My Alpha Rejected Me… Then Begged Me to Save His Pack

Chapter 15 – A Different Trail

The door slams open on metal and surprise.

Four heads whip toward us.

The operations director—Amara, my mind supplies from a forgotten name tag—stands by a stainless‑steel table, coffee cup in hand. Two men in security black flank a bank of monitors. And between them, half‑turned, lips still quirking from his own joke—

Orren.

He looks smaller under fluorescent light. Less like the quiet captain who vanished with his patrol, more like a man who thought he’d never see the ghosts he made.

For three heartbeats, no one moves.

Then Amara smiles.

“Well,” she says. “That was faster than I expected.”

The security men reach for weapons.

Corin is already in motion.

He doesn’t shift. He doesn’t need to. One step, two, and he’s on the closest guard, slamming him into the wall with enough force to crack plaster. The gun skitters across the floor. I dive for the second man, fingers closing around his wrist before he can lift the pistol.

He’s strong. Human‑strong. It’s not enough.

I twist, feel bone give under my grip. He shrieks, the gun clatters. My elbow connects with his throat; he goes down choking, clutching at his windpipe.

“Enough,” Amara snaps, still maddeningly calm. “You won’t shoot us in a government‑owned facility without consequences, Alpha Duskvale. Or should I call you Corin?”

He freezes for half a second, just long enough to register that she knows exactly who he is.

“Call me whatever you like,” he says. “You’re still leaving here in chains.”

Orren laughs. It’s a thin, cracked sound.

“Still the optimist,” he says. His gaze skates over me, contempt and something like pity tangled together. “Hello, Lysa.”

My wolf snarls so hard it hurts.

“You used our pups,” I say. My voice is low. Too steady. “You walked into their home and told them I’d asked for them.”

“You always did like strays,” he says. “Thought you might appreciate a few new ones.”

“Why?” Corin’s question hits the room like a thrown knife. “You grew up here. This pack fed you, trained you, trusted you. And you sold it. For what?”

Orren’s jaw tightens. “You think this place ever saw me?” he spits. “I was a body to fill patrol rosters. A name on your maps. You only learned my scent when it started bleeding in your reports.”

“That’s not an answer,” I say.

“It’s the only one you get.” He nods toward Amara. “She offered a way out. Money. Protection. A life where I wasn’t expendable every time you needed bait.”

Amara sighs. “Men and their wounded pride.”

She sets her cup down with maddening delicacy.

“You’re very angry,” she tells Corin conversationally. “Understandable. Bonds are messy. Guilt is messier. But we both know this isn’t about one captain and a few stolen wolves. This is about markets. Demand. Supply. You take down one node, the web reweaves itself.”

Corin’s lips peel back from his teeth. “Not if we burn the web.”

“Spoken like a creature who’s never seen a ledger,” she replies. “Or a contract.”

Behind her, the monitors hum, showing feeds from other corridors. Other rooms. One flickers briefly with the image of empty cages.

No children. Good. Or bad. It means they’re somewhere else.

“Where are the pups?” I ask.

Amara’s smile turns feline. “Everywhere. Nowhere. You’re a smart girl, Lysa. You know better than to think we keep all our inventory in one place after you tore up my last facility.”

Corin steps forward, shoulders bunching.

I grab his arm. Hard.

“Look around,” I murmur, eyes never leaving Amara. “No restraints. No visible storage. This isn’t a holding site. It’s a ledger room.”

He stills, glances at the banks of monitors, at the racks of filing cabinets along the back wall, at the heavy safe in the corner.

Records. Transactions. Routes.

Proof.

“She’s right,” I say. The words taste like ash. “We’re not in a cage house. We’re in the brain.”

Amara inclines her head, amused. “See? This is why I always liked you better than he did. You look at the whole board.”

“Do you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk?” I ask. “Or does the blood money keep it interesting?”

She sighs, as if I’m being petulant. “I warned the board Duskvale would be more trouble than it’s worth. But they were very fond of your geography. Easy access to mountain routes, porous borders, rich genetic stock—”

“Stop,” Corin snarls.

For the first time, something like wariness touches her eyes.

“Here’s how this will go,” he says. “You’re going to open that safe. You’re going to hand over every list, drive, and account number tied to this network. Then you’re going to call off whatever pickups you have scheduled and tell them the line is dead.”

“And why,” she asks sweetly, “would I do that?”

“Because,” I say, stepping forward until we’re almost nose to nose, “I’m going to make sure every pack elder and every human prosecutor from here to the coast gets a copy of whatever’s in that safe. Even if I have to carve it into your skin and drag you to them myself.”

Her gaze flicks past me to the monitors.

I follow it.

On one feed, tiny and grainy, a camera shows the outside road.

Headlights. Several sets. Coming fast.

“Looks like we’re out of time,” she says brightly. “I did tell you alphas were predictable.”

Orren’s smile curves, ugly and sure.

“Your move, Duskvale,” he says.

Behind us, the stairwell creaks.

More footsteps. More heartbeats. Closing in.

They didn’t just bring us to the brain.

They called the rest of the body to swallow us whole.