All Chapters of Blood Debt: The Alpha's Captive Mate: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The Abbot family records ended in 1624.I stared at the archive ledger, my finger tracing the final entry. Marcus stood beside me, his face grim in the lamplight of the compound's deepest basement."That's it," he said quietly. "Four hundred years exactly. Before that—nothing.""That's not possible." I flipped back through the pages, searching for something we'd missed. "Every pack keeps records going back to their founding. You told me the Blackwood line traces to the twelfth century.""It does. Or it did." Marcus pulled out another ledger—older, its binding cracked and yellowed. "Look at this."I took it carefully. The pages were fragile, threatening to crumble at my touch. But I could see what he meant immediately.The records had been cut out.Not lost. Not damaged by time or water or fire. Physically removed. Someone had taken a blade to this ledger and sliced away every page before 1624. The cuts were precise. Deliberate. Made by someone with access to archives that only the Alp

I agreed because refusing would destroy me.The main hall filled within the hour. Four hundred wolves, crowded shoulder to shoulder, their eyes fixed on the raised platform where Veronica waited. She stood with her hands folded over her stomach, her expression serene, her confidence absolute.She had orchestrated this perfectly.If I refused to verify her pregnancy, I looked weak. Afraid of what my blood might reveal. The pack would wonder why their Luna couldn't—or wouldn't—use her miraculous abilities when they mattered most.If I agreed and the pregnancy was real, Veronica became untouchable. Family. Protected by my own power.Either way, she won.Unless I found a third option.Brian stood at the edge of the platform, his face carved from stone. He had argued against this for twenty minutes—demanded I refuse, insisted it was a trap, nearly ordered me not to participate.I had refused to listen."This is my decision," I had told him. "My power. My risk."Now I climbed the platform s

I walked into the courtyard as something the world had forgotten.The blood moon hung overhead, swollen and red, casting crimson light across four hundred upturned faces. Every wolf in the compound had gathered—summoned by instinct, by the pull of something ancient, by the impossible silver glow emanating from my fur.I had shifted back to human form, but the change hadn't erased what I was. My skin still carried a faint luminescence. My eyes reflected light like mirrors. And when I moved, the air seemed to part around me, as though reality itself recognized what I had become.Brian walked beside me.His hand found mine in the darkness, his fingers intertwining with mine. Through the completed bond, I felt his awe. His terror. His desperate, overwhelming love.He had never seen a silver wolf.No one living had.The last one had existed three hundred years ago—before the records were cut, before 1624, before whatever happened that Brian still couldn't fully explain.And now I was walki

The summons arrived at dawn.I hadn't slept. Neither had Brian. We had stood on opposite sides of our chambers for hours, the completed bond between us pulsing with emotions neither of us could voice.Anger. Fear. Betrayal. Love.All of it tangled together into something I couldn't untangle.The courier was a vampire—young, pale, dressed in the formal blacks of diplomatic service. He knelt at the compound gates and waited until Marcus retrieved him, then walked through four hundred hostile wolves without flinching.He carried a single envelope.Heavy paper. Wax seal. The crest of the Vampire Court pressed into crimson."For the Alpha of Blackwood," he announced. "And for the Argentum who stands beside him."Brian took the envelope.Broke the seal.Read the contents with a face carved from stone."What does it say?" I asked.He handed me the paper without a word.The terms were formal. Precise. Cold.Under the laws of blood-debt, the House of Danesti demanded satisfaction for the death

The first approach came at dawn.Two wolves I didn't recognize stood at the gates, requesting an audience with the Argentum. They carried no weapons, wore no pack insignia, and spoke with the careful politeness of professionals.Bounty hunters.Marcus turned them away.The second approach came at noon.A woman this time—human, or passing for one—with a briefcase full of legal documents and an offer from "interested parties" who wished to discuss my future. She mentioned numbers that would have made the old Aggie faint.Sera turned her away.The third approach wasn't an approach at all.It was an attack.A supply convoy three miles from the compound. Four vehicles. Eight wolves. One human driver named Samuel who had worked for the pack for fifteen years.Samuel was dead before anyone could reach him.His body was left on the road with a note pinned to his chest."The silver wolf or more will follow."I sat in Brian's office, staring at the numbers.Gianna had compiled them overnight—re