The Alpha Imposter Wife

Chapter 28: What Judith Won’t Say

NORA POV

“Tell me the word”

Judith looked at me.

“There is a word for it” I said. “You have been circling it this whole conversation and I need you to stop circling and just say it.”

Rhett was still near the door. Still quiet. He had that presence he got when he was listening hard and letting someone else lead.

Judith pressed her hands flat on her knees. One breath.

“When the suppression was placed” she said, “it did not pause your development. It compressed it.” She kept her eyes on mine. “Twenty-four years of the wolf’s natural growth. All of it locked into a space that was never meant to hold that much.” She paused. “When the lock breaks, everything inside it comes out at once.”

“Define at once.”

“Not over a week. Not over days. In a single break. One moment.” She held my eyes. “Everything that was supposed to grow slowly over two decades will release in a single period.”

“How long is the period?”

“Hours. Possibly a full day.” She said it straight. No softening. “I don’t know exactly. There is no record of a suppression this old breaking free.”

I stared at her.

“And the people around me” I said slowly. “During those hours.”

“They will feel everything.” Her voice was flat now. Like she was reciting something she had memorised and reciting it was the only way to get through it. “The pack around you will have every strong feeling they carry amplified to the point where they cannot manage it. Fear will hit like panic. Love will feel disorienting. Loyalty will feel like a physical pull they cannot resist.”

“For hours.”

“Yes.”

“A full day possibly.”

“Possibly.”

I stood up. Had to. I could not sit still with this.

I walked to the window and stood there and looked at the grounds outside. Pack wolves moving through their morning. Normal. A patrol rotation switching over near the east path. Roy crossing toward the training yard with his jacket half on.

These people.

My pack.

I thought about the way Bex touched my hand under the table at breakfast. I thought about Roy coming to my room in the middle of the night just to make sure I knew what was coming. I thought about every wolf I had learned by name over five years, every problem they had brought to my door, every morning I had gotten up and done this job because somebody had to.

All of them hit by that. All at once.

“Rhett” I said.

“I heard” he said behind me.

“He’ll feel it too.”

“Yes.”

I turned around. Looked at Judith. “Is there any way to control it? Any way to limit what happens to the people around me during the break?”

Judith was quiet.

“Mum.”

“There is one way” she said. “But it is not simple.”

“Tell me.”

“The break happens one of two ways” she said. “Either it overtakes you from behind, which is what happens when a suppression fails on its own timeline. The lock weakens until it gives and then everything rushes out and you have no control over any of it.” She looked at me steadily. “Or you meet it going forward.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you choose it. Consciously. Before the break happens on its own. You turn toward it instead of waiting for it to hit you from behind.” She kept her hands flat on her knees. “If you walk into it deliberately, with your eyes open, there is a chance the release is less violent. Not controlled completely. But directed. The difference between a wave knocking you off your feet and you walking into the water yourself.”

I looked at her.

“A chance” I said.

“Yes. A chance.”

“Not a guarantee.”

“No.” She did not pretend otherwise. “I cannot give you a guarantee. Nobody can. But the alternative is waiting until the lock gives on its own and when that happens you will have no warning and no ability to prepare anyone around you.”

August.

He had said it too. Different words, same thing. You have to choose it yourself. The prophecy says you have to come to it yourself.

This was what he meant. Not just accepting what I was. Choosing the moment. Walking into it before it walked over me.

The pressure in my chest pulsed. Hard. Almost like it heard us talking.

I pressed my hand against my sternum.

“How much time do I have?” I said. “To make the choice.”

Judith looked at my hand on my chest.

Her jaw tightened slightly. “Less than I would like.”

“How much?”

“Days” she said. “Not weeks.” She said it carefully. “The suppression is already failing. What you are feeling right now, that pressure, it is the lock coming apart. Every day it is a little further gone.” She looked up at me. “If you do not choose it in time, it chooses you.”

Days.

I had two weeks to get ahead of Warren. I had Dana in the east wing and Marcus gone and the pack already unsettled and now I had days before something broke loose inside me that would hit every wolf in this house like a wave whether I was ready or not.

“Can you slow it?” I said. “Even a little.”

“I will try” she said. “I cannot promise. But I will try.”

Rhett moved from the door. He came to stand near me, not right beside me but close, and he looked at Judith.

“What does she need to do?” he said. “To choose it. Practically. What does that look like?”

Judith looked at him for a moment. Something moved across her face. Not gratitude exactly. Something close to it.

“She needs to stop running from it” she said. “Every time the pressure comes and she pushes it back down, she is delaying the break but also making the eventual release bigger.” She looked at me. “You have to stop pushing it down. You have to let it surface. Not all at once. In stages. Let it come up a little at a time so that when the full break happens, some of it has already moved through you.”

I looked at my hand still flat on my chest.

The pressure pushed back against my palm.

It had been doing this for weeks. Months. And every time it came up I pressed it down because I had a pack to run and a lie to maintain and no space for whatever this was.

Every time I pushed it down, it came back bigger.

“Okay” I said.

Judith looked at me.

“I’ll stop pushing it down” I said. “I’ll let it surface.”

She nodded. Once. Slow.

The pressure pulsed again under my hand.

Stronger than yesterday.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​