Alpha's STOLEN Mate Chapter 99

Rowan

Morgath's lair was a maze designed to disorient and confuse—sterile white walls pulsing with magical energy, doorways leading to impossible spaces, corridors bending geometry in ways that shouldn't exist. The air itself vibrated with raw power, making my skin crawl as I navigated deeper.

*This isn't just a hideout. It's a fortress.*

I'd tracked Morgath here through desperation and old location-tracking spells she'd taught me. Finding her was simple. Getting her to negotiate? That would be the challenge.

I had to try. Not because of Kaius's threat—*I'll slaughter every single Elder*—though he'd certainly meant it. No, it was something else.

A pulse of magic guided me toward the center. The walls shimmered, and suddenly I stood in an opulent receiving room—dark woods and plush furniture, utterly at odds with the clinical whiteness outside.

Morgath sat waiting, still wearing that ridiculous golden mask. As if I didn't know what lay beneath.

"Morgath!" I stormed forward, my fury overriding caution. "Have you lost your fucking mind?! Capturing Elowen NOW? Without consulting me? I specifically said I'd give you the signal when the time was right!"

Morgath rose gracefully, her movements fluid despite her age. She reached up and removed the mask, revealing the face beneath—a landscape of scar tissue and burns, the remnants of beauty buried under decades of hatred and pain.

"Elder Rowan," she said with mocking courtesy. "Perhaps *you're* the one who's confused. I've been waiting for your signal for weeks. Weeks." Her scarred lips twisted into something approximating a smile. "And I've watched you become more and more distracted by that strapping young Alpha King. Tell me, how much longer should I wait while you play house with your toy?"

Heat flooded my face. "My relationship with Kaius is purely strategic! I need time to—"

"Time?" Morgath laughed, the sound bitter and sharp. "My plans don't run on your convenience, Rowan. I don't have the luxury of waiting while you fuck your way through some midlife crisis!"

"You don't understand!" I advanced on her, my hands clenched into fists. "Your actions will destroy everything I've worked for! When Elowen becomes your pet, Kaius will turn on me completely. He'll know I was involved. Our alliance will shatter, and I'll lose the legitimacy I've built with the other Alphas!" My voice rose. "We'll be enemies again—openly at war. Everything I've sacrificed, all my planning—wasted!"

Morgath's expression shifted to something almost pitying. "God, Rowan. You're what, five hundred years old? Don't tell me you've actually fallen in love with the boy."

"FUCK NO!" The denial exploded from me too quickly, too vehemently. "I'm *using* him! Soon he'll be my puppet—completely under my control. And through him, the Elders will truly rule all the packs!" I forced myself to calm down, to sound rational. "When that happens, you can have all the test subjects you want. I'll deliver them to you on a silver platter. But *now*? It's too soon. He's not ready. *I'm* not ready—"

"Is that really why?" Morgath cut me off, studying my face with those sharp, knowing eyes. "Or is it because you haven't been able to break him? Despite all your tricks, all your seductions, he still thinks of her. Dreams of her. Reaches for her through that pathetic mate bond." She tilted her head. "How frustrating that must be for you."

The words struck too close to truth. Images flashed through my mind—Kaius's eyes going distant when he thought I wasn't looking, the way he'd pull away after sex, how he'd never, not once, called me by name in the throes of passion.

*Because he's thinking of her. Always her.*

"Just give me more time!" I hated the desperation creeping into my voice. "I can make him submit!"

Morgath replaced her mask with slow deliberation. "I've already begun Elowen's transformation. The process is irreversible." Her voice dropped to something cold and final. "As for your precious Kaius—if he can't be brought to heel properly, I'll transform him too. Imagine it, Rowan. Your perfect pet Alpha King, completely obedient, eternally devoted. Isn't that what you really want?"

"NO!" The word tore from my throat. "God, that's not— You can't— That's not real power! It's a pathetic illusion!" I was shouting now, all pretense of control abandoned. "False submission, false love, false loyalty—it's all meaningless! Don't you understand how tragic that is?!"

Morgath began pacing, her movements eerily graceful. "False? *False?*" She laughed. "What in this world is real, Rowan? Tell me. Love? Ha! Loyalty? Even more laughable. Everything is illusion. Everything is manipulation." She stopped, turning to face me fully. "At least I'm honest about it."

*She wasn't always like this.*

The memory surfaced unbidden—Morgath as she'd been decades ago, before the scars, before the madness. Just an ordinary witch who'd made the fatal mistake of falling in love with a wolf shifter. Their relationship had been secret, forbidden by pack law that prohibited unions between witches and werewolves.

