Chosen by the Beast Alpha

Chapter 52: Chapter 52

Lena’s POV

Daniel had been driving in silence for almost two hours. Once we left the Bloodmoon Pack territory, the trees on both sides got thicker and taller, their branches crowding above us until the GPS finally gave up altogether.

The cabin sat at the foot of the Eastern Mountains, and it was nothing like what I’d pictured. From the outside, it looked... cozy. Wooden walls, a stone chimney, thin curls of smoke drifting lazily into the cold mountain air.

Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought someone built themselves a cute little getaway spot here—the kind where you curl up with hot chocolate and a good book for a whole weekend.

But that wasn’t the truth at all. Iron bars lined the window frames. The front door was solid metal, just painted to pretend it was oak. This wasn’t some charming retreat. This was the cage Dominic built for himself—a warm-looking shell hiding a cold, merciless prison.

Daniel parked, killed the engine, but didn’t open his door. Instead, he turned toward me.

"Luna." His voice was as steady and professional as ever, but his eyes... I almost didn’t recognize the worry sitting there.

"Alpha’s gotten a lot worse since he came here. The curse is hitting him harder every day, and his control is shot. He’s not the man you remember."

I unbuckled my seatbelt. "I know."

"I don’t think you do." Daniel’s jaw tightened. "He locked himself up on purpose. He knows exactly what he’s capable of right now. If he breaks those chains when the curse surges, no one can stop him."

He met my eyes dead-on. "Please. Be careful. For him, and for yourself."

I put my hand on the door handle, paused, and looked back at him. "Thank you, Daniel. I know you care about him."

"I care about both of you." His voice softened unexpectedly, catching me off guard. "If anything happens to you, Anna will murder me."

That finally pulled a real smile out of me—the first one all day. "Tell her I’ll be fine."

I got out, grabbed my bag from the back seat, and walked toward the cabin.

I found him in the basement.

Dominic was slumped against the wall, shirtless, chained, his head tilted back and eyes closed. He looked thinner than I remembered—sharper cheekbones, hollowed eyes.

The air was heavy with damp concrete and rust. No windows. Thick silver chains—about as wide as my wrist—ran from metal anchors in the ceiling and floor to the cuffs on his wrists and ankles.

I must’ve made a sound, because his eyes snapped open.

For half a second, something unguarded flashed across his face—raw, vulnerable. Then it vanished under a cold, burning anger.

"Why are you here?"

His voice came out rough, like he hadn’t spoken in weeks. When he shifted even a little, the chains around him clinked sharply.

I walked toward him with the bag in hand. "Celeste called me."

"I told her not to contact you." His jaw locked so tight the muscles twitched. "Get out."

I crouched down in front of him and started taking things out of the bag. I grabbed the water bottle, twisted the cap open, and held it near his lips.

He turned his face away. "I said get out, Lena. Aren’t you supposed to be on dates or something? Heard you’re pretty popular now. Guys lining up for you, and those damn flowers showing up at your office every single day."

Every word from him felt like a blade, and my stomach knotted. Samuel must’ve told him. Of course he did.

I tried to keep my tone steady. "You had Samuel pass along my message. Breaking our agreement, giving me a check, sending me off. You’re the one trying to get rid of me, Dominic."

He looked back at me. The anger was real, sharp, but underneath it—there was this bone-deep exhaustion. Seeing him like that made my chest ache.

"Then why are you still here?" His voice dropped, less accusing, more... lost.

I set the bottle down and really looked at him. Chained to the floor, silver biting into his skin, trapped in a cage no one bothered to check, like he could just stop breathing and the world wouldn’t care.

"Because I’m not signing anything," I said. "I’m staying, Dominic. Until you can walk out of this room on your own."

"You’re insane."

"You’ve told me that before." I gave him a small smile.

He yanked hard on the chains. The metal cut deeper into his already torn skin, fresh blood oozing around the silver. "When the full moon hits, I won’t know who you are. I won’t know who I am. I’ll turn into something else, something dangerous, and if you get close to me, I will kill you. I’m not joking."

His voice was ice-cold, and my stomach dropped, but I didn’t look away. "I know."

"Then leave."

"Sorry. No."

He stared at me, that harsh glare flickering with something else.

Fear.

