All Chapters of THE ALPHA’S GHOST: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

ETHAN'S POVThe truth hit like an explosion inside my chest.Through the mate bond, I felt Kaye’s world collapse in real time. The moment Miriam spoke, something fundamental inside her cracked open and gave way. The certainty she had clung to for years, the belief that her father had tried to stop the nightmare instead of fueling it, shattered completely. Grief tore through her first, sharp and suffocating, followed by disbelief so strong it almost stopped her heart.Then came rage.Not wild rage. Not screaming fury.The kind that goes quiet and deadly.I felt it coil inside her like a blade being drawn slowly from its sheath.Her father had not just been involved.He had sacrificed his own pack.He had handed wolves over to Jon Tulip and watched them be torn apart piece by piece for research. The revelation poisoned everything Kaye had carried with her for six years. Her memories twisted under the weight of it. Every defense she had built around his innocence crumbled.I staggered un

ETHAN'S POVThe truth tore through what little stability I had left.Dr. Hallen Liston. The backup doctor. The woman who had stepped in seamlessly when Sarah vanished. The one who had treated my wolves when they were sick, injured, terrified. The one who had looked parents in the eye and told them their children would be all right.Jon Tulip’s daughter.The realization cracked something deep in my chest. Through the mate bond, I felt Kaye’s horror mirror my own, sharp and suffocating. Every moment replayed in my mind with brutal clarity. Every medical exam. Every blood draw. Every carefully recorded symptom and recovery time.It had all been data.She had not been healing my pack.She had been cataloging them.“You ran the numbers on us,” I said hoarsely, staring at her twisted form. “Every one of us.”Hallen Liston’s smile widened, bright and pleased, as if I had just complimented her work. “Of course,” she said cheerfully. “Sarah trained me well before she left. Continuity matters i

ETHAN'S POVI woke up choking on smoke that no longer existed.My lungs burned as if I had just dragged air through fire, and my head felt like it had been split open and stitched back together wrong. For a long moment, I did not know where I was. The world came in pieces. Stone ceiling. Dim light. The sharp sting of antiseptic. The heavy ache in every bone.Then the silence hit me.Not the calm kind. The dead kind.I forced my eyes open fully and pushed myself upright, ignoring the pain that screamed through my side and chest. Someone tried to stop me. Hands pressed down on my shoulders.“Easy,” a voice said. “You have been out for three days.”Three days.The words landed slowly, then all at once.My heart slammed against my ribs as memory crashed back into me. Fire. Explosions. The clearing tearing itself apart. Hallen smiling. Warped wolves pulling Kaye into the trees.“Kaye,” I said hoarsely, my voice breaking. “Where is Kaye.”No one answered right away.That told me everything.

ETHAN’S POVAlaska felt impossibly far away.Not in miles, but in time. Every second that passed was another second Kaye spent drugged, restrained, and alone inside Jon Tulip’s mountain. Through the mate bond, I felt her slipping in and out of awareness, her thoughts blurring, her fear dulled and sharpened again by whatever chemicals he was using to keep her compliant. It took everything I had not to lose control.I stood in the ruins of the ceremonial clearing and forced myself to breathe.This was not the moment for rage. This was the moment for planning.What was left of Blackwater gathered slowly. Ten fighters. That was all. Ten wolves healthy enough to stand, to shift, to fight. Some bore fresh bandages. Others leaned on each other for balance. These were not the strongest wolves in the pack anymore. They were simply the ones still alive and able.And they were willing to go anyway.Veilkeeper operatives moved among us with quiet efficiency, setting up equipment, loading cases, c

ETHAN'S POVThe mountain rose out of the frozen wilderness.Even before we reached it, I could feel the wrongness of the place pressing against my senses. The air felt dead, heavy, stripped of the natural rhythms wolves were meant to feel. Steel and stone replaced earth and trees. This was not a place meant for life.“This is it,” Theo said quietly over comms.The facility sat exactly where the coordinates said it would, buried deep inside the mountain’s spine. Only a few reinforced entrances were visible from the outside, cleverly disguised as natural rock formations. Turrets were hidden beneath ice coated panels. Sensors blinked faintly, scanning everything that moved.Jon Tulip had built a fortress.We moved fast.Vanessa’s schematics proved brutally accurate. Every access tunnel. Every guard rotation. Every blind spot. She had memorized it all, probably while dreaming of the day someone would come to burn this place down.The teams split as planned.I led the primary assault strai