Startseite / Werewolf / CLAIMED BY THE ENEMY ALPHA / Kapitel 11 – Kapitel 20

Alle Kapitel von CLAIMED BY THE ENEMY ALPHA : Kapitel 11 – Kapitel 20

27 Kapitel

The Offer

The letter sat on her kitchen table for three days before she opened it.Not because she forgot it was there. She saw it every morning when she made coffee, every evening when she fed the boys, every night when she sat down to work. Thick cream envelope, city council seal, her name typed neatly across the front. She knew what it was her contact at the Velgorod Heritage Committee had sent a text two days before saying something was coming.She just wasn't ready to make a decision until she had to.On the third day, Niko picked it up off the table and tried to open it himself."That's mine," Katya said."You didn't open it," he said, which was completely fair.She took it from him, sat down, and tore the top.* * *The project was enormous.Full restoration of the Velgorod Monastery and City Center — fifteen buildings, a public square, two courtyards, and the river walkway that connected the old city to the modern district. Two-year contract. The budget listed was the kind of number Kat

Going Back

Mama. Mama. Mama.""Ivan.""Mama.""Ivan, I can hear you.""The trees are getting bigger."Katya opened one eye. She'd been attempting to read the same page of her site notes for forty minutes. Outside the train window, the landscape had shifted completely — no more city, no more flat grey suburbs. Just forest. Dense pine forest pressing close to both sides of the track, so thick it looked like a wall, the snow sitting heavy on every branch.Ivan had his nose pressed to the glass. He'd been watching the trees since they left the city outskirts two hours ago, not moving, not asking for snacks or the bathroom or entertainment, just watching. Which was very Ivan and also slightly unnerving."They are getting bigger," Katya said. "We're going further north.""They smell different here."She looked at her notes. "Mm.""Like wolves. Real wolves." He turned to look at her. He had a streak of pencil on his cheek from drawing earlier. "Are there wolves where we're going?""There are wolves eve

First Day Back

The east wall was worse than the photos.Katya stood in the monastery courtyard at eight in the morning with a clipboard and a coffee going cold in her other hand, staring at a crack in the stone that ran floor to ceiling like someone had drawn a line with a ruler. The photos from the city council's survey had shown "minor structural settling." This was not minor. This was the building quietly telling her it had been ignored for about fifteen years and was now making its feelings known.She wrote three lines of notes. Scratched them out. Wrote them differently.Her site contact was twenty minutes late, which she had also expected. First-day-back-in-Velgorod and already the universe was making itself comfortable.She walked the perimeter on her own. She had the blueprints memorized already — she'd been going over them for weeks, working out the order of things, which walls had to come before which floors, where the drainage problems would compound if she got the sequence wrong. The mon

He Knows

Where are they.""That's not a question I'm answering right now," Katya said.Something moved across his face. Not anger. More like he'd expected that response and was adjusting."Okay," he said.She didn't like how calm he was. It made her feel like she was the one being unreasonable, which she was not. She was a woman standing in a bell tower being asked about her children by a man who was a stranger and a known Alpha and the father of those children, all of which added up to a situation with no good moves."How did you find me," she said."Your name is on an architecture journal article. The Krestovsky Theater." He paused. "I've known where you were for about two years."The room was cold and she was suddenly more aware of it."Two years," she said."Yes.""And you didn't—" She stopped. Reorganized. "Why?"He took a breath. Let it out slow. "Because showing up at your door in St. Krest with a full Alpha claim and no warning would have sent you running and I'd have lost any chance o

The Boys Meet Him

She needed to move past what happened in the bell tower.That was the decision she made on the walk to pick up the boys. Practical. Productive. She'd heard what he had to say. She'd said what she needed to say. She knew where things stood. The work was real, the contract was real, she had foundations to assess and a structural engineer to call and she couldn't spend the next two years with her heart doing that every time she walked into a room he might be in.So. Past it. Moving on.She was completely past it.She walked into the childcare center at pickup and Niko launched himself at her from about four feet away, full speed, no warning, which she caught because she'd had four years to learn how to catch him."I made a friend," he announced at volume. "His name is Borya and he's very fast but I'm faster.""That's great, baby.""I won a race.""Good.""I won four races.""Niko.""Fine. Three. But the last one Borya cheated."Ivan appeared from around Niko's shoulder holding up a sheet

