All Chapters of Claimed by the Seven Alphas: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

The oil pan on the stove ignited once more. Rex scraped the half-burnt eggs onto a plate. His movements were a fraction gentler than before. So slight only he knew. Silas had already turned the petition over. He was transcribing Code articles from memory along the margins. His ash pheromones spread slowly with the rhythm of his dictation. They laid an almost invisible layer of frost across the stone floor. "The First Code's General Principles. Article One: The Mother of All Wolves' power of veto is not subject to parliamentary review. Article Two: The Mother of All Wolves' right of succession is not subject to bloodline challenge. Marcus wrote both with his own hand. Five hundred years ago, he already prepared the weap

Luna stood in the corridor. She looked down at the hand he had gripped. Her fingers curled once. Then opened. She slid the hand into her pocket. Her fingertips brushed against a sheet of paper folded into a tight square. The seventh petition. The one Marcus had written in his own hand. She had carried it from the dining hall to Parliament. From Parliament back to this corridor. The paper had softened with her body heat. But every word on it still pressed with force. That five-hundred-year-old ghost. Writing *Mother of All Wolves*. His index finger pressing half a millimeter harder than normal. He had been waiting. Since the day Aurora died. Waiting for the next Mother of All Wolves to walk into Parliament. Turn to the

Elias stood beside the examination table. The shadowless lamp stretched his solitary shadow long across the wall. He watched her back. Her nape gland still exposed to the air. The faint brown ring of the old temporary bond mark glimmering under the cold white light. Then he reached to the tray. He picked up a fresh suppressant patch. He walked behind her. He pressed it over her gland with impossible lightness. This time, his fingers paused at the edge of the patch for a full second. "Let's go." He removed his white coat. He folded it. He set it on the examination table. He walked to her side and pushed open the medical bay door. The wall sconces in the corridor had bee

A map of the North hung on the war room's stone wall. The edges of the parchment were yellowed and fraying. The crease marks from repeated unfurling and rolling were like a network of dried riverbeds. Dorian's projector cast streams of blue data beside the parchment. It lit the ancient mountain lines and underground city markers in half-light, half-shadow. Luna stood before the table. She had changed into clean clothes. The zipper of her black combat uniform was pulled to her jaw. It covered the suppressant patch at her nape. The coffee by her left hand was Aurelius's brew. Too sweet. But hot. She drank deep twice. She set the cup on a coordinate on the map. It had been circled three times. Greyhollow. The North. The underground city. 

The war council continued. Aurelius straightened from the doorframe. He walked back to the dining hall. He carried his cup of long-cold coffee. He set the cup on the stove. He did not reheat it. He opened the cabinet above his head. He felt for a tin canister hidden at the very back. Small. Old. Its edges worn down to the silver base. He unscrewed the lid. Inside was half a canister of honey. Not the communal jar in the kitchen. His own private stash. The honey had crystallized. Clouded with murky pale gold. He chipped a piece off with the handle of a teaspoon. He stirred it slowly into the coffee. He could drink it without honey. He added it because someone had once put three spoonfuls of honey into his coffee before his first battle. Saying *sweet cuts the taste of blood.* That person had died on the Northern Ice Pla