Todos los capítulos de The Alpha's Hidden Heir: Capítulo 81 - Capítulo 90

ERIN"Elena. Or Wren."The names hung in the air like poison.Elena, who had dressed me for diplomatic events. Who had explained territorial customs with patient kindness. Who had been present for countless conversations about my schedule, my movements, my vulnerabilities.Wren, who had been my mother's closest friend. Who had spent years searching for me. Who had wept with joy when she finally found the child she had helped save from the massacre.One of them was feeding information to the people who wanted me dead."No." The word came out before I could stop it. "That's not possible. Wren would never—she loved my mother. She saved my life.""And Elena has served Silver Ridge for fifteen years without a single mark against her loyalty," Connor said quietly. "Neither option makes sense. But Marcus's evidence doesn't lie."I looked at Marcus, desperate for something—anything—that would tell me this was a mistake. His face was carefully neutral, but I could see the weight of what he was

ERINThe body was carried away wrapped in rough canvas, anonymous in death as the prisoner had failed to remain in life.I stood at the edge of the loading area, watching the guards handle him with the careful efficiency of men who had seen death before and would see it again. No ceremony. No mourning. Just the practical disposal of someone who had outlived their usefulness to everyone—their masters, their captors, the conspiracy that had apparently decided he was too dangerous to leave breathing."Staged," Marcus said quietly, appearing at my shoulder. "They wanted it to look like an escape attempt that went wrong. The cart, the hidden position, the timing with the morning departures—all designed to suggest he was trying to slip away in the chaos.""But the wounds don't match that story.""No. Those wounds were execution. Clean. Deliberate. Made by someone who knew exactly what they were doing and wanted to make sure he couldn't speak even if he survived the initial attack." Marcus's

ERINThe woman in the courtyard wasn't Elena.I had been so certain, so ready to believe the conspiracy had finally revealed itself in the form of someone I had trusted within Silver Ridge's walls. My heart had been pounding with the terrible clarity of betrayal confirmed.But the figure Wren was staring at stood near the main doors, travel-worn and ragged, her clothes carrying the dust of long roads and her face lined with exhaustion that went deeper than physical fatigue.Beth.The Shadowcrest healer who had slipped me supplies and prenatal vitamins the night I was cast out. The woman who had risked her position—risked everything—to help a disgraced servant escape with something resembling dignity. The only person from my old life I had allowed myself to trust completely.She had answered my coded letter.She was here.And hanging at her collarbone, catching the late afternoon light, was a tarnished silver pendant etched with a symbol I now recognized with sickening certainty.A bro

ERINThe journal sat on the table between us, leather worn soft by years of hidden keeping, its pages holding secrets that had cost Beth's sister her life.But Beth wasn't looking at the journal anymore.She was looking at me with an expression I had never seen before—not in thirteen years of small kindnesses, not in all the moments she had tended my wounds and slipped me extra food and looked the other way when I needed privacy. This expression was deeper. Older. Carrying the weight of a choice made when I was too young to remember."I need to tell you something else," she said quietly. "Something I've never told another living soul."The room felt smaller suddenly. Connor, Marcus, Wren—they all faded into the background as Beth's words drew me forward, pulling me toward a truth I hadn't known I was missing."The night you came to Shadowcrest," Beth began, "I was the healer on duty. It was late—past midnight—when the border patrol brought you in. A child, maybe five years old, covere

ERINMy sister didn't die sixteen years ago. She switched sides.Beth's words hung in the air like smoke after an explosion—thick, choking, impossible to clear."Wait." Marcus stepped forward, his investigator's mind already working through the implications. "You're saying your sister—the archivist who discovered the erasures, who tried to expose the conspiracy—is now working for them?"Beth stared at the letter in her trembling hands, her face cycling through grief and disbelief."I don't... I can't be certain it's her handwriting specifically." She looked up, eyes wet. "I haven't seen her write anything in sixteen years. Memory plays tricks. But the phrasing—" She pointed to specific lines on the page. "This construction. This precise, formal tone. It's exactly how my handlers always communicated. The same clipped courtesy. The same sense that you're reading an internal record rather than a personal message.""So it might not be your sister," Connor said carefully. "It might simply