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CHAPTER 10: THE THING HE TOLD HER

Penulis: Alison Hart
last update Tanggal publikasi: 2026-08-20 16:07:42

COLE

I broke six generations of pack law in a gas station parking lot at two in the morning, and honestly, I’d do it again.

I told her everything. The pack. The Alpha line. My father’s ultimatum and the thirty-day clock ticking down whether I wanted it to or not. I told her what a mate bond was supposed to feel like, and how mine had been screaming her name since the second week of September, and how I’d spent every day since trying to convince myself it was a mistake, a glitch, anything other
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  • The Captain's Forbidden Mate   CHAPTER 120: TELLING IVY

    LENAIvy had settled into a quiet cottage two towns over, close enough for careful visits but far enough to feel genuinely safe, and when we arrived to share the news in person, something in her face when she opened the door told me she already suspected what we’d come to say.“He’s caught,” she said, before either of us had spoken a word. “I can see it in your faces.”“He’s in formal custody,” Cole confirmed. “The investigation’s already underway. He won’t be disappearing again.”Ivy’s hand rose to her mouth, tears immediately gathering, and she pulled me into a fierce embrace before I’d fully processed the motion, her whole body shaking slightly with the release of tension I recognized intimately.“Twenty-two years,” she said, echoing Aiden’s own words from the day before. “I never thought I’d actually live to see this. I’d resigned myself to simply surviving in his shadow forever.”“You don’t have to anymore,” Cole said gently.We stayed for tea, Ivy’s hands still trembling slightl

  • The Captain's Forbidden Mate   CHAPTER 119: TAKEN

    COLEThe small town looked exactly as unremarkable as Astra had described, quiet streets and modest storefronts, nothing about it suggesting any connection to decades of careful, hidden danger.Okafor’s official party arrived first, two representatives from the reform committee carrying proper legal authority, followed carefully by our own group, positioned nearby but visible, no longer needing to hide the way we once had. Marcus and my father waited with the larger coordinating group a few blocks away, ready to provide additional support if needed but deliberately kept from the immediate confrontation, given the personal danger their direct involvement might still represent.The inn sat at the edge of town, modest and unremarkable, and I felt Lena’s hand tighten in mine as we approached, both of us remembering the last time we’d walked toward a building holding this particular danger.“Different this time,” I murmured, more for my own reassurance than hers.“Different,” she agreed, t

  • The Captain's Forbidden Mate   CHAPTER 118: THE PLAN

    LENAAiden and Astra arrived back at campus by mid-morning, exhaustion visible in both of them but underneath it, something sharper, more focused than I’d seen in weeks.“He’s staying at that inn for at least another few days,” Astra reported, once we’d gathered in the library corner one final time. “Business reasons, according to the front desk clerk I spoke with carefully. Whatever he’s doing there, it requires him to stay put, which gives us a window we don’t usually get.”“What kind of business?” Noah asked, already pulling up whatever information he could find about the small town.“Unclear,” Aiden said. “Possibly rebuilding some piece of his network, given how thoroughly we dismantled the previous one. That’s actually useful information. If he’s vulnerable enough to need rebuilding, he’s vulnerable enough to make mistakes.”The room settled into careful, methodical planning, the same rhythm that had carried us through every previous confrontation, though something felt different

  • The Captain's Forbidden Mate   CHAPTER 117: A SIGHTING

    COLENoah called during my afternoon class, which had become rare enough these past weeks that I stepped out into the hallway immediately, my pulse already climbing before he’d said a single word.“Someone matching Marlow’s description was spotted two states over,” he said, without preamble. “A small town, nothing significant about it on the surface. But the resemblance is close enough that I think it’s worth investigating properly.”“Who spotted him?” I asked.“A contact of Elias’s, actually, from the Brackenridge network. Deborah passed it along the moment she heard. Older man, tall, pale eyes, staying at a modest inn under a name that doesn’t match any of Marlow’s known aliases, but the physical description is too precise to easily dismiss.”I found Lena after class, and we gathered the group within the hour, the careful, methodical energy of investigation settling back over all of us despite the months of relative calm we’d recently enjoyed.“We can’t rush this,” Aiden said, study

  • The Captain's Forbidden Mate   CHAPTER 116: RIPPLES

    LENADeborah called on a Sunday afternoon, her voice carrying an energy I hadn’t heard from her since our first careful conversation in that distant diner months ago.“Brackenridge is investigating our own seat history,” she said, once we’d gathered to hear the news properly. “Formally, with proper oversight, following the same model Okafor’s reform committee established. We found the pattern too, once we knew where to look. The elder we lost eight years ago wasn’t an isolated incident.”“What did you find?” Aiden asked.“Confirmation. A payment structure similar to what Marcus described, connected to the same careful obscuring of ownership records. We haven’t confirmed Marlow’s direct involvement yet, but the pattern’s unmistakable.” Something fierce cut through Deborah’s usual careful caution. “We’re not staying silent about it, whatever the risk. You taught us that much, at least.”The news settled with quiet, significant weight, proof that the ripples of our investigation had spre

  • The Captain's Forbidden Mate   CHAPTER 115: THORNE'S CHOICE

    COLEThorne reached out through Aiden’s careful channel two weeks after the conference finals, requesting a meeting at the same abandoned ranger station that had become, strangely, the closest thing to neutral ground this entire investigation had ever established.He looked different when we arrived, some of the raw, barely contained fury from our previous meetings settled into something calmer, more resolved, though I couldn’t immediately place what had changed.“I’ve made a decision,” he said, once we’d gathered. “I wanted you to hear it directly, rather than through Aiden or secondhand rumor.”“What decision?” Lena asked, careful.“I’m done hunting Marlow personally,” Thorne said, something like relief threading through the admission. “Not because I’ve forgiven him. Not because I’ve stopped wanting accountability. But because I’ve watched what patient, careful pursuit through legitimate channels has actually accomplished these past months, considerably more than twenty-two years of

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