Todos os capítulos de The Alpha Secret Obsession : Capítulo 41 - Capítulo 50

Morning came whether Seraphina had slept or not, and academy life didn't pause for revelations that had shaken her to the core hours earlier. She dragged herself into uniform, the collar still sitting slightly crooked no matter how many times she adjusted it, and made her way to Professor Wren's history seminar with Dene's words still echoing cold through her chest.The classroom felt strange after the vault, too bright, too ordinary, students filing in around her discussing exams and weekend plans as though the world hadn't just tilted sideways sometime after midnight."You look like you didn't sleep," Orion said, sliding into the seat beside her, still moving carefully from his own injuries but steadier every day."I didn't.""Bad night?""You could say that." She kept her voice low as Wren began taking attendance, old habit from months of sharing whispered asides in exactly this seat. "I'll tell you later. Somewhere that isn't a room a professor might overhear."Wren's voice droned

Dene received them in her recovery room off the healing wing, propped upright against a stack of pillows, a thin bandage still wrapped across her temple, though her eyes had regained all their usual sharpness the moment Isadora set the folder down on the blanket beside her."You found something," Dene said, not a question, already reaching for the pages despite the healer's earlier instructions to rest completely."Something I don't fully understand," Isadora admitted, settling into the chair beside the bed while Seraphina took the other. "A marginal note, added to a Blackthorn marriage record from four generations back. It references witness standing, underlined twice. I think it connects to Draven's Hollow somehow, but I can't parse the old legal phrasing well enough to know what it actually means."Dene studied the page a long moment, her lips moving faintly as she worked through the archaic script, decades of practice clearly guiding her faster through the dense wording than eithe

"Say it plainly. Who else could this be."Caden's voice carried sharp across the pack office, every trace of composure stripped away since Seraphina had relayed Orion's fragmented memory an hour earlier. Rowan stood near the window, arms crossed, and Dene sat propped in a chair someone had carried over from the healing wing, refusing to stay in bed any longer than necessary."I don't know yet," Seraphina said. "That's the problem. Orion said the claimant doesn't even know herself.""That narrows very little," Rowan said grimly. "If the claim is bloodline based, and buried the way Isadora's connection was buried, half this academy could theoretically carry some distant thread back to Draven's Hollow or your father's line without knowing it.""Then we start with people who've actually had contact with Damian's faction," Caden said. "Everyone who's been targeted, threatened, or approached since this started. Isadora. Orion himself. Maren, even if she's no longer trusted.""Maren's confir

"Weeks."Seraphina said the word like it had weight, like she was setting it down somewhere between them where they could both look at it."Weeks, Caden. Before Dene. Before the east gate. Before Isadora was ever taken." She stepped back from him, needing the distance suddenly, needing to see all of him at once instead of just the part standing close enough to touch. "You watched me walk into that council chamber not knowing what your father's own history connected to. You watched me sit in the archive with Dene, guessing blind, while you already had a piece of the answer in your pocket.""I know how it sounds.""Then tell me how it isn't that."He didn't answer right away, and the silence told her more than anything he could have said."You stood in that chapel," she said, voice rising now, everything from the last two months rising with it, "and told me you'd hand me the truth or tell me which part was only a guess. You said that was the promise you could actually keep. And the whol

"You didn't sleep."Caden said it quietly, finding her where she'd retreated after Thessaly's delegation withdrew, the old fountain in the west garden holding her the way it always seemed to when she needed somewhere to be still."Neither did you.""No." He sat beside her, careful distance between them, waiting to see if she'd close it or widen it further. "Isadora's back. Safe. The healers checked her an hour ago. Nothing but exhaustion and a few bruises from the ride.""I know. I saw her." Seraphina's voice had gone rough from the long day. "She's furious at herself for not seeing the sigil sooner, for not understanding what the note meant before she walked out that door.""That's not her fault.""I told her that. I don't think she believed me." She looked down at her hands, at the fountain's dry basin catching the last of the evening light. "I understand the feeling, though. Not believing the people who tell you something isn't your fault."Caden went very still beside her. "Seraph