Chapter 71

Chapter 71: Chapter 71

My body screamed with exhaustion. My limbs were stiff, my throat burned, and my eyes throbbed from a night filled with tears and fear. I hadn’t slept, at all last night. Every sound had twisted into a threat, every shadow into a lurking figure. I was still alive, but I didn’t feel alive. I felt like a ghost wandering in my own skin.

As I sat up on the bed, my body swayed. My knees gave way, and I caught myself on the edge of the mattress. My breath came in shallow bursts, like I had run miles without stopping.

I couldn’t do this anymore.

I couldn’t spend another day in this room, waiting for him. I couldn’t spend another night listening to whispers that weren’t there. The walls pressed in on me, the silence suffocated me, and my mind was unraveling thread by thread. There was only one way left. I had to beg the crazy psycho to let me go back to the omega’s quarters or else I will die here. The thought of standing before him again made my stomach clench, but what choice did I have? He was the key to my prison. He was the one who decided whether I lived in this cage or not. And if I didn’t try, I would shatter. So I forced myself up. Each step toward the door felt heavier than the last, my bare feet dragging across the cold floor. I whispered to myself as I moved. "You can do this. You have to. He has to let you go. He has to..."

My hand shook violently as I reached for the door. For a moment, I hesitated, my breath catching in my throat. What if he was already there? What if he had been waiting?

I pulled the door open. And my heart almost stopped beating. The crazy psycho was there.

The Psycho Alpha stood at the threshold, as if he had been expecting me. His tall frame blocked the light behind him, casting a shadow over me. His eyes icy, unwavering fixed on me without a word.

I froze, my body trembling violently. My lips parted, but no sound came out. His gaze stripped me bare, exposing every weakness, every fear.

And then, I broke down in tears. I fell to my knees so fast the impact jolted up my bones. My hands clutched at his trousers, my forehead pressed to the floor as sobs tore from my chest.

"Please!" My voice cracked and splintered. "Please, Alpha, let me go back to the omegas’ quarters! I can’t stay here, I can’t—I’ll die if I do. Please, I beg you!"

The tears spilled freely, hot and endless, soaking into the wood beneath me. My words tumbled out without order, a desperate flood I couldn’t control.

"I’ll work harder, I’ll never complain, I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t keep me here! Please, Alpha, please I’m begging you! I’ll serve, I’ll obey, I’ll do anything, anything you ask!"

I pulled at the fabric of his trousers, my nails digging in. My sobs came in gasps, raw and broken.

"Please! Please don’t leave me here, not in this room, not alone again-I can’t take it, I can’t breathe, I can’t sleep-please!"

But still, he said nothing.

I dared to lift my head just enough to see him. He hadn’t moved. His face remained cold, detached, like he was watching some pathetic scene play out for his amusement. His silence was worse than cruelty. It crushed me, suffocated me, made every word I said feel like it dissolved into nothingness.

I cried harder. My body shook as I pressed my forehead back to the floor, rocking slightly as if the motion would keep me from breaking apart completely.

"Please, Alpha," I whispered through choked sobs. "Please don’t hate me so much. Just let me go. Let me go back. Please..."

The silence stretched on, unbearable. And then, finally, his voice cut through.

"Go, then."

The words were soft, almost dismissive.

I froze, not sure I had heard right. My breath stilled, my tears suspended mid-fall. Slowly, I looked up, my vision blurred. His eyes met mine, unreadable.

"Go back to the omegas’ quarters. Take all the time you need."

I gasped. The relief hit me like a wave so strong it almost knocked me backward. My chest heaved, and fresh tears spilled down my face. But these tears were different tears of release, of a desperate hope I hadn’t dared to believe in.

"Thank you!" I sobbed, clutching at the floor, bowing so low my head pressed hard against the wood. "Thank you, Alpha, thank you, thank you, I’ll never forget this, I swear, I’ll—"

But then, something flickered in his eyes. A shadow. A sharpness. He turned from me, his steps measured, unhurried, his back straight. He didn’t spare me another glance. Then he said in his inner voice

"Inner voice: Pathetic little worm. Crawling and wailing at my feet like a broken toy. Do you think I let you go because of your tears? No. I only wanted to see how far you’d fall. And you fell beautifully.

The words cut into me, mocking, sharp. My body trembled harder, but I stayed pressed to the floor. Because no matter how cruel his thoughts were, no matter how deeply they burned I was free. At least for now. I wept again, my body shaking with sobs of relief and humiliation tangled together. My face burned with shame, but my chest eased with hope. He had let me go. And for the first time in what felt like forever, I could breathe. I dragged myself to my feet, weak and trembling, and staggered toward the hallway. My legs wobbled, my vision blurred, but each step forward was lighter than the one before. I was going back. Back to the omegas’ quarters, back to a place where I wasn’t alone with him.

