Claimed by the Alpha I Hate – Episode 19
Daisy woke to unfamiliar sheets and the steady rhythm of someone breathing beside her. Her body felt heavy, and the memory of the gym returned in violent fragments: Nolan’s staff, dozens of heartbeats, pain in her mouth, and terror on every face.
She opened her eyes. Nolan sat beside the bed, elbows resting on his knees, watching her with an exhaustion that suggested he had not moved for hours. Relief crossed his features when she stirred.
Daisy recoiled against the pillows. “What are you doing here?” Fear roughened her voice. He was still the Alpha she distrusted, and now he had seen a secret she had never known she possessed.
“Making sure you wake up.” Nolan did not reach for her, though the mate bond pulled tight with her alarm. “You’re in a secured room near the training hall. No one is going to hurt you.”
“What happened to me?” Daisy touched her mouth. Her teeth felt normal, but she remembered sharp points pressing against her lip. The recollection made nausea twist through her.
Nolan answered with a question. “How long have you known about your abilities?” His tone was controlled, yet she heard the suspicion beneath it. Blackwood’s fear of vampires had shaped every patrol and curfew since the takeover.
“Abilities? I don’t have abilities. I don’t even have a wolf.” The familiar statement sounded absurd after what the gym had witnessed. Daisy looked toward the door, wondering whether guards waited outside.
“Your eyes changed. You grew fangs, and you threw me several yards without touching me.” Nolan listed only what he had observed. He did not call her a vampire, because the mate bond and her upbringing complicated that conclusion.
The account sounded like a nightmare assembled from every childhood insult. Daisy had always been told she was not wolf enough; now the pack could decide she was something worse. She searched Nolan’s face for revulsion and found vigilance instead, which was somehow more difficult to understand.
Daisy shook her head. “I didn’t know.” She remembered her sharpened senses at home and her grandfather’s frightened whisper. “Something felt wrong last night, but I thought my wolf might finally be coming.”
Nolan studied her face for deception and found only terror. Whatever blood ran through Daisy, she had not entered his territory as an agent of the vampires. She was as unprepared for the awakening as everyone else.
“Did your mother ever tell you who your father was?” he asked. The question struck an old wound. Eastwind had used Daisy’s missing father to shame her since childhood.
Vera had answered childhood questions with silence, then anger, then assurances that Daisy needed no one else. Daisy once believed her mother was protecting her from a shameful abandonment. Now she wondered whether every refusal had been protection from something far more dangerous.
“No. Mom refused to talk about him.” Daisy’s thoughts turned to Vera’s death and the information forever lost with her. “Do you think he was a vampire?” Saying it aloud made the room feel colder.
Nolan did not offer certainty he lacked. “I think we need answers before someone decides what you are for us.” Outside the room, pack members were already demanding that the Alpha contain the threat.
“And what have you decided?” Daisy asked. “Are you going to lock me up?” She tried to rise, but dizziness forced her back against the mattress.
The movement brought Nolan halfway out of his chair before he stopped himself. Touching her without permission would confirm every fear she had about his control. He remained close enough to catch her if she fell, visibly restraining the instinct to gather her into his arms.
Nolan steadied the water on the bedside table rather than touching her. “If I wanted you imprisoned, you would have woken in a cell.” His expression hardened. “You’re my mate, and until we understand this, you’re under my protection.”
The claim should have reassured her. Instead, Daisy remembered Scott deciding what their bond was worth and Nolan concealing his identity. “Protection isn’t the same as trust.”
“No,” Nolan agreed. “But it may keep you alive long enough for us to earn the rest.” His answer left her with no easy enemy to fight. He was the feared Alpha who had invaded Eastwind, yet he had stood between Daisy and wolves who might have attacked her while she lay unconscious.
Daisy accepted the water at last. Her hand shook against the glass, and Nolan pretended not to notice. The small mercy mattered more than either acknowledged: he allowed her dignity, while she accepted something from him without treating it as a chain.
A commotion sounded outside, followed by demands that the vampire be removed from pack territory. Nolan rose and faced the door. Keeping Daisy in a public medical room was no longer safe. By the time he looked back at her, he had made a decision that would place her closer to him than either of them was ready to accept.