Chapter 107 FRACTURED ALPHA’S BURDEN
DEREK’S POV
A week passed, but it felt longer inside my head. Every day blurred into the next, filled with the same duties, the same faces looking at me like I was supposed to have answers. I made sure I looked steady. I stood tall and I spoke clearly. I didn’t let my hands shake when I addressed the pack.
But none of that stopped the noise in my chest.
I barely slept. When I did, I woke up tired, my mind already running through what still needed to be fixed. The borders were weak and too many warriors were injured, too many were dead. The pack grounds still smelled like smoke and blood if you knew how to breathe deep enough.
They needed an Alpha who wasn’t breaking apart. So I became one even though deep down, I was breaking apart. I hated to feel this way like everything was crashing down on me all at once when in reality it was actually crashing down.
I trained with the warriors every morning, even when my body begged me to rest. I walked the territory myself, checking damage, offering words I wasn’t sure I believed. I listened to complaints, fears, and anger. I took it all without pushing back.
Strength, they called it but I couldn’t help but think that it was weakness simply because there were a lot of things that could have been done to avert it but yet again, I was made to pass through the most unimaginable pain of seeing the very people I loved die in the most gruesome way.
What they didn’t see was how often my thoughts went back to Amber because I believed she was hurt badly.
“Are you okay?” Drake asked, walking towards me.
“I’m not.” I said, truthfully.
“I understand how you feel man but please don’t beat yourself over something you know you couldn’t even control from the start.” He said.
I didn’t know how to watch her face when she screamed and her eyes when she realized her brother wasn’t coming back. The way her pain had cut through me deeper than any blade ever could because I caused it.
“I can’t help but think that I caused all of this,” I said.
“I understand but trust me when I say I’m glad Amber didn’t die with the baby,” he said.
No matter how many times I tried to reason with myself, that truth stayed. I made the call that led the fight and Trent paid for it with his life.
I wondered if Amber hated me now because of the many pains I had caused her but yet again, it just felt like all of this was going to end soon.
The thought followed me everywhere, during meetings and during patrols. During the quiet moments when the pack finally slept and I was left alone with my thoughts.
She hadn’t spoken to me since the battle, not once.
I told myself she needed space. That she was grieving and that I deserved the silence.
Still, it ate at me.
My wolf was restless, pacing inside me like he couldn’t find a place to lie down. He felt the bond strain, stretched thin by guilt and fear. I pushed it down, locked it away. The pack couldn’t afford an unstable Alpha.
By the end of the week, exhaustion settled deep into my bones. Not the kind sleep could fix, the kind that came from holding too much together with sheer will.
Standing on the main grounds one evening, I looked at my pack and wondered how long I could keep this up alone because the truth was, I wasn’t just leading through damage and loss.
I was leading while breaking.
The hardest part wasn’t the damage to the land or the empty spaces where warriors used to stand. It was the silence where Amber should have been. She was still weak, still healing, but even from a distance I could feel her absence like a missing limb.
We were mates and yet, I had never felt farther from her.
I avoided the healing wing more than I should have. Not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t trust myself to face her pain again. Every time I imagined her eyes on me, full of blame, my chest tightened.
What if she couldn’t forgive me? What if the bond itself started to rot under the weight of that hatred?
The pack was struggling. Supplies were low and the morale was worse. Some questioned whether we had pushed too hard, too fast. They didn’t say it to my face, but I heard it in their voices, felt it in their distance.
I couldn’t blame them, I questioned myself too.
At night, when the grounds were quiet, I sat alone in my office, staring at reports I’d already read. My hands clenched into fists on the desk more than once, my jaw tight as memories replayed over and over.
Trent’s last stand and Amber’s scream with the blood on the ground.
I had won the battle but it didn’t feel like a victory.
A warrior came to report damages one evening, speaking nervously, like he was afraid I’d snap. I thanked him calmly, dismissed him, and waited until the door closed before letting my shoulders sag.
This was what they didn’t see.
The Alpha who stayed upright in front of them was held together by nothing but stubbornness and guilt.
My wolf finally pushed forward then, not angry, just tired. He reminded me that I couldn’t keep isolating myself. That a pack was never meant to be carried by one person alone.
I knew he was right but the one person I needed most was the one I was most afraid to face.
Amber had lost her brother because of me and no amount of leadership could erase that.
As I stood and looked out the window toward the healing wing, my chest ached with the weight of what I hadn’t said and what I still needed to say.
I didn’t know how to fix the pack and I didn’t know if I had already lost my mate.
All I knew was that something had to change soon because strength without healing doesn’t last and neither does an Alpha who is brea
king from the inside.
CROWN OF ASHES