Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 37

I nodded slowly, then thanked him. My voice barely carried. The name rang in my chest like a bell.

Not an hour later, I was summoned to the infirmary. Elder Thorne, who’d collapsed again early in the summit, had asked for me specifically.

The light in the room was low. Clean. His eyes were open and alert, though his skin looked pale, like it belonged to someone halfway between two worlds.

“That locket,” he rasped, gesturing faintly toward my collar. “It looks like one I saw long ago.”

I touched it unconsciously. “It was my mother’s.”

His mouth lifted in the ghost of a smile. “She would be proud. I’ve watched you speak. You don’t talk like someone chasing power. You talk like someone who wants to protect people.”

I swallowed. I didn’t have a reply.

“We’ve had many kings,” he added. “Few protect the way your Alpha does. That might matter more than titles.”

I thought of Richard—his steadiness, his quiet wariness, the way he didn’t reach for things until he was sure he wouldn’t break them. And I thought of how he’d stood beside me without making it about him. About us.

Thorne’s hand found my wrist as I stood to go. His grip was light, but urgent.

“If you want answers,” he said, “ask about the Red Sentries. And ask soon.”

The way he said it made my pulse skip. I wanted to ask more–who the Red Sentries were, what they did, and why the urgency— but before I could open my mouth, a nurse stepped into the room, her tone gentle but firm as she informed me it was time for his medication. Thorne gave a slow nod, and his hand slipped from mine. I stood reluctantly, offering a small smile that he returned with something quiet and knowing. The questions burned in my throat as I left, unspoken but alive.

The package was waiting when I returned to my suite.

A single pressed flower. Fragile, nearly crumbled to dust. And beneath it, a note written in thin, sharp handwriting:

Red Fang was never one of us.

I pinned it to the map beside the sector routes, letting my fingers linger a moment too long. My hands trembled slightly. Not from fear. From knowing I was closer to something. To what, I still didn’t know.

What did it mean? Was it a warning? A denial? A trick?

I stared.

And stared.

Until the lines on the page blurred into fog.

When the knock came, it was soft but certain.

Richard stood at the threshold, a worn file in his hand and a shadow under his eyes. His shirt sleeves were rolled up. His tie was gone. He looked like someone who had been up all night chasing the truth and found only more questions.

“There’s more,” he said, stepping inside. “And it points to David.”

I didn’t ask how he knew. I just cleared the floor. A silent agreement settled between us, woven through too many shared glances and almosts.

We sat side by side, knees brushing, the papers spread between us like battle plans. His shoulder pressed against mine–warm, unmoving. Neither of us pulled away. Somewhere under the table, our legs touched. And stayed.

A quiet murmur rippled through the room, but I wasn’t listening to the reaction. I’d already turned to Emma, and we were moving. The footage looped again in a quieter side room as we sat shoulder to shoulder at the monitor, scrubbing through frame by frame.

“Right here,” I said, pointing as one figure twisted slightly, weight shifting onto his left leg. “There. Zoom in.”

Emma did, and even though the resolution was a mess, my stomach dropped. The limp wasn’t dramatic, but it was familiar.

Jason.

He’d once called it a badge of honor, bragging about how he’d gotten it in a bar fight that he “won” with a broken glass and a broken femur. It had become part of his walk, part of his swagger. It hadn’t been impressive then. It was infuriating now. I remembered him chuckling over drinks, acting like the pain made him more interesting, more dangerous. That same limp was now tied to something far darker.

I pulled up the internal logs, highlighted the timestamp, and cross–referenced Jason’s keycard activity. Just as I thought–he wasn’t on duty. But he had access. Too much access.

“I need Nathan,” I said, already rising.

Nathan didn’t hesitate. Jason was pulled into a closed–door meeting and never reemerged. By noon, he was removed from his post. No ceremony. No debate. Just gone. But the fallout lingered–people whispered, glanced over their shoulders. One less mask, but too many still in play.

The council meeting later that day was more crowded than usual. People packed in elbow to elbow, the room thick with tension and the smell of rain–damp wool. The air inside felt electric, charged by a mix of suspicion and dread. Richard stood at the front, shoulders squared, Nathan and Emma flanking him like shields. I took my place beside them, my pulse steady even as eyes turned to me.

We began with the metadata–system logs, digital breadcrumbs, a timeline that painted a picture no one wanted to see. I laid it out cleanly, clearly, with the kind of precision that didn’t invite rebuttal. This was no theory. It was a story written in ones and zeroes.

“Server access logs,” I said, tapping the projected file tree, “show consistent pings from a subnet registered to a front company owned by David’s finance manager. We didn’t touch the files–we traced them. This is what’s been leaking.”

Murmurs turned into quiet curses. A few Alphas leaned in, their expressions shifting from skepticism to discomfort. One elder whispered to another, the corners of his mouth tightening with worry.