Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 218

The square had been transformed into something unfamiliar. Where there had once been open dirt and the scattered remnants of battle, there was now a makeshift field hospital sprawling across the clearing.

Supply crates had been repurposed into tables for charting vitals and stacking gear while sheets hung between tree branches to provide shade. Rows of bandages and sterilized tools were laid out neatly on crates and blankets. The air still carried the smell of dust, sweat, and scorched stone, but the sharp bite of blood had begun to recede into the background.

I moved between the cots with slow, uneven steps, each movement taking more concentration than it should have. My head throbbed with a pressure that hadn’t eased since the collapse of the network. It wasn’t sharp pain, but something more persistent, a low current humming behind my eyes and deep in my bones. My body wasn’t finished processing what had happened. Whatever had shifted inside me was still unraveling, nerve by nerve, breath by breath.

The wolves who had fallen under the kill command were starting to stir. Some blinked slowly, as if waking from a dream they didn’t remember agreeing to. Others sat stiff and motionless, their limbs sluggish and uncertain. A few stared down at their hands, turning them over like they weren’t convinced they belonged to them.

One woman repeated broken training phrases in a flat voice, while a young man rocked forward and back, arms crossed tightly over his ribs, his gaze fixed on the dirt in front of him.

I knelt beside a man whose eyes tracked my approach before he realized he was doing it. He flinched when my shadow crossed his chest. visit job_ni_b ._c-om for more free and interesting books. When I lowered myself to the ground beside him, he recoiled slightly, but he didn’t move away. Our eyes locked, and though fear still lingered in his expression, it gave way to something quieter, something like waiting.”You’re safe,” I said. My voice was rough but steady. I reached for his wrist, and as soon as my fingers made contact, I let a small pulse of resonance pass through, gentle and steady, not a cleanse, just a grounding. “They’re gone now. They can’t reach you anymore.”

He opened his mouth but didn’t speak right away. Finally, he rasped, “l think I hurt someone.”

“You didn’t choose that,” I said. “You didn’t have control. That wasn’t your fault.”

He didn’t argue. His eyes dropped to the cot, and he stayed quiet.

As I stretched my awareness outward, I felt the shape of what they had left behind. There were no more commands in the air, no active signal, but the residue of what had happened clung to everything. Some walves flinched at footsteps, others hesitated before reaching for a cup of water. Their muscles remembered being told to wait, to obey, to suppress every instinct they had. The memory wasn’t in their minds alone, it lived in their bodies now.

At the edge of the square, a group of officials stood near a stack of supplies. One woman stood out among them, the silver braid at her shoulder gleaming against the dark uniform, a datapad glowing in her hand, the northern crest stitched into the fabric over her chest. Her posture was too composed to be casual, and the tension in her stance told me she wasn’t making polite suggestions.

She stepped onto one of the crates. Her boots were polished. Her voice was crisp, cutting cleanly through the noise of the clearing.

“For the safety of our people,” she said, “we need to discuss temporary containment for former sleepers, until we’re certain they pose no further risk.”

The field went still. Somewhere behind me, a tray dropped and clattered against the dirt. A medic muttered something under their breath, too low to hear.Richard stepped forward before I could. He moved with controlled force, the kind of stillness that made people take a step back even if he hadn’t raised his voice yet.

“They were controlled. Tortured. Used,” he said, every word carrying the weight of someone who had been holding back for too long. “And now that they’ve finally been freed, you want to cage them again?”

“They’re unstable,” she said. “There’s no telling what they might still be capable of.”

“They’ve survived what most of us can’t even comprehend,” I said, forcing my body forward. “And now they need care, not containment.

David is gone. The network is gone. A radio can’t make sound without a signal, and that signal is dead. You don’t need to lock up static. You need to let people heal.”

My voice shook near the end, but I didn’t back off. I took a step forward, then another, until I was close enough to see the doubt in her eyes.

“If we meet their pain with fear, we make them prisoners twice. If we meet it with compassion, we give them a future.”

She didn’t respond. The silence stretched.

The woman lowered the datapad. She stepped down without another word.

Richard stayed beside me. He didn’t say anything, but his presence was grounding. His body hovered closer than usual, like he was bracing to catch me again if I slipped.

We kept walking, slowly, as people began to reach out. A teenage boy handed me a broken watch. “It was my dad’s,” he said. “He always wanted to fight back. You gave us that.”

A vampire woman took both my hands. She said nothing, but her forehead touched mine for a moment, her breath catching, and whenshe pulled away, she looked steadier.

A girl around fifteen stepped into our path. “Will we ever feel normal again?”

“You’ll feel something real,” I said. “And it’ll be yours. Not theirs.”

She nodded and stepped aside.

Near the edge of the square, a tiny child tore away from an older vampire and ran toward me. She flung her arms around my leg and clung tight.

“You’re the girl who helped us,” she said.

I bent to brush her hair out of her face, my fingers shaky but steady enough.

“i couldn’t have done it without you staying strong,” I whispered.

She let go, and I tried to take one more step. My legs didn’t agree.

Heat surged behind my eyes, my balance tilted, and my knees buckled.

Richard caught me before the ground could. One arm locked around my waist, the other supported my head. His hands moved carefully, one brushing the back of my neck.

“ve got you,” he whispered. His voice was raw.

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