Mated to Her Alpha Instructor Chapter 120

Nina

The morning light filtering through the infirmary windows felt accusatory as I fumbled with the silver root extract, my hands trembling so badly the vial nearly slipped from my grip. The crash never came—Dr. Hawthorne's steady hand caught it mid-fall, his weathered face creasing with concern rather than irritation.

"Nina." His voice was gentle, the kind of gentleness that made my throat tight. "When did you last sleep? And I mean truly sleep, not whatever you've been doing these past nights."

"I'm fine." The lie tasted bitter. "Just need more tea."

"What you need," he said, setting the vial down with deliberate care, "is rest. Medical rest. That's not a suggestion, Grey—it's a prescription."

My fingers curled into fists against my apron. "Dr. Hawthorne, I can work. I won't make mistakes—"

"You look like you're about to collapse." His tone remained kind but immovable. "One day off. Go back to your quarters, draw the curtains, and sleep."

The word "quarters" made my stomach clench. Four walls. A locked door. Alone with nothing but my thoughts and the nightmares that came with closing my eyes.

"I'd rather work," I said, hating how small my voice sounded.

"I'm sure you would." Dr. Hawthorne began untying my apron himself when I didn't move. "But part of learning to be a healer is knowing when you need healing. Today, Nina, you need rest."

There was no arguing with him. I nodded stiffly, surrendering the apron, and left the pharmacy with the distinct sensation of being cast adrift. Behind me, I heard him murmur to his assistant: "That child is holding on by a thread. Keep an eye on her, will you?"

The thread. Yes. That's exactly what it felt like—a single fraying thread suspending me over an abyss.

---

Back in the dormitory, I stood in the center of my room and understood immediately why I'd fought so hard to stay at work. The silence was suffocating. Without tasks to occupy my hands and mind, there was nothing to prevent the memories from flooding in.

I tried lying down. Lasted perhaps three minutes before my eyes snapped open, my mother's screams echoing in the phantom space between sleeping and waking. The ceiling pressed down like a lid. The walls seemed to creep inward, shrinking the room to the size of a cage.

I sat up, gasping, pressing my palms against my temples. *This is ridiculous. It's just a room. You're safe. He doesn't even know you're here.*

But my body didn't believe the rational words. My pulse hammered. My skin felt too tight. Every creak of the building became footsteps in the corridor outside.

I couldn't stay here. I would go mad if I stayed here.

Throwing on my cloak, I slipped out through the side entrance, ignoring the questioning look from a passing orderly. The forest called to me—not as a destination, but as an escape. Open space. Moving air. The opposite of confinement.

Just walk, I told myself. Just keep moving. If you keep moving, the fear can't catch up.

---

The upstream path along the creek was one I'd discovered during my first week at the outpost. Few people came this way—the treatment station and its surrounding facilities lay in the opposite direction—which made it perfect for someone who needed to disappear for a few hours.

I followed the water's burbling course, focusing on the rhythm of my boots against earth, the whisper of wind through pine needles, the distant call of a hawk. Gradually, incrementally, the vise around my chest loosened. My hands stopped shaking. The white noise of panic receded to a manageable hum.

This was what I needed. Not sleep—I couldn't sleep, not with *him* so close—but movement. Distance. The illusion of control that came from choosing where my feet went.

I walked until my legs ached, until the morning sun climbed high enough to slant golden through the canopy. Only when exhaustion began to blur the edges of my thoughts did I consider turning back. Dr. Hawthorne would expect me to return eventually, and if I stayed out too long someone might come looking—

A sound stopped me mid-step. Wrong sound. Out of place in the forest's natural symphony.

*Clang. Thud. Clang.*

Metal striking metal. Wood being dragged. Voices, low and businesslike.

I moved carefully through the underbrush, grateful for the forest skills my mother had taught me in the brief windows between captivity. Stay low. Test each footfall. Keep the wind in your face so your scent doesn't carry.

The sounds grew louder. Through a screen of wild currant bushes, I caught my first glimpse of the site.

Two men I didn't recognize were working in a small clearing. They'd excavated a pit perhaps ten feet square and eight feet deep, the raw earth piled in careful mounds around the perimeter. But it wasn't just a pit.

It was a cell.

The walls had been shored up with timber planks, metal brackets bolted into place to hold iron bars. A framework for a trapdoor lay nearby, hinges already attached. Chains coiled in neat loops beside a leather tool bag. The kind of silver chains meant for wrists and ankles.

My vision grayed at the edges.

I knew this construction. Had lived within it. The dimensions were nearly identical to the cell that had held me for the first eight years of my life—cramped enough that you couldn't lie flat in any direction, tall enough that you couldn't reach the ceiling even standing on tiptoe. Designed specifically to rob you of any possibility of comfort or escape.

*No. No no no—*

My chest constricted. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The afternoon forest dissolved into the darkness of that underground prison, the smell of damp earth and rusted iron, the sound of my mother sobbing herself hoarse—

"—said it has to be finished before the full moon."

The voice sliced through my spiral. One of the workers, wiping sweat from his brow as he surveyed their progress.

"Aye, Mr. Crowe was very specific," his companion replied. "No delays. This one's important, apparently."

"Must be, if he's overseeing the construction himself."

*Mr. Crowe.*

The name detonated in my skull like a thunder crack.

My hands found the rough bark of the tree beside me, the only thing keeping me upright as my knees threatened to buckle. The childhood terror I'd spent years learning to contain surged up my throat like bile.

He was building another cage. Here. Now. In this forest.

And the men said "this one"—implying there would be an occupant. Someone specific.

*Who?*