Claimed by the Alpha

The Question

Lira didn’t sleep. Not really.

She lay staring at the ceiling with her phone on her chest, waiting for it to buzz again. It didn’t. Whoever sent that text wasn’t looking for a conversation. Just wanted to plant something and walk away.

By morning she’d made up her mind. She wasn’t sitting on this for one more day.

She found Kane in his study instead of the kitchen, hunched over the same mess of papers from yesterday. Like he’d been there since midnight and never left.

"We need to talk," she said, closing the door behind her.

He looked up. Something in her voice told him this wasn’t their usual morning sparring. "Okay."

"Someone texted me last night." She crossed her arms so they wouldn’t shake. "Unknown number. Asking what really happened to your uncle. Asking if you were there the night he died."

Kane went still. The kind of still that said more than words.

"Show me," he said quietly.

She handed him the phone. Watched his face as he read it. Anger. Fear. And relief, like a threat he’d been waiting for had finally shown up instead of lurking.

"You need to block this number," he said, giving it back.

"That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?"

"It’s not safe for you to talk to whoever this is."

"Kane." She sat down across from him. "I’ve been here four days. Everyone flinches when your uncle comes up. You disappear every night and lie about it every morning. Now someone’s asking if you were there when he died. I think I’ve earned an actual answer."

He was quiet a long time. Jaw working like he was trying out different versions of the truth before picking one.

"My uncle didn’t die in an accident," he said finally. "That’s what people are told. Hunting accident past the northern ridge. Nobody in the pack believes it. Nobody says it out loud."

"What did happen?"

"He was executed." He said it flat. No drama. That made it worse. "For treason. My father gave the order."

Lira’s stomach dropped. "For what?"

"He was trying to stop the pact. Your pact." Kane met her eyes. Something raw in them she hadn’t seen before. "He thought it was going to get someone killed. Tried to convince my father to break it before it was signed. When my father wouldn’t, he went around him. Tried to sabotage the whole thing with people in your pack."

"Why would he do that?"

"He’d seen something. Old prophecy. Old pack history nobody knows anymore. He thought the pact wasn’t peace. He thought it was a trigger for something worse." Kane’s hands curled into fists on the desk without him noticing. "My father called it treason. Called it madness. Had him executed before he could break it."

"And you were there."

It wasn’t a question.

"I was sixteen," he said. "My father made me watch. Said I needed to understand what happens to people who put themselves above the pack. Said it was a lesson." His voice went flat. The practiced kind of flat you use when you’ve spent years not feeling something out loud. "I’ve been sneaking out since I was old enough to walk those woods alone. Trying to find what he found. What made him willing to die for it."

Lira sat with that. "That’s where you go. Every night."

"There’s a place past the ridge. Old markers. Carvings. Stuff that predates both packs. I’ve been trying to piece together what he saw there before they killed him." Kane finally looked at her fully. Exhausted. Honest. For the first time since she arrived. "I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how to hand you this without making you a target too. Whoever texted you knows too much. That’s not a coincidence."

"You think someone’s using me. To get to whatever he found."

"I think someone’s been watching this family a long time, waiting to move. And your arrival gave them a reason."

The room went quiet. Lira thought about Rhys. About Callum’s eyes. About Marta dodging questions. About Wes cutting himself off.

All of it fit around a shape she still couldn’t see.

"Take me there," she said. "Where you go at night. Show me."

"Absolutely not."

"Kane."

"It’s not safe. I don’t even understand what’s out there, and I’ve been looking for years. I’m not walking you into something I can’t protect you from."

"You’ve been carrying this alone since you were sixteen." She kept her voice steady. "Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe nobody’s found the answer because everyone’s too scared to look together."

Something in him cracked. Just a little.

"You just found out your whole life got rearranged around a pact you never agreed to," he said quietly. "And your first move is more danger."

"My first move is refusing to be the person everyone keeps things from for my own good. I’ve had enough of that this week."

He almost smiled. "You’re going to be a problem, aren’t you."

"Probably."

"Fine." Like it cost him. Like he’d expected it the second she walked in. "Not tonight. I need to think about how to do it safely. But soon."

"You keep saying soon."

"I mean it this time." His eyes held hers. "You deserve to know what you walked into. All of it. I should have said that the first night instead of making you chase it out of me."

"Yeah," Lira said. "You should have."

That evening she saw Rhys’s last text still sitting there. She thought about answering, about telling him everything Kane just told her. Decided against it. Some things weren’t safe to put in writing, not with an unknown number watching.

Instead she typed:

Lira: things are more complicated here than I realized. I'm okay. I promise.

Rhys: complicated how

Lira: can't really explain over text. just trust me a little

Rhys: trusting you was never the problem, Lira. it's them I don't trust.

She didn’t answer that one. Looked out at the treeline instead. Same dark line of trees that had swallowed Kane every night. That apparently held answers people had died and lied to protect.

Soon, he’d said.

For the first time since Ashwood, Lira found herself hoping he actually meant it.