Terms and Lines

She heard the knock at eight-fifteen, and she already knew.Not because she had some special instinct. It was just that the knock was three times, firm, no hesitation — the knock of someone who had decided something before they got to the door. She recognized it, somehow. Like she'd known his knock her whole life.Niko was in the bath. Ivan was on the living room floor drawing. Katya wiped her hands on her jeans and went to the door and opened it.Dmitri stood in the corridor. Coat on, hands in pockets, looking slightly wet from the snow that was apparently falling again outside. Two of his men were visible further down the hall, keeping a polite distance. He'd at least had the sense not to bring them to the door."I should've called first," he said."Yes.""Can I come in."Katya looked at him for a second. Then she stepped aside.He came in. Looked around the apartment quickly — not in a nosy way, more like a person checking exits out of habit. She noticed he looked toward the closed

Aleksei Hears the News

The report landed on his desk at nine in the morning and Aleksei read it twice before he set it down.Then he got up and stood at the window for a while.The Baranov pack territory stretched out in front of him — the training grounds, the outer forest, the road that led to the city. His territory. He'd spent five years turning it into something solid. Good alliances, clean borders, a pack that respected him even when they didn't like what he decided. He was good at this job. It had not been easy to get good at it, but he had.The report said: Katerina Morozova. Velgorod. Lead architect, monastery restoration project. Arrived last week. Twin boys, approximately four years old.He'd known the numbers for a while. Not the specific numbers — he hadn't let himself sit down and do the actual math. But somewhere in the back of his head, in the place he kept things he didn't want to examine, he'd known.The Winter Moon Gala. The morning after. The state she'd been in.He'd chosen to be furious

Svetlana Comes Home

The knock at the door on Thursday evening was different from Tuesday's knock.Tuesday's had been three times, firm, decided. This one was twice, a small pause, then once more — like the person had almost knocked twice and changed their mind and then convinced themselves to do it anyway.Katya opened the door.Svetlana stood in the corridor holding a pot of borscht with both hands like it was armor.She looked — older, was the first thing. Not in a bad way. Just five years older. Same dark hair, same sharp face, but something had settled in her eyes that hadn't been there before. Something that looked a lot like guilt that had been carried for a long time and not put down.They looked at each other."I made borscht," Svetlana said. "Don't read into it."Katya stepped aside and let her in.* * *Niko decided immediately that he liked her. He attached himself to her side within approximately ninety seconds of her sitting down on the couch, climbing up next to her without asking and showin

The Pack Notices

The invitation from the regional pack council looked polite. It wasn't.Katya had been in Velgorod for eleven days. Eleven days of site work and school runs and careful, controlled contact with Dmitri at the monastery and exactly one emotionally exhausting evening with her sister. She hadn't reached out to any of the local packs. She hadn't attended any of the informal gatherings that Velgorod's wolf community used as social glue. She'd been keeping her head down, doing her job, keeping the boys in the neutral district.Apparently eleven days was all the time she got.The invitation listed four pack representatives. Three she didn't know well. The fourth name at the bottom was Aleksei Baranov, and she sat with that for a moment before she folded the letter and put it in her work bag.She texted Dmitri: Pack council meeting Thursday. I'm going alone.He responded in under a minute. Irina goes with you.She typed: That wasn't a question.He typed back: I know. But Irina or me. Your choic

The Chapel

She started going to the site at night.Not every night. Two or three times a week, after the boys were asleep and Svetlana or the neighbor's teenage daughter was sitting in the apartment with the spare key and instructions to call if anything moved. Katya would put her boots on and walk the twelve minutes to the monastery in the dark with her flashlight and her notebook and two or three hours of quiet.She told herself it was practical. The site was less distracting at night. No workers, no questions, no phone calls from the city council about permits. Just the building and the work and her own brain, which was when she did her clearest thinking.The real reason was that the building was beautiful at night. Snow on the old stones, the whole courtyard silver under the moon. She'd stand in the middle of it sometimes and just look, and feel something settle in her chest that didn't settle anywhere else.She was in the chapel on a Wednesday when Dmitri found her.* * *The chapel was her

ZURÜCK

WEITER

CODE SCANNEN, UM IN DER APP ZU LESEN

DMCA.com Protection Status