All Chapters of The Alphas Next Door: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

KAIA“Are you sure she’s going to be okay?”Ashby.Her voice drips through the dark, tinged with panic.Another voice follows. This one is low and rough, familiar enough to make my heart twitch. That's Caius.“She has to be.”He sounds like someone praying with their teeth clenched.“I think we should wake Princess and ask her if she… you know… saw something else on her TV.”“You dare not.” Caius snarls at him.Maddox.Their words roll over me, one after the other, like waves on a shore I can’t reach. I’m floating somewhere deep and somewhere so dark I can't feel. My body is like a distant thing; no weight, no warmth, no movement. But those three feelings—oh, I feel those.Caius’ frustration is a hot pulse. Maddox’s fear is a trembling undercurrent. And Ronan’s self-loathing a cold, dark ache.When did I start… sensing those?It's kinda odd NGL.And still, everything— emotions and chattering — presses on me, crowding the little space left in my head.“Kiki… umm, I don't know if you c

CAIUSMy eyes stay on Hailey a little too long. She’s tucked beside Kaia’s arm, looking so small and so soft as she continues to talk about the TV in her dreams and I just can't help how the tightness in my chest loosen… and ache.Then the phone rings. Loud and sharp. My pocket vibrates and I pull it out slowly. One look at the name on the screen and my jaw ticks.Mother.Maddox catches it right away. His brows knit like he already knows. “Who’s that?” He asks from a couple of meters away, eyeing the phone.“Mother,” I say, hard through my teeth. I don’t give it another chance as I press the power button until the screen goes black, switching it off. Begone.She only ever calls for one reason—destruction. She destroys peace, destroys stillness, destroys any good thing in her way. And I already know what she wants. Especially now that the season is over and those three would have reported back to her.I’ll answer her when I’m ready. When I’ve sorted everything in front of me. Not befo

CAIUS•Two weeks later•The days blur together.Morning drills. Kaia. Reports. Those fuckers. Patrol schedules. Kaia. Research. Check ups. Kaia. Clean ups. More Kaia. Hailey’s laughter cutting through it all like sunlight on fog.If someone told me two years ago that I’d be waking up early just to watch a six-year-old trip over her own feet on Sundale’s training field, I’d have called them insane.But here I am.The girl’s got stamina, I’ll give her that — or maybe that’s Ronan’s fault. He’s been running her through enough wilderness drills to make a grown wolf cry. Maddox too, with his endless combat lessons. Punch here, duck there, kick the air like it insulted your mother.Me? I’m the “review and correction” guy because of my busy schedule. The least exciting of the three, but apparently the one little Hailey now likes most. Probably because I don’t yell. Much.“Uncle Cai!” she calls from the middle of the field, panting, her braids sticking to her forehead. “I did the stance just

CAIUSIt’s been years since I started telling myself she can’t touch me anymore.Years since I stopped flinching at the thought of her voice, since I convinced myself I was beyond her reach. Since I believed putting more towns and cities between us will make everything good.That’s the lie I’ve lived on.That’s one of the reasons I left the capital. Why I buried myself in Sundale.But the moment her eyes land on me again, everything collapses.I feel ten.Ten years old and too small for her rage.Ten and standing in the dark hallway of our old manor, listening to the sound of her shattering glass when she was still a drunkard. Ten and wishing she’d stop seeing him when she looks at me. Ten and wishing that maybe, just maybe, when she looks at me now, she won't hate me anymore. Me. The ashes her failed bond left behind.But hell,That's a wish.Because, right now, I find myself instinctively following her because my ten year old legs still remembers the fear she'd etched into me.But t

MADDOX The door shuts with a soft click that sounds way too polite for the amount of chaos it just trapped behind it. For a long moment, no one breathes. Not even Hailey, who’s usually a chatterbox. This is bad. So bad. I drag a hand over my face and exhale through my teeth. “Well,” I mutter, breaking the silence because someone has to. “That went... about as great as a wolf wedding in a human church.” Ronan glares. Caius still hasn’t moved from where he’s sitting—fists clenched, shoulders locked. He looks like he’s been punched in the gut by his own memories. Kaia, though. She’s the only one who actually moves. She goes back to the couch, picks up the half-full glass of water our lovely mother didn’t touch, and sets it carefully on the table like she’s afraid even the sound of glass might make Caius crumble. And that’s what gets me. Not the Luna’s venom, not her Council threat, not even the three-day countdown to our collective doom. It’s the way Kaia looks at him lik