Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 183

Amelia

I woke to light, but not the sterile white glare of medical lamps or the flicker of fire on stone walls. This was something gentler and more alive.

It was golden, almost amber, filtering through gauzy curtains that swayed with a breeze I couldn’t quite feel, and the silence that held the room wasn’t empty. It pressed in, thick and steady, like the kind that settles in your chest after a long cry when you know it’s finally over.

For a long time, I didn’t move. My body was sunk into a bed too soft to be familiar, and the weight of the blankets pulled me downward, anchoring me somewhere between sleep and waking. I blinked up at a faded floral pattern on the ceiling, the edges of it blurring in and out of focus as I tried to trace the shapes and turn them into something that meant anything. I didn’t know where I was, but I didn’t feel afraid.

There were dried flowers on the nightstand, lavender and thornless roses, carefully arranged in a chipped porcelain vase. They looked like they’d been touched, adjusted, maybe even replaced once or twice. Someone had been here. Someone had stayed.

Richard was slumped in a chair beside the bed, his whole frame curved toward me like his body had molded to the wait.His arm was stretched across the mattress, and his hand was curled around mine, not gripping, not demanding, Just there. Like he’d decided hours ago that he wasn’t going to let go no matter what happened.

He looked older. Not just tired, but hollowed out by something long and quiet. His face was rough with stubble, and deep creases had settled around his mouth and between his brows, carved by nights with no sleep and more fear than he knew what to do with.

My throat ached when I tried to speak. “Richard.”

His head snapped up, and he just stared at me for a second, like he was waiting for the image of me awake to disappear. Then he surged forward and gripped my hand tighter, brushing hair back from my forehead like he needed to feel my skin to prove I wasn’t a dream.

“You’re awake,” he said, his voice raw and thin. “Thank the gods.

His thumb moved slowly over my knuckles, and I noticed how steady he was trying to keep it. But his eyes were glassy, and his breathing was uneven.

“How long have I been here?”

“Four days,” he said, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed like he thought I was fragile. “You collapsed in the tunnel, and you didn’t speak or move. The healers weren’t sure what had happened.”I let out a shaky breath. “It didn’t feel like I was in my body. I could sense it, sometimes, but it was like being stitched into someone else’s skin. Like I was looking out through the wrong eyes.”

His forehead pressed against mine, his breath warm against my cheek. “You’re back now. Whatever that place was, it couldn’t hold you.”

But closing my eyes brought the memories too fast. Stone cracking beneath me, flames tearing through the dark, screams that weren’t mine, David’s voice twisted by something ancient, and Vasha’s grip in my mind like a claw. Something else had stirred too, something I hadn’t yet put back in its cage.

“Something’s wrong,” I said. “I can feel it. I opened something in myself and I don’t think I can close it again.

My body feels off. It’s louder. It’s heavier.”

He didn’t look away. “Tell me what it feels like.”

“Everything,” I said. “I can hear the city shifting underneath us, and I can smell the soot from the kitchens.

The air tastes like copper. My blood doesn’t feel like it’s mine anymore. It’s like there’s something else moving through it, something hot and charged and barely restrained. I feel like I’m seconds from burning through my own skin.”

He nodded, and his hand tightened just slightly on mine. ” Then we’ll tearn how to contain it. Or we’ll figure out how to use it. You won’t be alone in this.”

“I’m scared,” I admitted. “Of what I might do.”

“I know. And I’m scared too. But I would rather stand next to you afraid than live in a world where I pretended this didn’t happen.”

My eyes stung. I blinked, and suddenly Serena’s voice filled my head, not the distorted version from the trance, but her real voice.

• You were never meant to choose sides.

“She said something to me,” I whispered. “Serena. I think it was real. She told me I wasn’t meant to choose sides.”

He watched me carefully. “You think it was a real memory? Not something the trance fed you?”

“Yes. It was too clear. It wasn’t laced with anything. It felt placed, like she hid it for me to find later.”

“Then maybe she knew,” he said. “Maybe she understood what you were before anyone else did. Maybe she saw what was coming.”

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