Kneel Alpha: The Surgeon Omega's Revenge

Chapter 14

Damien's POV

Rhen was never early. He was never late, either. He arrived exactly when he said he would. At nine o'clock sharp, there was one knock on my hospital door. Then he walked in carrying a black leather briefcase. It wasn't the one he used for everyday work. This one had two steel locks. He set it carefully on the foot of my bed. For a second, neither of us spoke.

The room suddenly felt smaller. "You look terrible," Rhen said.

"I've looked worse."

"I know."

He glanced at the monitor beside me. "Still alive."

"Barely."

He gave one short nod. "Good enough."

That was as close to relief as Rhen ever got. He pulled a small key from his pocket. The first lock clicked open. Then the second. The sound echoed through the quiet room. He lifted the lid. The briefcase was full. Folders. Photographs. Council records. Meeting notes. Financial reports. Everything was arranged in perfect rows. Not a single page out of place. He lifted the first folder onto the bed. "I've verified everything twice."

"I expected you would."

"I verified it a third time anyway."

That sounded like him. I pulled the hospital tray closer. He spread the papers across it with slow, careful movements. It looked less like paperwork. More like evidence. The kind people carried into a courtroom. Or a funeral. I picked up the first report. The title alone made my stomach tighten. Review of the Voss Prophecy Authentication Process.

I turned the page. Then another. Every sentence made the room colder. The prophecy hadn't simply been accepted. It had been approved. Reviewed. Stamped. Signed. Three elder signatures sat at the bottom. One signature had been crossed out. Another had been added later. Dates had been changed. Not by accident. Deliberately.

I looked up. "Someone knew."

Rhen nodded once. "At least one senior elder." He slid another document toward me. "This signature belongs to Elder Bram."

I recognized the handwriting. He had served on the council longer than I'd been alive. "He signed off after the forgery was already identified."

I read the dates again. My jaw tightened.

"He knew."

"Yes."

"And he approved it anyway."

"Yes."

Silence settled between us. The heart monitor kept beeping. Slow. Steady. Almost insulting. My world had just shifted. The machine didn't care. I reached for another folder. This one contained correspondence. Private letters. Most were coded. Some weren't. One line had been underlined in red ink.

The omega remains the primary obstacle. Proceed before public announcement.

I read it twice. Then a third time.

"The omega."

Rhen nodded.

"You."

"No."

He looked at me without blinking.

"Nora."

The word landed hard. I kept reading. There were meeting schedules. Travel records. Council votes. Everything pointed in the same direction. The marriage hadn't been a last-minute political compromise. It had been planned months ahead. Every meeting. Every delay. Every announcement. Someone had been moving pieces across a board. I had been one of them. "So none of it happened by chance."

"No."

I leaned back against the pillow. The stitches in my side pulled. I barely noticed. "What about Selara?"

Rhen opened another folder. "This came from her private correspondence."

Inside were copies of letters. Expense records. Payments. Names. Some had been blacked out. Others hadn't. She'd met privately with council members six times before the summit. Twice with Elder Bram. Once with another elder whose name had been removed. Cash transfers followed each meeting. Legal. Documented. Hidden inside routine council expenses. Clean enough that no one looked twice. Unless they knew where to look. Rhen had looked. I rubbed a hand over my face. "My father trusted those people."

"I know."

"I trusted them."

"I know."

"They built the whole thing."

"They helped build it."

That difference mattered. Only a little. I picked up another page. This one wasn't about politics. It was about me. Psychological evaluations. Leadership assessments. Notes from council observers. One sentence had been circled.

Subject demonstrates predictable prioritization of duty over personal attachment.

I stared at it. They had studied me. Measured me. Counted on me making exactly one choice. And I had. Without realizing someone had already written the ending. I let the paper fall. "I made it easy."

Rhen didn't answer. He didn't need to. The answer was sitting in front of both of us. I looked across the room. The drawing Iris had given me yesterday still rested on the bedside table. Two smiling wolves. Purple sun. Crooked grass. It looked almost unreal beside the stack of council reports. One page built by a child. The others built by people who had forgotten how. My eyes drifted back to the files. There was one folder left. It was thinner than the rest. Rhen didn't open it immediately. Instead, he closed the briefcase. Locked it again. Then rested both hands on the lid. His face had gone even more serious. That got my attention. "What?"

He looked at me for a long second. "The marriage wasn't just politically convenient." I waited. "It wasn't only about strengthening Ashborne."

He reached into the last folder. Pulled out a single sheet. Laid it in front of me. It contained a timeline. One side listed council meetings. The other listed dates from my life. Training. Alpha trials. My relationship with Nora. The dates lined up. Too neatly. Too perfectly. My eyes stopped on one entry. Relationship confirmed.

Three weeks later— Marriage discussions begin.

My chest tightened. "They knew."

"They knew."

"They built the plan around her." I looked up slowly. "Around Nora?"

Rhen nodded. "Specifically around Nora."

The room seemed to lose its air. Every decision. Every delay. Every conversation. None of it had happened in isolation. Someone had seen Nora standing beside me......and decided she had to be removed. Not because she had done anything wrong. Because she mattered. Because they believed I would choose her if given the chance. So they made sure that chance never existed. I stared at the timeline until the words blurred. Rhen quietly gathered the loose papers into a neat stack. When he finished, he didn't stand. He stayed where he was. Like there was still something left. "There is one more thing," he said. I looked at him. His voice dropped lower. "Someone told Selara about Nora before the summit."

The room went completely still. "Someone inside Ashborne..." He held my eyes. "...who knew she was yours."