybe. Long enough for the burning to become background noise, for my body to go numb in all the wrong places. The cell was cold and damp, water dripping somewhere in the darkness.

No wolfsbane tea. The thought drifted through my mind, detached and strange. For the first time in seven years, there would be no morning cup. No bitter herbs coating my tongue. No poison shutting down the part of me that was supposed to be wild.

My nose had stopped bleeding, but my head still throbbed where it had hit the floor. I leaned back against the stone wall, as far from the silver bars as I could get, and closed my eyes.

That's when I heard it.

*Finally.*

The voice was clear. Strong. Unmistakably female and absolutely not my own thoughts.

My eyes snapped open. "Hello?"

*You can hear me.* Relief flooded through the words, though I didn't understand how I could feel emotion in a voice inside my head. *Oh thank the Goddess, you can finally hear me.*

"Who—" My throat was dry. I swallowed and tried again. "Who are you?"

*Who am I?* A sound that might have been a laugh, if laughs could exist without lungs. *I'm Sasha. I'm your wolf. I'm the part of you he's been drowning for seven years.*

Sasha. The name from my dreams. The presence I'd been searching for every time I tried to shift.

"You're real," I whispered.

*As real as you are. More real than you've been, lately.* Her voice turned sharp. *That poison. It didn't just stop you from shifting. It built a wall between us. Brick by brick, cup by cup, until I was screaming and you couldn't hear a sound.*

Tears burned behind my eyes. "I thought I was broken."

*Never broken. Just buried.* Something shifted inside me, a warmth spreading through my chest. *But the poison is fading now. I can feel it leaving your system. And I can finally start fixing what he destroyed.*

The burning in my skin began to ease. Not much, but enough to notice. The throbbing in my head dulled to a manageable ache.

"You're healing me?"

*Trying to. Silver makes it harder, but yes.* A pause. *Norah, there's something you need to know. About what you are. What we are.*

"What do you mean?"

*That ledger you found. The one that said 'royal bloodline.' He wasn't exaggerating. We're descended from the Silvercrest line. The last of the Moon Goddess's chosen guardians.* Her voice dropped lower. *That's why he poisoned us. Not because we were weak. Because we were too strong.*

I pressed my hand against the cold stone, trying to process. Royal bloodline. Guardians. It sounded like a fairy tale.

*It's real,* Sasha insisted. *And when I finally break through, when you finally shift, everyone is going to know it.*

"When?" The word came out desperate.

*Soon. Days, not weeks. Your body needs time to purge the toxins, to remember what it was before he broke it. But we're close, Norah. So close.*

Footsteps echoed in the corridor above. A door slammed. I tensed, but the sounds faded.

"What do I do until then?"

*You survive,* Sasha said simply. *You stay alive. And you trust that help is coming.*

"Micah."

*Yes. The Beta with the hidden Alpha blood. I can smell it on him, even through the silver. He won't leave you here.*

I leaned my head back against the wall, exhaustion pulling at my edges. But for the first time in seven years, I wasn't alone in my own skin.

*Sleep,* Sasha murmured. *I'll keep watch. I'll keep healing. And when the time comes, we'll show them exactly what they tried to destroy.*

I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me, her presence a warm ember in my chest.

Two nights later, I woke to the sound of a body hitting the floor.

The dungeon guard—a young Delta named Marcus—crumpled outside my cell, Micah's arm still wrapped around his throat. Micah lowered him gently, checking his pulse before looking up at me.

His eyes were pure gold.

"Time to go," he said, and pulled a lockpick from his pocket.