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Chapter 89
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2026-09-19 16:25:34
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FAKING IT WITH THE ALPHA CAPTAIN RIVAL Chapter 149: Dead on Paper
ELENA’S POV“I would like very much to say hello,” Mrs. Ashworth said.She took Pell’s arm. I felt the rope tighten as Ryder and Aiden shifted on either side of me, and I shook my head a quarter inch. She wasn’t agreeing to anything. I could feel that, a hard little knot of purpose under all the shaking, like a pebble in a shoe.The automatic doors slid open on a gray, bitter morning. Frost glittered on the hoods of the parked cars, and the sky had gone the color of dishwater. At the curb sat a long black sedan with its engine running, exhaust rising in a thin white thread.Pell opened the rear door himself.Alden Ashworth lay across the back seat under a plaid blanket. He was about sixty, thin and gray, with his mother’s sharp nose and a hospital band still wrapped around one wrist. His head lolled against the leather. A pulse beat slowly in his throat, so slow it barely seemed to move.The gold rose behind my eyes before I could stop it, and the smell hit me, sour and sweet, like ol
FAKING IT WITH THE ALPHA CAPTAIN RIVAL Chapter 148: Dear Win
AIDEN’S POV“Buried with him,” Mrs. Ashworth said again, in that thin voice. “I put it on his finger myself.”“I know,” Pell said. “I’m sorry for it. Nobody should have to say goodbye twice.”I’d known Pell for nineteen years, and I knew exactly what he’d just done.He never lied. Not once. When I was seven, he told me my mother had gone to live somewhere warmer, and it was true, because she’d moved to Arizona with a man who sold boats. He told the Council my father was recovering from an unfortunate accident, and the accident was real too. Pell built his sentences like a man laying bricks. Every one of them could bear weight, and the wall still went wherever he wanted it to.So I said, “Alden’s alive.”Pell’s eyes slid to me. “I never said that.”“You said he wanted her to know he never stopped trying to get home. You can’t try to get home from a coffin.”“A fair deduction, young master.”Through the rope, something warm and bright rose up beside me. It was Elena’s gift, steady and a
FAKING IT WITH THE ALPHA CAPTAIN RIVAL Chapter 147: Borrowed Crest
RYDER’S POV“Good morning, Grandmother,” Pell said again. “I believe we have an appointment.”A week ago, I would have gone through him.I knew that the way I knew my own birthday. I remembered the heat that used to climb my neck whenever a stranger walked toward Elena with the wrong face, the wolf pressing against my ribs, the red edge at the corners of my vision.This morning I felt nothing but a cool, clear quiet. So I counted the room.Two men stood behind Pell, both big, both with their hands loose. One exit was behind them and one behind us, past the gift shop. Joanie sat at the desk with a finger creeping very slowly toward a button under the lip. The guards from midnight were gone, and the clock over the desk said 7:14.“I don’t have a grandson,” Mrs. Ashworth said.“A figure of speech.” Pell strolled in, unhurried, and stopped at a polite distance. Up close he was younger than I’d thought, maybe thirty-five, with sandy hair and a pleasant, forgettable face. “A guardian, then,
FAKING IT WITH THE ALPHA CAPTAIN RIVAL Chapter 146: The Empty Chair
ELENA’S POV“The fourth vote,” I said.Nobody answered. Dennis held the card out like it might bite him.I took it. Cream paper, thick, the kind people used back when they still wrote thank-you notes. The writing on the back was small and upright and pressed hard enough to dent the page.“Is she dangerous?” Ryder asked.“She’s eighty-three and she brought a knitting bag,” Dennis said. “She’s dangerous like my aunt Pauline is dangerous. If she asks you to carry something, you carry it.”Aiden looked at me. I felt the question come through the rope as a small, tight tug, and I nodded.We went down together.The lobby was nearly empty. Joanie sat at the desk with a paper cup of tea, and the gift shop grate was still down over the teddy bears. On the bench beneath the information board sat a tiny woman in a green wool coat, her ankles crossed, a canvas bag at her feet with two knitting needles poking out the top. Her white hair was set in neat curls. Her lipstick was bright red and perfec
FAKING IT WITH THE ALPHA CAPTAIN RIVAL Chapter 145: First Snow
AIDEN’S POV“Say that again,” Ryder said.Nobody in the room moved.I felt Elena’s pulse through the ring before I saw her face. It was fast and thin, like a bird against glass. A second later I felt Ryder’s, slower and steadier, and I hated how easy it was to tell them apart now.“Everything goes dark at the first snow,” Elena said. “Not just the gift. All of it. I look forward and the road just stops.”“Stops how?” I asked.“Like the end of a page.” Her hands were wrapped around her knees. “No fire, no accident, no knife. I can see every night between now and then. Then the snow starts and there’s nothing.”She wasn’t lying. She couldn’t have, and that was the worst part. I’d spent three whole seconds wishing the oath would let her soften it.“How long until the first snow?” Ryder said.“They’re saying three weeks,” I said. “Maybe less. It’s early this year.”Ryder looked down at the gray bracelet on his wrist like it was a watch. “Three weeks. And you didn’t want to tell us.”“I wa
FAKING IT WITH THE ALPHA CAPTAIN RIVAL Chapter 144
Ryder“Is it normal that I’m hungry?” I said.Nobody answered. I was still on the linoleum with my back against Aiden’s knees, and the floor was cold through my wet shirt. Everybody was staring at me like I’d said something in another language.“Sorry,” I said. “I know it’s a strange thing to ask. It’s just, I’d expect to feel like I’d been hit by a truck, and what I mostly feel is that I could eat a sandwich.”“There’s a vending machine on the first floor,” Dennis offered. “The turkey ones are terrible. I’d go with the egg salad.”“Thanks,” I said, and meant it.Elena hadn’t moved. She was kneeling with her hand still half raised, the way it had been when she cut the thread, and her face had gone the color of paper. I looked at her carefully, the way you look at something you’ve been told is important. Brown eyes, dark hair coming out of its tie, a tiny scar through her left eyebrow I didn’t remember noticing before. I knew every one of those details. I could have drawn her from memo
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