Mute And Marked: The Feared Alphas' Mate

7: Bound by Fury and Fate

~Axel~

The darkness was suffocating, pressing down on my chest, pinning me to the edge of oblivion. I could hear faint echoes in the distance, distorted, like they were coming from underwater. My head throbbed with every muffled beat, my limbs felt like they were encased in cement, and every attempt to move sent sharp, paralyzing pain up my spine. But the worst part was the numbness—a deep, terrifying numbness that crawled through my veins, making me wonder if I’d ever be able to feel anything again.

I blinked slowly, trying to focus, but all I could see were blurs—shadows shifting in and out of the fog that clouded my vision. A voice cut through, familiar, but distant.

"Alpha? Alpha Axel, can you hear me?"

It was Adrian, my beta. His voice was strained, filled with worry, but there was a harshness to it too—like he was trying to hold himself together. I tried to respond, but my throat felt raw, like it had been scraped with sandpaper. All I managed was a weak groan.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t even lift a finger. My body felt foreign, like it wasn’t mine anymore. Panic clawed at my chest as I tried to sit up, but my muscles refused to listen. All I could do was lie there, helpless, staring up at the ceiling in our apartment. The place felt cold, empty, nothing like it usually did.

Adrian’s face finally swam into view, blurry but there. “Thank the Goddess, you’re awake,” he muttered, leaning closer. “You've been out for days, Axel. I didn’t know if you were going to come back.”

Days? It felt like it had only been moments since the football field—the blood, the chaos, the searing pain that had ripped through my skull like someone had driven a spike into it. And my brothers… Kade, Ryder… Where were they?

I tried to speak, but my voice came out as a rasp. “My… brothers?”

Adrian’s expression darkened, and I could see the tension in his clenched jaw. “They’re still not waking up, Axel. Their conditions… they’ve only gotten worse. Kade’s body is barely responding, and Ryder… he’s in constant pain. They’re both trapped in their wolves. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

I could feel a cold sweat breaking out across my skin. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were the strongest—the triplet Alphas of Silverclaw. Nothing was supposed to break us. But now… now we were crumbling. I could see the fear in Adrian’s eyes, the kind of fear no Alpha’s beta should ever have.

“What… what did this to us?” I forced out, but I already knew the answer, even if I didn’t want to admit it.

A name roared in my mind, echoing with a fury that shook every inch of my being. Rina.

My wolf, Rodolfo was awake now, surging with a desperate need. ‘It’s her. The mate. We need her,’ he growled, a snarl rippling through his voice. ‘Only she can fix this.’

I gritted my teeth, anger flaring up inside me. The last person I ever wanted to see again was that mute, pathetic excuse of an Omega. How could she be the one we needed? How could someone like her hold that kind of power over us? We despised her, every part of her existence was a stain on what we stood for. But my wolf didn’t care about that—he was driven by instinct, and right now, that instinct was screaming that without her, we were doomed.

Adrian leaned in closer, his face tightening with concern. “Alpha, what do we do? We can’t keep them like this forever. They’re suffering.”

I swallowed hard, trying to push past the pain and focus. “Find her,” I croaked, my voice barely a whisper. “Bring her… now.”

Adrian’s eyes widened. “You mean the Omega? The one who—”

“Just do it!” I snarled, the force behind my words surprising even me. I could feel my heart racing, each beat sending a fresh wave of agony through my body. But I couldn’t afford to let that stop me. “If she’s what we need to survive… if she’s the only one who can reverse this, then bring her. I don’t care what it takes.”

The thought of relying on someone so weak, so beneath us, burned like acid in my throat. But the reality was clear—we were at her mercy. My wolf rumbled with frustration, hating the very idea of needing her, but he was non-stop in his demand. We had to find her, no matter what.

Adrian didn’t waste a second. He nodded, determination flashing in his eyes as he got to his feet. “I’ll track her down, Alpha. I’ll bring her back.”

As he left, the silence of the room closed in again, leaving me alone with the gnawing dread crawling under my skin. I couldn’t shake the image of her—of Rina’s wide, terrified eyes as she screamed, the force of it ripping through us like nothing I’d ever felt before. That scream had shattered everything—not just the glass, but us. And now we were bound to her by something we couldn’t control, something we despised with every fiber of our being.

But whether I liked it or not, the truth was inescapable—she held our survival in her hands.

I closed my eyes, trying to push back the fear, the rage, and the helplessness. This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. If we were going to fix this—if we were going to regain our strength and crush whatever curse had been laid on us—it would start with her.

But I vowed, deep in the pit of my soul, that once we were back on our feet, there’d be a reckoning. Rina might be our salvation now, but when this was over, she’d learn the true meaning of what it meant to cross the triplet Alphas.

And it wouldn’t be pretty.