A sharp stab hit me right in the ribs, and it clicked—he wasn’t scared of the curse itself. He was terrified of what it might make him do to me.

I lifted the water bottle again. "Come on, have a sip? Your lips look super dry."

He didn’t speak for a long moment. Then he leaned forward just enough for me to press the bottle to his mouth. His throat worked as he swallowed, eyes locked on mine—furious, desperate, like he was fighting himself every second.

After that moment, I didn’t follow his order to leave quietly.

I had to follow my own judgment—I wasn’t made of stone. At the very least, right now, Dominic needed someone beside him, and I wanted to stay with him.

Every time I went downstairs, he coldly told me to get out. And every time, I ignored him. Whenever I finished cooking upstairs, I still brought the food down.

I cleaned his wrists with disinfectant and fresh bandages. He sucked in a sharp breath at the sting, his jaw so tight it looked like it might crack, but he didn’t move at all.

One night, while I was treating his wounds, Anna called me. I put her on speaker so I could keep my hands free.

"You’re insane, Lena." Anna’s voice was tight with anxiety. "Daniel told me what happens during the full moon! You can’t help him at all—you’ll get yourself killed! Please tell me you’re not actually staying near him!"

"I’ll be careful." I bit off a piece of gauze and wrapped it around Dominic’s wrist. He stared at me with that dark, unreadable look of his.

"Being careful isn’t enough." Anna was panicking. "Promise me you won’t go near him! At least not during the full moon!"

"I promise," I said. Which was, of course, a lie.

A flicker of something unreadable passed through Dominic’s eyes, but he didn’t call me out.

That afternoon, I tried to bathe him. I brought a basin of warm water and a clean towel, pressing the towel to his shoulders, neck, and back, wiping him down bit by bit. He stayed rigid against the wall, muscles tense and hard as stone.

When I wiped his hair, he lowered his head slightly, eyes closing. This time, he didn’t push me away or resist.

A few days later, Samuel arrived. I heard the door upstairs and went to check, finding him standing in the kitchen, suit jacket draped over his arm as he rummaged through the fridge.

"Holy crap, you’re actually still here." He shut the fridge and turned to smile at me, the expression light and easy. "I spent the entire drive thinking there’s no way you’d still be around. Any other woman would’ve cashed that check and disappeared."

I frowned and muttered, "I’m not that kind of person."

"Yeah, you’re really not." His smile softened into something genuine. "If it were me, I’d have cashed it instantly and be drinking cocktails on a beach somewhere."

He looked me over carefully, the smile fading as his expression turned serious. "Lena, you staying with him—that’s not stubbornness. That’s guts. I mean it. I respect that. But you need to keep enough distance to stay safe. You get what I’m saying?"

"I get it. Thanks."

He looked at me for a long second, then gave this small, satisfied nod. "Good luck."

And just like that, he walked out—didn’t even bother going downstairs to see Dominic. Pretty obvious he came all the way here just to talk to me.

That night, my phone rang. It was Celeste.

"Lena." Her voice was warm, soft. "Samuel told me everything. And... I want you to know this. When Dominic told me he was ending your contract, saying he was letting you go, I freaked out. I thought... that was it. That we’d just lost our last shot."

She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice wobbled. "But you didn’t leave. You stayed. Even when he kept pushing you away. Lena, I can’t even tell you how much that means to me."

My eyes started burning. "Celeste, I haven’t really done anything. I don’t even know if I can actually help him."

"You already have. You’re there every day, and he’s letting you stay. No one has ever managed that before. Lena, he’s been fighting alone for so, so long. But now he doesn’t have to."

I pressed the phone tighter to my ear, my chest twisting up. "Celeste—"

"Come back to us." Her voice cracked, then steadied again. "I just... I really hope both of you make it back."

"We will." The words just slipped out.

Days passed, and life settled into this quiet loop: cooking, hauling things around, cleaning, waiting.

Dominic’s resistance faded bit by bit—rage melting into this heavy silence, and then maybe acceptance... or maybe he was just too exhausted to keep pushing me away.

When I brought him water, he stopped turning his face aside. When I changed his bandages and my fingers brushed his wrist, he didn’t flinch anymore. It felt like things between us were easing again, not pulling apart.

Until the full moon came.

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