Claimed by the Alpha I Hate – Episode 44
Blackwood intercepted the messenger before dawn. The vampire escaped, but the stolen box remained behind in the mud.
Daisy carried it into Nolan’s office herself. Vera’s initials were carved beneath the lid, worn smooth by years of touch.
The lock opened to Daisy’s blood. A single red drop released the mechanism before Nolan could warn her.
Inside lay letters, a silver pendant, and a journal wrapped in oilcloth. Vera had prepared the box for the day her daughter learned the truth.
Daisy opened the journal with shaking hands. The first pages described meeting Klaudius while negotiating peace near Eastwind’s border.
He had appeared charming, powerful, and fascinated by the possibility of a child born from both races. Vera realized too late that affection was never his only motive.
Klaudius believed a hybrid could restore abilities vampires had lost as their numbers declined. He intended to raise the child as the instrument of a new reign.
Vera fled before Daisy’s birth. She used the pendant to conceal the child’s vampire nature, hoping wolf blood would dominate.
“This is why I never shifted,” Daisy said. The pendant had protected her, but it also suppressed the balance her body needed to understand itself.
Nolan read only the pages Daisy offered. He refused to turn Vera’s private words into another investigation file.
A later entry described threats from Klaudius’s agents and Vera’s fear that someone inside Eastwind was passing information to them.
The final page ended days before the Blackwood invasion. Vera planned to move the box and leave Eastwind once Daisy returned.
She had been waiting to reconcile. The realization broke Daisy’s remaining control.
Nolan held her while she cried, not offering explanations that could not change the past. His presence gave grief somewhere safe to exist.
When Daisy could speak again, she asked whether the pendant might remove Lucien’s seal. The journal suggested it regulated power rather than destroying it.
She fastened it around her neck. Warmth spread across her chest, and the locked place inside her opened without hunger.
Her eyes changed, but Daisy remained herself. Red light formed around her hand and settled at her command.
Nolan saw the first true balance between her two bloodlines. Klaudius had wanted a weapon; Vera had preserved a daughter capable of choosing what her power became.
Daisy closed the journal. “My mother died protecting me from him.” Sorrow hardened into purpose.
She looked toward the map of vampire territory. “Now we find out who helped him reach her.”