The Alpha's Hidden Debts

Chapter 32: She Takes the Call

Sera's Pov

I stared at the message on Riven's phone for a long moment, the words sitting there plain and certain.

He wants to talk to Sera directly.

Riven was watching me, not the phone. Waiting to see what I would do with it, the same way he always waited, without pushing, without hinting at what he thought the right answer was.

"I'll take it," I said.

"Sera."

"I'll take it," I said again, quieter this time. "Give me the phone."

He looked at me for one long second. Then he dialed Caden's number himself and held it out to me without another word.

I took it. I pressed it to my ear. I made myself breathe steady before the line connected.

One ring. Two. Then the click of someone answering fast, like he had been sitting with the phone in his hand.

"Sera."

I had prepared myself for cold. For the Alpha voice, the one he used when something needed to be handled efficiently and without feeling. I had heard that voice dozens of times, and I knew how to make myself small against it, how to take up the exact amount of space it allowed and no more.

I was not prepared for how tired he sounded.

Not exhausted the way you get after a long day. Tired the way a person gets when they have been carrying something too heavy for too long and their body has simply run out of ways to hide it.

"Caden," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt.

"I know you have no reason to hear me out." He paused, and in the pause I heard him choosing each word carefully. "I'm asking anyway."

"Then talk," I said. "You have two minutes."

Another pause. Shorter this time.

"There is a Vael extraction team being put together," he said. "Not a representative. Not a scout. A trained team. The kind they deploy when they want results instead of conversations."

My hand tightened on the phone. Across the room Riven stood very still, watching my face, hearing every word through the line.

"Northesk's defenses won't hold against them," Caden said. "I know that sounds like something I'm saying to scare you. I need you to understand it's not. These teams use methods built specifically to suppress pack response. Chemicals, frequencies, things that work on wolf instinct before any conscious thought can override them. By the time Riven's pack realizes what's happening, the team is already inside."

I looked at Riven. His jaw had gone tight, his arms crossed hard over his chest, and something cold and focused had moved into his eyes.

"You said you have information on those methods," I said.

"Everything I have," Caden said. "How they work. How they're deployed. And how to counter them, because I spent two years quietly figuring out how in case they ever turned them on Ironmoor." He paused. "I want to bring it to you in person."

"Why in person?"

"Because this is not the kind of thing I'm willing to send in a message that could be intercepted." His voice dropped slightly. "And because I owe you more than a transfer of information through a phone."

The line went quiet for a moment. Outside I could hear the compound, the ordinary sounds of evening, completely unaware of this conversation happening in the middle of it.

I thought about three years. About a kitchen and a knife and a face that had shown me one true thing for less than a second before it was put away, managed, controlled, never seen again.

I thought about how tired he sounded.

"Why should I believe anything you say?" I asked. I kept my voice flat. Not cruel, just honest. "You had three years to say something true to me. You didn't."

The silence that followed was long enough that I thought he might not answer.

"Because I'm the one who spent three years making sure they never had a reason to move on you," he said. Very quiet. Very careful. "Every time they pushed for direct access, I found a reason to delay it. Every time they wanted more information, I gave them less than they asked for and dressed it up enough that they didn't notice." He stopped. "And then I made a mistake that gave them exactly the reason they'd been waiting for."

I did not ask what the mistake was. We both knew.

I stared at the wall in front of me. Somewhere in the silence between his last word and my next one, I was doing the same thing I always did when a problem sat in front of me, breaking it down, looking at the pieces, finding the shape of it.

He had information we needed. Whether or not he deserved anything from me was a separate question. The information was real and it could keep people alive. Including people in this lodge who had done nothing except be decent to me from the first moment I arrived.

I looked at Riven again. He had been listening to all of it, his eyes on mine, his face giving me nothing that told me what I should do. Just waiting. Letting it be my call.

He always let it be my call.

I turned back to the wall.

"One meeting," I said. "Neutral ground. You come alone."

Caden let out a breath, slow, like something had finally released that had been held too tight for too long.

"Thank you," he said.

"Don't," I said. "This isn't forgiveness. It's strategy."

I ended the call before he could say anything else and lowered the phone from my ear. My hand was shaking, just slightly, just enough that I pressed it flat against my thigh before it became visible.

Riven crossed the room in three steps, stopped in front of me, and held out his hand for the phone. I gave it to him. He didn't take his eyes off my face.

"Okay?" he said.

I pressed my lips together and nodded once. It was not entirely true. But it was true enough for tonight.