Chapter 114

I wasn’t supposed to be in that wing. I had gone looking for more blankets after hearing from one of the interns that the outer bunks were short, and I took a wrong turn in the lower levels. The halls here were colder, narrower, the hum of the ventilation louder. The air smelled faintly of metal and dust, like this section hadn’t been used in years. My footsteps echoed too loudly, each one a reminder that I shouldn’t be here.

At the end of the corridor, a door stood ajar. A faint glow of screens spilled into the hall. Against my better judgment, I pushed it open.

Inside was a dim security office, screens stacked along the walls, wires trailing like veins. Most showed static or empty corridors. One screen flickered, the angle off-center, and I stepped closer. My stomach lurched when the shapes resolved into two bodies.

Jenny’s hair was unmistakable, spilling down her back as she straddled Adam on a crate. Her skirt was bunched around her hips, his shirt half-open, his hands clamped greedily on her thighs. The grainy feed made it worse somehow, as though the camera lens shouldn’t have been privy to something so raw. But there was no mistaking what they were doing. Jenny threw her head back, arching for the camera like she knew she was being watched, her moans too loud, too performative. She was still putting on a show, just like she always had.

“Tell me again,” she panted. “Say it.”

Adam pulled her close, his mouth pressed to her ear. “Richard only cares about Amelia,” he whispered. “Your father never loved you. I am the only one who ever chose you. You're mine.”

Jenny whimpered as if the words themselves undid her. She clutched him harder, riding him like she wanted the entire camp to hear. My stomach twisted. It was just like that day in the apartment, when I had walked in on them and Jenny hadn’t even looked embarrassed. She had smiled through it, gasped louder when she noticed me in the doorway. She had wanted me to see, wanted me to know she could take what was mine and flaunt it.

And now she was doing it again, only the stakes were higher. Surrounded by enemies. Letting Adam fuck her in a military storage bay while whispering poison into her ear. They had only just broken things off because of the way he treated her, and I had let myself believe she had learned her lesson. Seeing her return to him so quickly made it worse, like the wound was still fresh and she had chosen to reopen it.

Jenny’s voice rose again, sharp and theatrical. “You’re the only one who wants me. The only one who understands me.”

Adam smirked against her throat. “And you’ll stand with us. With David. Not with them.”

Her fingers tangled in his hair and she nodded frantically, her cries echoing through the tinny speakers. My skin crawled. It wasn’t intimacy. It was performance and manipulation. Most of all, it was betrayal.

I stumbled back from the monitor, covering my mouth. The bile rose hot in my throat. Jenny, pressed against Adam, believing every poisonous word he fed her. It wasn’t just betrayal of her father, or of me. It was Adam tightening his hold on her, turning her into a weapon David could wield without even realizing it.

And David was close. His entire camp had been forced into the outer bunkers when rogue packs hit their territory. Now they were just down the valley from us, packed into crowded halls with soldiers and families. Jenny wasn’t sneaking off into shadows alone. She was surrounded by David’s people day and night. Every whispered conversation, every time Adam touched her hand, every time she clung to him instead of her father, it happened with David’s camp watching. And that meant it wasn’t just a personal betrayal. It was politics. It was power shifting before my eyes.

My shoulder hit a crate stacked near the wall. The lid slipped and a stack of papers spilled out. I cursed under my breath and bent to gather them, my hands still shaking. Wartime relics. Tags scrawled with old dates. Letters tied with string, edges yellowed with age.

I hesitated, then untied one. The handwriting was rushed and uneven, as if written on the battlefield. A half-blood child hidden for protection. The last hope if the lines fall.

The words blurred in front of my eyes. My breath caught. I could not have said why it pulled at me, only that something in the phrasing pressed against an emptiness I had never been able to name. I pushed the thought aside, unsettled by how drawn I felt to it.

I shoved the letter back into the bundle and pressed the lid closed. My pulse roared in my ears as I left the room. I shut the door carefully, as if that could contain what I had seen. My hands would not stop trembling.

By the time I reached the dining hall, my mask was back in place. I took bread, poured water, smiled at one of the stewards who asked about supplies. I forced myself to laugh at a small joke. Richard’s eyes tracked me across the table. He didn’t speak, but I felt the weight of his gaze like a touch at the back of my neck. He knew something was wrong. He didn’t press, not then, but the promise was there.

“Are you feeling alright?” Simon asked quietly as he passed me a bowl of stew.

“I’m fine,” I lied. My voice sounded steady, but my throat burned with the effort.

“Fine?” he pressed. His eyes searched my face. “You look pale.”

“Just tired,” I said. “It’s been a long day.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he let it drop.

After the meal, Richard caught me in the hall. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. His hand lifted slightly, like he might touch my arm, then fell back to his side.

“I meant what I said before,” he said quietly. “About the vote. About trusting you.”

I nodded. “And I meant what I said, too. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

His jaw tightened. “No. It isn’t.”

The silence stretched, heavy with everything we had admitted and everything we still couldn’t say. We had apologized, spoken our truths, but the tension between us lingered like smoke after fire. I walked away before the weight of it pressed me into saying something I couldn’t take back.

Around us, the gossip spread like smoke. Staff whispered about David’s soldiers glaring across the valley, about Jenny seen walking among them, smiling with Adam at her side. Some said David was letting her parade through his camp like a prize, proof that even the Alpha’s daughter preferred his faction. The more I listened, the more my stomach knotted. Jenny wasn’t just dabbling in rebellion. She was becoming its poster child.

That night I lay awake, staring at the ceiling. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Jenny’s hair spilling across Adam’s chest. I heard his words again and again: Richard only cares about Amelia.

And beneath that, the letters. The desperate ink. A half-blood child hidden for protection.

Jenny was sliding deeper into David’s camp, pulled under by Adam’s lies. And I, somehow, was more tangled in this war than I had ever been prepared for.

Richard

She smiled at dinner. She spoke politely, even laughed once at Simon’s dry comment. But I knew her too well. Her shoulders were stiff, her hands too careful around the cutlery, her eyes never lingering on mine for long. She was hiding something. Carrying something heavy out of the day, and it was gnawing at her.

I considered pressing. I could have asked in front of the others. Could have taken her aside. My wolf wanted to demand the truth, to shake it free of her until the weight was shared. But I didn’t. Not tonight. She would only retreat farther if I pushed her now.

So I let her go. I told myself she would come to me when she was ready. That was the lie I whispered to make myself believe I could sleep.

But I didn’t sleep. I walked the halls instead, listening to the hum of the Haven. Every closed door I passed felt like a secret waiting to break open. My wolf paced under my skin, restless and sharp, convinced that whatever Amelia carried would wound her before it ever reached me. And I hated that I was already bracing for the moment I would have to pick up the pieces.

And when I thought of Jenny, trotting around David’s camp for everyone to see, my hands clenched until my nails cut into my palms. I had always feared losing her to recklessness. I had never imagined losing her to my enemies.