Claimed by the Alpha I Hate ā Episode 17
Nolan blocked Daisy’s first strike a breath before the staff reached his temple. The impact cracked through the gym and forced him half a step sideways. Surprise flashed across his face, giving Daisy a satisfaction she had not expected to feel.
She attacked again before he recovered, turning the staff and aiming low. Nolan caught the second blow, but Daisy used the contact as leverage, pivoting toward his unguarded side. Months of repetition guided her body faster than conscious thought.
The watching trainees fell silent. They had expected the wolfless girl to embarrass herself, perhaps to drop the weapon at Nolan’s first counter. Instead, Daisy kept the Blackwood Alpha moving, matching his footwork with fierce precision.
Elias watched more closely than anyone. A trained Beta could distinguish disciplined practice from accidental success, and Daisy’s angles were too efficient to be luck. Yet her acceleration came in irregular surges, as though another force briefly took command of her muscles whenever emotion broke through.
Nolan parried without retaliating at full strength. He saw discipline in her stance, but something else drove her speedāsomething too sharp to be explained by six months of ordinary training. Each time her anger rose, her reactions became quicker.
“Stop holding back,” Daisy snapped. His restraint reminded her of Scott’s pity, and pity had become the ugliest word she knew. She swept the staff toward Nolan’s ribs, forcing him to turn the strike aside.
“If I stop holding back, this ends,” Nolan replied. The answer was practical, not mocking, but Daisy heard arrogance. She lunged, and he caught her staff between both hands, bringing them suddenly face-to-face.
The bond flared at the closeness. Daisy hated the way her body recognized him even while rage filled her mind. Nolan’s gaze dropped briefly to her mouth, recalling the same kiss, and she wrenched the weapon free.
“Your grandfather didn’t teach you all of that,” Nolan said. The observation struck a secret neither of them understood. Her technique showed formal instruction, but no wolf moved inside her to account for the bursts of unnatural speed.
The claim offended Daisy because it seemed to steal the one achievement no Alpha had given her. Her grandfather had taught her balance and control, but grief had supplied the relentless hours. She had earned every callus while trying to become someone Scott, Mila, and the rest of Eastwind could never break again.
“You don’t know anything about me.” Daisy attacked with renewed force. “You don’t know what I had to become after Scott rejected me. You don’t know what it was like to leave my mother behind and return too late.”
Nolan blocked each blow, hearing the grief beneath them. “Then tell me.” His request was quiet enough that only she could hear. “Tell me why your strength changes every time you’re angry.”
Daisy faltered. She remembered the strange flash in her eyes, the hunger that was not a wolf, and her grandfather whispering in the kitchen. Fear entered the space anger had occupied.
Nolan saw it and lowered his weapon slightly. “Daisy, what aren’t you telling me?” He had hunted vampires long enough to recognize when a body moved outside the natural limits of a wolf. He did not want to apply that knowledge to his mate.
“Nothing.” The denial came too fast. Around her, heartbeats became distinctādozens of them, pulsing through the gym. The sound crowded her senses until Nolan’s heartbeat rose above all the others, powerful and impossibly tempting.
Daisy staggered and gripped the staff for balance. Her vision sharpened, colors thinning while the veins beneath Nolan’s skin became terrifyingly clear. This was not the shift she had prayed for. No wolf greeted her from within.
The sound of blood moving through the room became unbearable. Daisy could separate Mila’s frightened pulse from Elias’s controlled rhythm and hear the rapid beat of every trainee pressed against the walls. Hunger answered the chorus, cold and intimate, making her recoil from her own body.
Nolan dropped his staff and reached for her. “Look at me.” She obeyed, and alarm crossed his face. Her eyes had changed completely, darkened by a predatory hunger he had seen only in his enemies.
A murmur of fear spread among the trainees. Someone whispered the word vampire. Mila backed toward the doors, suddenly eager to put others between herself and Daisy.
That single word tore through Daisy’s memories of Nolan’s patrols and his warnings about enemies hiding beyond the perimeter. Vampires were the danger Blackwood had come to find. If the pack believed one stood among them now, Nolan’s promise of a mate bond might not protect her from their fearāor from his hatred.
“I’m notā” Daisy began, but pain ripped through her gums as sharp points pressed against her lower lip. Panic shattered the last of her control. An unseen force burst outward, throwing loose staffs from the rack and driving Nolan backward across the mat.
The gym tilted. Nolan caught Daisy before she struck the floor, holding her while the unnatural darkness receded from her eyes. She heard him call her name as consciousness slipped away, and the last thing she understood was that everyone had finally seen what she wasāeven though Daisy herself had no idea.