Claimed by the Alpha I Hate – Episode 57
The tunnel walls blurred around Daisy. Nolan carried her while Elias led the group toward the mountain exit.
Each beat of Nolan’s heart intensified her hunger. She asked him to put her down before she lost control again.
“You won’t,” he said, though confidence could not erase the blood soaking through his reopened wound.
Daisy forced herself to walk. Distance from his pulse helped, but power continued escaping in red flashes.
Her grandfather explained that Vera’s pendant had balanced what the childhood concealment spell kept divided. Without it, Daisy needed another anchor.
The mate bond could serve temporarily, but relying entirely on Nolan risked harming them both.
They reached the shrine entrance as vampires appeared behind them. Elias collapsed part of the tunnel, slowing pursuit.
Outside, Blackwood’s remaining team formed a protective circle. Dawn had begun turning the mountain sky gray.
Daisy felt sunlight differently now, painful but not deadly. Her wolf blood resisted what her vampire side feared.
Nolan wrapped his coat around her and guided her beneath the trees.
A messenger from Lucien waited beside the road. He carried an offer: the pendant in exchange for Klaudius’s throne.
“Lucien wants us to fight his war,” Nolan said.
Daisy read the message again. Lucien had never helped them without securing an advantage.
Her grandfather urged them to return to Eastwind before deciding. The pack needed warning that the vampire court had split.
Daisy agreed, but a new pain struck the bond. Nolan dropped to one knee.
Her unstable power was drawing strength from him without intention. The anchor keeping her alive was weakening her mate.
She tried to sever the current. Nolan caught her hand before she could damage the bond.
“We find another way,” he said. “Together.”
Daisy looked back at the castle. Klaudius wanted to drain her, and Lucien wanted to trade her survival for a crown.
For the first time, she considered creating a third choice: taking control of the vampire power neither man deserved.