All Chapters of Ruined By The Alpha: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The police officer had his hand on his gun. The athletic board lady had her tablet up, still playing Jace's livestream. My mom was standing between me and them. Karl was still in my lap, blinking slow, trying to sit up.And across the lake, the silver-eyed wolf was swimming straight for us."Everybody on the ground!" the cop shouted. "Now!"Silas, bleeding on the floor, laughed wetly. "Too late. He's here."My mom turned white. She looked out the window at the wolf cutting through the water. "No. No, it can't be."Karl grabbed my hand, hard. "Theo, get behind me."I couldn't move. The silver cuff on my wrist was ice cold now. The black root ash was still on my palm.The wolf reached the shore and shook water off. Then, in front of all the humans with their phones out, he shifted.Not like Karl's half-shift. This was smooth, fast, bones cracking and reforming in seconds. One second a huge silver wolf, the next a man in his forties, soaking wet, wearing torn jeans.He had my face. Older

The helicopter didn't explode. It hit the lake hard and tipped sideways, rotors still spinning slow in the water.Everything else was quiet.Every soldier on the grass was out cold, breathing but not moving. Silas was on his knees holding his head. The Beta was face-down in the dirt. My mom was sitting up, dazed.And Karl was on his hands and knees in front of me, staring at his own hands like they belonged to someone else.His eyes were brown. Not gold. Not even a flicker."Karl?" I said. My voice sounded far away.He didn't answer. He pressed his palm to his chest, over his heart. Then he looked up at me, panicked."I can't hear him," he whispered."Who?""My wolf," he said. "He's gone."My dad was still holding me up. He let go slowly. "You didn't just cancel his shift, Theo. You shut his wolf down completely. Full null pulse does that."I dropped to my knees in front of Karl. "I didn't mean to—""I know," Karl said quickly. He grabbed my face with both hands. His hands were shakin

The whole circle went quiet after Marcus said it."You're mine by right."Karl's claws were out, digging into my wrist where he was holding me. Not hurting me — just holding on.My dad took one slow step forward. "Say that again, Marcus."Marcus didn't look at him. He was looking at my mom by the cabin. "Tell him, Sarah. Tell your son who you were promised to before you ran off with a null."My mom's face was white. "That was twenty years ago. It was voided.""It was never voided," Marcus said. "You left. The council never released you."I looked between them. "What is he talking about?"My mom came into the circle, past all the kneeling wolves. She didn't look at Marcus. She looked at me."When I was eighteen, my family arranged a mating with the Alpha heir of North Shore," she said quietly. "Marcus. It was political. To join packs. I met your father two weeks before the ceremony."My dad — Daniel — took her hand. "She chose me.""She broke pack law," Marcus said, voice flat. "A prom

We didn't go back to the lake house. Too many cameras in the trees now — news drones, TikTok kids, probably the FBI.Marcus took us to the real pack house, twenty minutes deeper in the woods. Stone walls, no windows on the ground floor, a big steel door that locked from the inside. Old pack stuff.Inside, it smelled like wet dog and coffee. Wolves everywhere — some in human form eating at a long table, some in wolf form asleep by the fireplace. They all stared when we walked in: me, Karl, my mom and dad, Silas, and twelve silver-eyed nulls behind us.Marcus clapped his hands once. "Everyone out. Council meeting. Now."The room cleared fast.My dad spread a paper map on the table. Not a phone map — real paper, creased and stained. Nevada was circled in red pen."Site 7," he said. "Outside Groom Lake. They built it in 2008 after they caught my brother. Three levels underground, null-suppression field on the whole building, guards rotate every six hours."Karl leaned over the map, his sh

We didn't run.Marcus said running makes you look guilty. My dad said running is what they want us to do. Jace said if we run he loses his 15 million viewers.So we stayed at the lake.By 7am the dirt road was blocked with vans — not army vans, news vans. Channel 5, CNN, Fox, two YouTubers with ring lights. Police tried to keep them back but gave up when Marcus walked out shirtless, still wet from the lake, and growled."Fine," Marcus told them. "You want a statement? You get a statement. But on our terms. One stream. One phone. No edits."Jace nearly cried with joy. "My phone! Use mine!""Absolutely not," my mom said, and handed him her old iPhone with a cracked screen. "Use mine. Yours adds filters."We set up on the dock. Just a wooden table from the cabin, six chairs. Me, Karl, Jonah, my mom, my dad, Marcus. Behind us, the pack — thirty wolves in human form, arms crossed, trying to look non-threatening and failing because half of them were still half-shifted.In front of us, my mo