The Alpha Submissive

Elena – First Person POV---

The night I was supposed to die, the moon was too quiet.Even the trees seemed to hold their breath.

The path through the forest was familiar or at least it had been before the sun went down. I was only supposed to deliver medicine to one of the outer cabins and come straight back. A simple task. One I could do alone, because no one expected me to be in danger. I was small. Submissive. Unshifted. No threat to anyone. Not even the rogues, it seemed.

Now I was lost, my legs aching and bare feet bleeding, cold wind brushing against my skin like ghostly fingers. I wrapped my arms tighter around myself as the woods thickened, the sound of leaves crunching under my steps the only proof I was still moving forward.

Until I heard the growl.

Low. Sharp. Too close.

I froze. My heart jumped straight to my throat, then dropped into my stomach. Slowly, I turned. My eyes met glowing yellow orbs in the shadows.

Rogue.

I didn’t think. I ran.

The forest floor was uneven, branches clawing at my arms as I shoved through them. My breath came out in hard gasps, and the sound of paws pounding the earth behind me grew louder. Closer. I couldn’t outrun it. I knew that. I wasn’t fast. I wasn’t strong.

But I ran anyway.

A sharp pain sliced across my shoulder, and I fell. I hit the ground hard, the breath knocked from my lungs. I tried to scream but the rogue was already on top of me.

Its teeth bared, growling, drool dripping from its mouth. I stared up, frozen, knowing this was it. This was how I would die alone in the woods, forgotten, like I had lived my entire life.

I closed my eyes.

Then something slammed into it.

I heard bones crunch, a snarl louder than thunder, and the rogue was torn off me. I rolled onto my side, gasping, blinking through the blur of pain and blood. Two wolves now. One huge, black as midnight, fighting like death itself had taken form.

It didn’t last long. The black wolf overpowered the rogue in seconds. It didn’t just fight. It destroyed.

When it was over, the black wolf turned toward me.I should’ve been scared.

I should’ve tried to crawl away. But I couldn’t move. I was bleeding, dizzy, and cold. The world tilted.

The wolf stepped closer. I could see its eyes—golden and glowing. Its chest rose and fell fast. It sniffed the air once. Then twice. Then it came to me.

I flinched.

But it didn’t attack.

It leaned down… and sank its teeth into my shoulder.

I felt the bite deep, burning like fire under my skin. I gasped, too weak to fight. It was a claiming. A mark.

A part of me screamed inside.The other part… went quiet.

And then everything went dark.

---

I woke to warmth and silence.

The ceiling above me was familiar. Wooden beams. My room. I was back home. Confused, I sat up slowly, pain shooting through my neck and shoulder.

“Elena.” My mother’s voice came from the corner.

She was pale, her hands wringing the edge of her apron. “You’re awake.”

“What… happened?”

“A patrol found you unconscious in the woods,” she said softly. “You were hurt. But the healer says you’ll recover.”

I looked down at my arm. It was wrapped in bandages. But I could still feel it underneath. The mark. The burn. Still there.

A healer entered the room, nodded at me with wide eyes. “You’re lucky to be alive,” he said. “Though… there’s something strange. The wound healed too quickly. Too clean. Like… something marked you to protect you.”

My heart raced.

I touched the bandage, then dropped my hand. “I don’t remember much,” I lied.

But I did.

I remembered the golden eyes. The black fur. The teeth. The mark. And the way I wasn’t scared anymore.

---

The days passed, but the burn in my shoulder didn’t fade. I barely slept. Every night, I dreamt of a forest and glowing eyes watching me in the dark. I woke with the same scent in my nose pine, smoke, something wild.

Wolves in the pack started avoiding me. They sensed something.

“She should’ve died,” someone whispered once. “Maybe the Moon made a mistake.”

Maybe She had. I wasn’t Luna material. I was the kind of girl people forgot even existed.

Still, I held it in. I didn’t cry. I didn’t speak about the mark. And I didn’t ask why I was still alive.

---

One week later, the High Council came.

