Claimed Twice

Chapter eight

The Alarm

"It's a security lockdown," Alpha Alexander said, grabbing my arm gently. "Someone triggered the emergency system. Come with me, now."

I did not have time to argue. He pulled me into a small side room just as thick metal doors began sliding shut across the main lab entrance behind us.

"What is happening?" I asked, my heart pounding.

"Someone from outside tried to access the restricted files," he said, checking his phone. "The blood sample research. Your halfling data."

"Why would anyone want that?"

He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw real fear in his eyes, not for himself, but for me.

"Because of what's in your blood, Nora," he said quietly. "It's not just research data. It's proof."

"Proof of what?"

He hesitated, like he was fighting with himself over how much to say.

"There's an old law," he said. "In pack history. Certain bloodlines were supposed to be protected, kept safe, because they carry something rare. A connection to the founding families. I think... I think you might be part of one of those bloodlines."

My whole body went cold.

"That's impossible," I said. "My family is human. We've always been human."

"Your mother's side," he said carefully. "Do you know much about them?"

I opened my mouth to argue, and then closed it again, because the truth was, I did not know much about my mother's side at all. She never talked about her family. Not once, not even when I asked as a kid.

The lockdown alarm finally stopped. The metal doors slid back open. But before either of us could say another word, my phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number.

Stop digging into the Whitfield bloodline, or the girl gets hurt worse than last time.

I dropped my phone like it had burned me.