As I walked, I whispered to myself, half-crazed, half-ecstatic. "He let me go. He let me go. Thank God, thank God.

But even as I repeated the words, even as I clung to them, his inner voice echoed in my head.

Run back to your hole, little omega. But don’t forget you’ll never escape me. I’ll always be there, watching.

And the relief turned into fear once more.The hallway felt longer than it had ever been. Every step I took sounded too loud, like a drumbeat of panic on the cold stone floor. My hands were clammy and trembling, my breath shallow. I kept glancing over my shoulder, heart hammering against my ribs as if it wanted to burst free. He wasn’t there. The doorway to his room stood silent, empty, but the scent of him clung to everything pine and iron, like a forest after a storm and a blade after blood. It wrapped around me even as I walked away, as if his shadow was still reaching for me.

I couldn’t stop looking back. My neck hurt from the jerky movements, my eyes darting between the corridor behind me and the winding hall ahead. Every flicker of torchlight on the walls became his eyes. Every echo of my footsteps became his footsteps.

What if he’s following you?

The thought whispered inside my head, soft and mocking, like his voice had been when he let me go.

"Inner voice: Run, little omega. Run back to your kennel. You’ll crawl back to me soon enough.

I clenched my fists and forced my feet to keep moving. The air felt too thin to breathe. My wolf was curled tight inside me, whimpering, ears pinned flat in terror. Down the stairs, through another hall, out the heavy double doors each threshold felt like a trap, each step like a dare. I expected him to appear at any moment, tall and terrible, blocking my way with that cruel half-smile.

But he didn’t. I reached the courtyard and the cold morning air hit me like a slap. I gasped, pulling it into my lungs, trying to steady myself. Sunlight spilled over the cobblestones, so bright it made my eyes water. For a moment I almost believed I was safe.

Then I looked back again.

The door to his wing stood closed. No sign of him. No movement. Only the heavy, carved wood and the shadows pooling beneath it.

But the feeling didn’t leave. My skin crawled, my heart thudded painfully, my eyes scanning every corner of the courtyard as though he might materialize from the air itself.

I started walking faster.

The path to the omegas’ quarters wound around the edge of the courtyard and down a narrow lane lined with low stone walls. The birds in the trees went quiet as I passed, and my footsteps echoed unnaturally loud against the stones.

"He’s not following you," I whispered, my voice shaking. "He’s not."

But my body didn’t believe me. My shoulders hunched, my head turned constantly, my wolf pacing in circles inside my chest. Every gust of wind felt like a breath on my neck. Every crack of a branch made me jump.

Halfway to the quarters, I froze. I thought I heard something a soft sound, like low laughter, curling at the edges of my mind.

Careful, Ellie, the voice seemed to purr. Next time I might not catch you.

I spun around, breath catching in my throat. Nothing. Just the empty path stretching back to the courtyard, the castle looming beyond it. I swallowed hard and forced myself to move again. My knees trembled, but I kept walking, faster and faster, my hands clutched to my chest like a child. The huts of the omegas’ quarters came into view at last, their roofs dark against the bright morning sky. The sight made my eyes sting. It wasn’t much small, plain buildings compared to the Alpha’s wing but right now it looked like safety. I stumbled the last few steps, half-running, half-falling.

"Elie?!" The cry came from ahead, and my head jerked up to see Mira standing by the doorway of one of the huts, a basket of laundry slipping from her hands. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth fell open. Within seconds, more omegas spilled out of the huts, drawn by her shout. Joan and Elara were at the front, their faces pale and tear-streaked.

"Ellie!" Elara cried, running to me so fast she nearly tripped. Her arms wrapped around me with crushing desperation. "You’re here!"

Joan grabbed my hand, her grip trembling. "We thought he. Her voice cracked, and she couldn’t finish.

The others gathered around, their voices overlapping questions, gasps, sobs of relief.

"How did you get away?"

"What did he do to you?"

"Are you hurt?"

"Did he let you go?"

Their faces blurred through my tears, but I saw the joy, the shock, the disbelief. Hands reached out to touch me, to make sure I was real.

I tried to smile, but it came out as a shaky grimace. "I—I don’t know," I stammered. "He just... told me I could go."

A stunned silence fell over them. The words hung in the air like something fragile, impossible.

An Alpha like him, letting an omega go. It didn’t make sense. But for now, none of us wanted to question it too deeply. I was back. Alive. That was miracle enough.

Elara’s hands were still on my shoulders, shaking slightly. "We thought he killed you," she whispered. "We thought-"

I swallowed and looked over my shoulder one last time.

The path behind me was empty. The castle loomed in the distance, silent and still.

But even as the omegas pulled me inside, their voices rising in relief, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still there watching me.