All Chapters of FAKING IT WITH THE ALPHA CAPTAIN RIVAL : Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

ElenaSleep came in fitful, shallow pieces that night, Martha’s safe house quiet around me while I stared at my phone screen, refreshing the territory bulletin app every few minutes despite knowing the announcement would not appear until the system’s official morning release.Ryder stayed too, stretched uncomfortably across a small couch in the next room, insisting he would not leave until we understood exactly what the contact had been hinting at. Martha had finally drifted into exhausted sleep sometime after two, her trust in the security detail apparently strong enough to let fear finally give way to rest.I was still awake when the bulletin updated, a little after six in the morning, the territory’s official notification system chiming softly on my phone.I opened it with unsteady hands, scrolling past routine announcements about road closures and pack gatherings until I found it, a formal notice posted under the Council’s official seal, dated and timestamped only minutes earlier.

ElenaSeventy-two hours. I stared at that number until it stopped meaning anything, until it became just a shape on a screen rather than a countdown toward something I might not survive.“We need to wake everyone,” Ryder said, already moving, his exhaustion burned away entirely by the sudden, sharp urgency of what had just landed on us. “Now.”Within the hour, the whole group had reassembled in Marcus’s room, the quiet uncertainty of the night before replaced by a kind of controlled panic that hummed through every exhausted face.“He moved before the appeal could even be reviewed,” Marcus said, reading the notification a third time like the words might rearrange themselves into something less dire. “That alone should be grounds for immediate suspension of the Rite, but I do not trust that procedural argument to actually stop a process already in motion this fast.”“Can we challenge it directly,” Ryder asked. “Argue that invoking the Rite while an appeal regarding the legitimacy of his

ElenaI danced backward, the gold pressure in my chest flaring hotter with every second, and Kestrel’s second strike came so fast I barely registered the warning before I twisted sideways, his fist grazing my shoulder instead of driving solidly into it.The impact still staggered me, pain radiating hot and sharp down my arm, and the crowd’s roar surged as I stumbled, Kestrel already pivoting for another attack.“You are faster than I expected,” he said, his voice still flat, almost conversational despite the violence unfolding around us. “Most people I fight simply freeze the first time someone actually tries to kill them.”I did not answer. Talking cost me precious attention I needed entirely focused on the pressure in my chest, on the half-second warnings it kept offering, each one buying me just enough time to dodge rather than absorb his blows directly.He came at me again, a combination this time, three strikes chained together faster than any ordinary opponent could have managed

ElenaThree days after the Rite, I finally moved back into my own apartment, Martha's safe house arrangement loosened now that formal pack security had been assigned to both of us permanently.The quiet felt strange after weeks of chaos, almost suspicious in its stillness, though exhaustion made it impossible to stay fully alert to that unease for long.Ryder came by most evenings. Aiden too, though never at the same time, both of them apparently settling, without needing to discuss it aloud, into some unspoken rhythm that let each of them have their own space in my life without colliding into the other's.I was going through the financial documentation Naomi had compiled over the past several weeks, trying to piece together exactly how deep the Cross Pack's infiltration had actually run, when something small and strange caught my attention.A line item, dated years before any of the current crisis had begun, buried in an old report Harold Fenn had submitted during one of his early b

Elena“That cannot be right,” I said, my finger resting on the circled name. “Martha is not a seer. Martha is not even my blood.”“I know,” Victoria said quietly. “That is the part I cannot make sense of either.”Ryder leaned over my shoulder and read the entry twice. His face changed slowly, the way it does when a piece you ignored suddenly fits. “Elena, do you remember what I told you at the arena, the night everything started? About why the bond was possible at all?”“You said Martha carried old wolf blood.”“I thought that was why you and I could bond. I was wrong about the reason, because you are a Hart by birth. But I was not wrong about Martha.” He turned the ledger toward me. “I had someone research her family line months ago. The wolf blood was real. We simply explained it with the wrong story.”I closed my eyes, and memories started lining up on their own. Martha at the sink, her hands going still. Martha in the hospital bed saying I had a look on my face like I was listenin