Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 212

The echo hit as I stepped into the war chamber. It wasn’t sound or pain in the traditional sense, but something physical, a pressure that knocked my balance off before I could recover it. It wasn’t an image or a memory, not at first. Just a jolt of awareness that didn’t belong to me. I grabbed the edge of the table, trying to ground myself, even as something inside me reached beyond the room.

A colder place, built out of silence more than stone. Where the lack of sound felt like its own kind of scream.

The images came fast, bleeding into each other too quickly for me to make sense of them. A girl, no older than thirteen, with bloodshot eyes and cracked knuckles, pounding against a steel door with no answer. A man on his knees, so thin he looked hollow, lowering a child into a narrow shaft. Then a shipping container packed with bodies, shoulder to shoulder, eyes wide and frantic as their mouths moved in wordless panic.

They weren’t soldiers. They weren’t Dominion agents. These were civilians, cornered, silenced, and used. They hadn’t chosen this war, and they were begging not to be part of it.

When it ended, lifelt like I’d been dropped. The room was too bright, the space around me warped. My throat burned, my chest ached, not in a poetic way, but in the real, physical way pain sits behind your ribs when you’ve seen something that won’t let go. It didn’t matter if what I saw was literal or symbolic. It was real enough to hurt, and it was trying to tell me something.

Richard was already staring at me. “What just happened?”

I took a breath. “I felt the network again. But this wasn’t soldiers. These were civilians, wolves and vampires trying to resist.”

Nathan was already moving. He grabbed the scanner from the table,adjusting the settings as he walked toward me. “Same kind of echo?

“Not exactly. It wasn’t a broadcast. It felt like a scream someone was trying to smother. I don’t think they meant to reach me. It just broke through.”

“But it made contact,” he said. “Which means someone out there is overwhelmer”

“It’s more than that,” I said. “They’re trapped. That kind of fear doesn’t show up overnight. It’s been building for a long time.”

Simon nodded slowly, like he was filling in the last piece of something he’d already suspected. “We’ve tracked irregular signal decay, bursts that didn’t match any of the known Dominion patterns. I chalked it up to interference, but if there’s sabotage from within…”

My hands still hadn’t stopped shaking. Something was building inside me. If people inside the Dominion were trying to fight back, then this wasn’t just our war anymore. That changed everything.

The doors slammed open before anyone could respond.

Alpha Mora. He was the regional Alpha overseeing the border provinces to the west, a longtime critic of centralized power in the capital, and someone who had always kept one foot out of council decisions unless they directly impacted his land.

He didn’t slow, didn’t ask permission, didn’t look at anyone. He moved like the outcome was already decided and we just hadn’t caught up.

“You’ve overstepped,” he said, staring directly at Richard. “Emergency protocol in the capital doesn’t override regional command. You don’t get to move troops into my territory without approval.”

“This isn’t a border violation,” Richard said. His voice stayed level, but his expression hardened. “These attacks are relay-coordinated. They’re moving fast.””I don’t care what your tech shows,” Mora snapped. “My wolves arent the ones dropping. If you want to move across my lines, bring it to council.”

“You got your vote,” Richard said. “But wolves in your region are already showing symptoms. I’m not going to stand by and watch them fall.”

Mora stepped in closer. His guards moved with him. Ours answered just as fast. The temperature in the room changed.

I stepped between them.

“If this were confined to the capital, you’d be right,” I said. “But it’s not.

This is a system-wide threat. Wolves are being activated without warning, and by the time they realize what’s happening, it’s too late.”

He looked me over, slowly. “You’re not bonded. You’re not even Pack.

What makes you think you have the right to weigh in?’

“‘ve been inside the signal,” I said. “I’ve broken it. I don’t need a title to know what’s coming, and you don’t have to like me to hear what I’m telling you.”

He didn’t speak, but something shifted in his eyes. Not agreement, not exactly, but he was listening, and then he looked away.

“ve already lost thirty-seven wolves to your city,” he said. “I’m not losing thirty-eight.”

“Then let us stop it here,” I said. “This isn’t random. It’s deliberate. If your region’s next, every minute we wait is a risk we can’t take back.”

The silence afterward was tense. No one wanted to break it. Mora finally turned.

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