Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 199

\The overhead lights seared through the room, stark and clinical, making her flinch the moment her eyes opened.

She blinked fast, unable to adjust, her lashes fluttering against the glare.

Her hands curled against the cot’s frame, fingers twitching like she didn’t know how they got there, as though her brain hadn’t mapped her body back together yet. Her pupils stayed blown, her breathing shallow, and her skin had the clammy, feverish pallor of someone barely clinging to the edge of something she couldn’t name.

When she tried to sit up, her torso pitched hard to the side. I lunged forward, catching the edge of the mattress as her shoulder collapsed into the cot. Her body recoiled at the contact, spine arching with the instinct of something hunted.

“Where am I?” she asked, her voice dry and cracked.

Neither of us answered.

“Where… where am I?” she asked again, panic rising in her throat.

Simon stood stiff near the corner, the tablet in his hands flickering with data.

“She’s in a post-phase dissociative state,” he said, voice low. “Neural response is flattened. There’s no consistentLink between auditory input and emotional response. But the resonance curves —” he tilted the screen toward me,” they’re stabilizing again, same as yesterday. Around you.” He swallowed. “Richard, it’s working. You need to keep doing what you did.”

I barely heard him. She looked like she was unspooling in real time.

Her lips moved without sound, her throat straining. Her arms lay limp at her sides. She kept touching her forearms with disconnected curiosity, like she was trying to verify whether they were attached.

“Amelia,” I said gently. “Can I sit with you?”

She nodded, slow and vacant, the kind of nod that meant nothing. It looked automatic, rehearsed.

“I don’t… understand,” she whispered. “Everything feels wrong. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel or think or say.”

I lowered myself onto the edge of the cot. Her entire body was shaking, not with fear exactly, but with something deeper, like her nervous system had disconnected from its frame and was running on scraps. I reached toward her hand, hovering first to make sure. When she let our fingers touch, hers curled around mine in a hesitant, jerky motion.

“You’re safe,” I told her, steady and clear. “I’m here.”I brought her hand to my chest and held it there, pressing her palm against the steady rhythm of my heart. My hand covered hers as gently as I could manage.

“Three breaths,

” Tsaid. “Match me.”

Her first inhale stuttered. The exhale caught. The second one was marginally smoother. By the third, she coughed hard and let out a noise that sounded more like a gasp than a breath.

“Three touches,” I continued. I stroked down her arm, cupped her cheek, then pressed my palm to the small of her back. She mirrored the motions out of order, touching my jaw, then my side, and finally resting her trembling hand over my chest again.

“Three truths,” I said, guiding her voice. “Say them with me. My name is Amelia.”

“My name is Amelia.”

” am in the Pack House.”

“I am… Lam in the Pack House.”

“I am safe.”

She didn’t respond.

“Say it,” I urged, soft but insistent.

“I am safe,” she whispered at last, though it was barely audible, and it carried no certainty.Her forehead fell against my chest, sudden and heavy, as-if her spine had surrendered. Her fingers fisted into my shirt and stayed there, clinging without purpose, her breath shaltow against my neck.

“I don’t remember yesterday,” she said. “I don’t remember anything after the cell. I don’t even know if this body is mine or if it belongs to someone I’m supposed to be.”

“You’re here now,” I told her, voice thick. “And I’ve got you.

That’s all that matters.”

I let my hand drift down her side and anchor at her hip, then slowly trace along the curve of her thigh. It wasn’t meant to arouse her. It was meant to orient her, to let her know where her body began and ended.

“Is this okay?” I asked.

She nodded again, this time slower and more deliberate.

Her body moved closer, not out of intention but instinct. I could feel the moment her muscles began to release, not all at once but gradually, as though her body was listening to mine.

“More,” she said, so quietly I barely heard her. “Please… touch me more.”

I stilled.

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