ANMELDENTeilen
Chapter 14
Veröffentlichungsdatum:
30.08.2026 17:00:22Ivy told her mother everything.
The clinic. The change. The full. The bond that grew stronger quicker than expected. She left nothing out not the parts that made her sound foolish for signing a contract without asking enough questions first. Margaret listened without interrupting hands on the blanket face unreadable in a way that scared Ivy more than shouting would have.
When Ivy finished the room stayed quiet for a moment.
"Well " Margaret said finally. "That explains a things about my mother that never made sense to me."
"You believe me?"
"Sweetheart I watched a mans eyes turn gold for half a second when he leaned over to shake my hand three minutes ago. I decided not to say anything because I assumed I was having a stroke." Margaret managed a tired laugh. "Yes. I believe you. Mostly because the alternative is that we're both losing our minds at the time and that seems statistically unlikely."
Kade, standing near the door looked caught somewhere between relief and disbelief.
"Ms. Marsh I understand if you need time to—"
"I need you to promise me something " Margaret said, cutting him off. Her voice was firm like every talk she had heard as a child. "Whatever happens with this hearing, whatever your cousin tries to do my daughter will not be a pawn in your familys politics. She is not a prize. She is not a problem to manage. If you cannot promise that I do not care how much money sits in that contract."
"I promise," Kade said, without hesitation meeting her eyes on. "I should have made that promise to Ivy a week ago. I'm making it to you now. I'll keep making it to her every day until she believes it."
Margaret studied him a moment the same measuring look she gave everyone who mattered and something in her face eased just slightly.
"Good answer " she said. "Now somebody explain to me what this hearing actually is because if my family history is about to get dragged into a courtroom I want to know what we're walking into."
They spent the hour explaining everything to her – the succession law, Damons tricks, the registry and the photograph that now sits on the hospital tray table like evidence in a case none of them wanted to be part of. Margaret listened, asked questions and by the end she looked less like a frightened woman in a hospital bed and more like a person ready to fight.
"There's a name in my mothers things " she said suddenly. "A box I never went through properly. It's in the attic at the house. I always meant to deal with it and never did. Griefs a thing it makes you put boxes away instead of opening them."
"Do you remember what's in it?"
"Papers. Old letters I think, in a hand I never learned to read. I always assumed it was another language. Maybe it wasn't a language all. Maybe it was a name your grandmother never wanted written down where anyone could find it."
Kade straightened. "If there are documents. Anything before what Damon pulled from the pack archive. That could be more important than the registry copy Priya found. Sealed records can be changed. A private letter kept outside pack hands for sixty years cannot."
"Then somebody needs to go get that box " Margaret said. "Today. Not tomorrow."
Ivys phone rang before she could answer. Rhyss name on the screen and something about the timing made her stomach drop before she even picked up.
"Rhys what's wrong?"
"We found Elena." His voice was tight, careful the sound of a man choosing his words. "She's fine. Physically.. Ivy. We tracked her to a private meeting an hour ago. With Damons lawyer."
"You said you thought she might be helping him."
"I did. I was wrong about which side." A pause heavy that Ivy could feel it through the phone. "She was not giving him information. She was trying to get of him – find the registry herself before he could use it so she could bring it to Kade first and control how it was presented. It went wrong. Damons people arrived before she could finish. Now he knows exactly what she was looking for and why."
"So he knows about the registry."
"Worse " Rhys said. "He knows Elena was trying to protect you. Which means, far, as Damons concerned shes picked a side now.. I don't think hes going to let that go quietly."