Everyone was told to gather at the pack clearing. I stood near the back, trying to blend in with the trees.

An Elder stepped forward with a scroll in hand.

“The Moon has spoken,” he said, voice clear and cold. “Alpha King Draven has been gifted a mate. She lives within this pack.”

Gasps. Murmurs.

Then the Elder read one name.

“Elena.”

I couldn’t breathe.

Eyes turned toward me. I saw confusion. Disgust. My father’s face went white. My mother covered her mouth.

Someone laughed like it was a joke.

But it wasn’t.

---

A heavy silence fell over the clearing, then burst into low murmurs, sharp-edged whispers that felt like knives against my skin. I heard my name repeated with disbelief, even disgust. “Her?” someone scoffed behind me. “The Alpha King’s mate?” Another voice said, “Maybe the Moon’s punishing him.” My knees felt weak. I had never met Alpha Draven, but everyone knew who he was ,the ruthless, cold-blooded ruler of the mountain packs.

They said he killed without blinking, ruled without mercy, and hadn’t smiled since the day he took the crown. A warrior, a shadow, a beast in human skin. Some whispered he didn’t even have a heart just a wolf inside him that never slept. Others claimed he’d rejected dozens of women, including powerful Alphas’ daughters, and that the last she-wolf who dared call herself his mate was never seen again.

And now… he was mine?

My stomach twisted. Not with excitement. With fear.

I felt eyes on me from every direction. Judging. Laughing. Pitying.

“Elena?” one pack member whispered, almost like it was a mistake.

But it wasn’t.

The Council elder looked at me, calm and final. “You are to be taken to the Alpha King at dawn. Prepare yourself.”

As if you could ever be prepared to meet the monster beneath the mountain.

The next morning, I was taken.

---

The carriage ride was long, quiet. No one spoke to me. I didn’t ask where we were going. I didn’t care. The world outside blurred into grey trees and cold skies.

I wrapped my arms around myself, the worn scarf from my mother in my lap. It smelled like home. Like something I was already losing.

I held onto it as the road twisted upward into the mountains. The air grew colder, the light dimmer, and the trees more spaced apart. I stared out the small window of the carriage, watching the last bits of my world fall behind me.

No one had told me what to expect. No one had explained why me. I hadn’t shifted. I hadn’t done anything special. I wasn’t strong or brave or important. Yet somehow, the Moon Goddess had chosen me for the Alpha King.

I whispered to myself as the wheels clattered over stone, “He won’t want me either. No one ever does.”

And somehow, that truth hurt more than the bite still burning on my skin.

---

Hours later, the carriage slowed to a stop.

My breath caught as the gates came into view, tall black iron, carved with silver wolves, stretching high into the grey sky. Beyond them sat the estate, stone walls covered in climbing vines, towers rising like sentries against the mountain behind it.

The driver didn’t speak as he opened the door. I stepped down slowly, my legs shaking from sitting so long, my boots crunching lightly on the gravel.

The gate opened without a sound. Two guards stood stiffly at either side, eyes forward, hands at their weapons but they didn’t look at me. I was invisible again. Just a girl being delivered to a house that felt more like a tomb.

A tall woman met me just inside the gates. She wore a long dark cloak and had silver hair pulled into a perfect braid.

“Elena,” she said, not kindly but not cruelly either. “I am Corra. I manage the estate. The Alpha is unavailable at the moment.”

I nodded, not sure what to say.

“You’ll be shown to your quarters. You are not to enter the west wing. You are not to disturb the Alpha. Meals are brought to your room. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” I said softly.

She looked at me like she was waiting for me to fall apart. I didn’t.

I followed the servant she motioned for, walking through silent halls of cold stone and heavy tapestries. The estate was vast, elegant, and hollow. I couldn’t hear any laughter. No warmth. Just the distant ticking of some unseen clock.

The servant opened a wooden door at the far end of one hall.

“This is your room,” she said quietly. Then, before closing the door behind me, she added under her breath, “Don’t ask questions. And don’t go near the west wing. That’s where the last one made her mistake.

”She left before I could ask what she meant".