But her mate had seemed different. Progressive. Kind. He'd promised to protect her, to change the old laws, to make their love legitimate.

She'd believed him. Even bore his child.

Then came the night her mate's pack discovered the truth. They'd locked her family in their cottage—her, her infant son, her wolf lover. The pack Alpha himself had set the fire.

The scars on Morgath's face weren't just burns. They were the price of trying to shield her baby from the flames as she crawled through the inferno. Her mate had burned alive, screaming not for mercy but for his pack to save his reputation, to remember he'd been a loyal wolf who'd never truly loved the witch.

She'd escaped. Barely. But no pack would shelter a witch with a half-breed child. They'd wandered for months, rejected everywhere, until the baby died of exposure and starvation in her arms.

That's when Morgath had found the Flesh-Weavers—or they'd found her. She'd proven a prodigy at their darkest arts, eventually becoming their leader. And her hatred for all werewolves had grown with each passing year, festering into the obsession that drove her now.

*I should pity her. Part of me does.*

But that didn't make her any less dangerous.

Morgath must have noticed my expression. Her voice softened slightly. "Stop dwelling on my past, Elder. It only proves what I've always known—werewolves are fundamentally deceptive. They walk as humans, think like humans, pretend to have human morality." Her voice turned venomous. "But they're beasts. Animals. And they should be treated as such."

"I don't have time for philosophy!" I snapped. "Today, right now, you're releasing Elowen. When the timing is truly right—"

"No." Morgath's tone brooked no argument. She made a dismissive gesture. "Elder Rowan, our partnership was built on mutual benefit. But lately, you've been acting against my interests repeatedly." She moved toward the door, clearly ending the conversation. "Please leave."

Rage exploded through me. "FUCK! Do you have any idea how much I've given you?! The magical reagents, the funding, the protected channels for your experiments—"

"And I've taught you countless spells, shared my research, given you the tools to enhance your aura beyond anything the Elder Council thought possible!" Morgath shot back. "More importantly, I bought you weeks of time alone with Kaius. Time you apparently wasted."

I lunged forward, grabbing her expensive robes, pulling her close. "You realize your plan threatens every werewolf in existence? I could expose you right now. Reveal your identity, your location, everything!" My voice dropped to a lethal whisper. "You'd be dead within days, hunted by every pack on the continent. They'd tear you apart, you twisted *freak*!"

The mask fell away again as Morgath's face contorted with pure rage.

*Oh fuck. I went too far.*

"Rowan," she said quietly, dangerously. "Let's both calm down and—"

Her hand moved faster than sight. Invisible force slammed me backward, pinning me against the wall with crushing pressure. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe properly, couldn't even shift my weight.

"Morgath! Stop! I'm not your enemy!"

"No?" Her voice dripped with contempt as she advanced. "But you're certainly not useful anymore. And I'm beginning to suspect you've developed real feelings for your pet Alpha." She practically spat the words. "You've become a fucking liability. A *loose end*." Her eyes blazed with paranoid fury. "How do I know you won't betray everything to your beloved Kaius? How can I trust you won't let emotion override our plans?!"

Panic clawed at my throat. I reached for my aura, my signature Elder power—

Nothing. Completely suppressed by whatever magic Morgath was wielding.

*She's stronger than me now. So much stronger. When did the gap become this wide?*

"DIE, Rowan!" Morgath's voice rose to a shriek. "You've fallen to their level! You think like them, feel like them! You're as corrupted as any werewolf!"

Invisible fingers closed around my throat, squeezing with relentless pressure. My feet kicked uselessly against the wall, finding no purchase. My vision began to darken at the edges.

*This can't be how it ends. Not like this. Not because I was foolish enough to—*

To what? Care? No. Impossible. I couldn't care about Kaius. I'd just wanted to control him, to use him, to—

*Liar.*

The thought came from some honest part of myself I'd buried long ago. I'd wanted him to choose me. Not through compulsion or magic or fear, but freely. Genuinely.

And he never would. Because of her. Always because of *her*.

I'd killed Silas for this. Betrayed my fellow Elders. Aligned myself with a monster. All for a chance at something I couldn't even admit I wanted—and for what? To die here, alone, strangled by my own co-conspirator?

*You're pathetic, Rowan. A five-hundred-year-old fool playing at being young again.*

The pressure on my throat increased. Consciousness flickered.

And then, impossible as it seemed, I heard Kaius's voice—cold, contemptuous, brutal:

*"You're nothing but a delusional, ancient whore who died the way she lived—desperate, unloved, and forgotten by morning. Even your corpse won't matter enough to mourn."*

Was it real? A dying hallucination? A message through whatever thin thread still connected us?

It didn't matter.

He was right.