Aktuellstes Kapitel
The Alpha's Plump mate Chapter 38
They spent the rest of the night in Fern's small cabin, going through old pack records by lamplight, searching for any name that might explain what they'd just seen in the trees."There," Fern said finally, tapping a yellowed page with one thin finger. "Bram Ashworth. Lost his entire family in a border raid forty years ago — mate, two pups, all of it, in a single night. He disappeared into the woods a week later. We assumed he'd died out there, grieving alone. Nobody ever found a body.""Forty years is a long time to survive alone in the woods," Kade said."It's not surviving," Fern said quietly. "Not really. Whatever's left of Bram hasn't been alive in any way that word usually means for a very long time. He's just been out there, hollowing further and further, waiting for something to finally fill the emptiness or finish him off."Ivy looked at the old photograph tucked into the record — a young man, smiling, arm around a woman Ivy assumed was his mate, two small children at their f
The Alpha's Plump mate Chapter 37
The pack elder was older than Odalys, older than anyone Ivy had met in either bloodline, a small woman named Fern who spoke slowly, like every word cost her something to dredge up from very deep memory."Hollows aren't born," Fern said, seated by a fire despite the mild evening, hands wrapped around a cup of something that smelled sharp and medicinal. "They're made. A wolf, once, who lost their bond so completely — mate, pack, all of it, torn away at once — that the grief itself hollowed them out from the inside. What's left isn't really a wolf anymore. It's just hunger, wearing a shape that used to belong to something that could love."Ivy's chest tightened. "That's horrifying.""It's tragic," Fern corrected gently. "Which makes it more dangerous, not less. You can't reason with grief that's eaten everything else a person used to be. You can only survive it, or stop it.""How do we stop it?" Kade asked."Salt and iron slow it. Don't kill it — nothing physical kills a Hollow, because
The Alpha's Plump mate Chapter 36
Kade called Damon within the hour, phone on speaker so Ivy could listen while she paced the nursery, Rowan finally down for his afternoon nap."Tell me everything," Kade said, no greeting, straight to business. "Your letter said something crossed onto their territory. What kind of something?"Damon's voice came through static-heavy and tired, like a man who hadn't slept properly in days. "Nobody here has a name for it. Three pack members gone in two weeks, found drained somehow — not killed the way an animal kills, not marked the way a fight leaves marks. Just empty. Like whatever took them took more than just their lives.""Drained," Kade repeated slowly. "Drained how?""I don't know, Kade. That's the problem. The pack elder here says there are old stories about something called a Hollow, a creature that feeds on pack bonds themselves, not bodies. I always assumed those were just stories meant to scare pups into staying close to the group at night." A pause, heavy with static. "I don
The Alpha's Plump mate Chapter 35
The ceremony happened in the same clearing where Ivy had first watched Kade change under a full moon, though tonight there was no moon at all, just torches and a small circle of witnesses standing quiet at the treeline.Sarah stood at the center, steady despite the nerves plain on her face, Odalys across from her holding a simple silver bowl of water that caught the torchlight like something alive."Once spoken," Odalys said, "this cannot be unspoken. Are you certain?""I'm a journalist who just spent a year chasing something real," Sarah said. "I don't think I've ever been more certain of anything in my professional life."The words Odalys taught her were old, unfamiliar on Sarah's tongue, and Ivy watched her stumble twice before settling into the rhythm of them. When she finished, the water in the bowl shimmered once, gold and brief, and something in the air went still in a way Ivy felt more than saw.Sarah gasped, hand pressed to her own chest, eyes wide."I feel it," she said. "It
The Alpha's Plump mate Chapter 34
They spent the next six hours arguing about what to actually offer her."A curated version," Rhys said, pacing Kade's study while Ivy sat with Rowan on her lap, half-listening to the debate and half-watching her son try to eat one of his own socks. "Show her the community. The land conservation angle, the private family compound, people who value privacy fiercely enough to look suspicious to outsiders. Let her write that story. It's true enough to satisfy her conscience, and it's boring enough that her editor loses interest once there's no monster in it.""She already suspects more than that," Elena said. "A curated tour reads as exactly what it is — a performance for an audience. She'll know we're managing her, and principled people don't usually appreciate being managed.""Then what's your alternative? Tell her everything and hope she keeps quiet out of the goodness of her heart?""There's an old rite," Odalys said quietly, and the room went still at the sound of her voice. "Ashgrov
The Alpha's Plump mate Chapter 33
The council convened within the hour, faster than Ivy had ever seen it move, urgency replacing the usual formal patience of pack business."We hide because hiding has kept us alive for four hundred years," one of the older council members said, voice sharp with fear more than anger. "One blog post doesn't change that math. We double down. We make this reporter's life difficult enough that she drops the story entirely and moves on to something easier.""And if she doesn't drop it?" Kade asked. "If pressuring her just convinces her there's something worth digging harder for?""Then we handle her the old way.""No," Kade said, flat and final. "We've been over this. I won't authorize harming a journalist for doing her job, and I won't lead a pack that thinks that's an acceptable cost of secrecy."The hall murmured, split clearly down old lines Ivy was starting to recognize — fear on one side, something closer to fatigue with the fear on the other."There's a middle path," Elena said, stan
Das könnte dir auch gefallen
THROUGH THE EYES OF MY ALPHA
Cassandra M575.4K AufrufeAlpha Asher
Jane Doe10.1M AufrufeHis Dark Obsession
Moonlight Muse614.0K AufrufeTrue Luna
Tessa Lilly973.4K AufrufeThe Alpha Academy Wants Me Dead - My Mate is my Enemy
Hanny R147 AufrufeTHE ALPHA'S REVENGE BRIDE
Lydiatony 161 AufrufeThe Alpha’s Chubby Mind-Reading Luna
Amaka 118 AufrufeBond of Shivers
Starwrite123 Aufrufe
