Claimed by the Alpha I Hate – Episode 62
Daisy landed on the stone floor of Klaudius’s throne room. The shadow passage left her disoriented, but Vera’s pendant kept her power anchored.
Klaudius locked the doors with blood magic. “Nolan cannot reach you here.”
Daisy felt the bond stretching across the mountain. “He already has.”
Klaudius attacked her mind instead of her body. The throne room dissolved into an illusion of Eastwind before the invasion.
Vera stood in the courtyard, alive and smiling. Scott waited beside her as the loving mate he had pretended to be.
Klaudius offered Daisy the life she lost. Accept him, and the illusion could become permanent enough to bury every painful memory.
Daisy approached her mother’s image. For one heartbeat, she wanted the lie more than truth.
Then Vera called her weak. The real Vera had never used the pack’s cruelty against her.
Daisy touched the pendant. “You never knew her.”
The illusion cracked. She returned to the throne room with power blazing around her.
Klaudius looked pleased rather than disappointed. Resistance proved the strength he wanted to harvest.
He summoned the same crystal vessel used in the failed ritual. Fragments had been reforged around a darker core.
Daisy attacked first. Red-silver light struck Klaudius and forced him back toward the throne.
He redirected the energy into the vessel. Each blow she delivered fed the object.
Daisy stopped, realizing brute force strengthened his weapon. She needed Nolan’s strategy as much as her own power.
Through the bond, she showed him the locked doors and the crystal. Nolan sent back an image of tunnels beneath the throne.
Klaudius sensed their communication and tightened a magical collar around Daisy’s throat.
The bond dimmed but did not vanish. Nolan had become part of the balance inside her, not merely a voice from outside.
Daisy let Klaudius believe the collar succeeded. She lowered her hands and allowed him to approach.
Beneath the throne room, Nolan reached the foundation supporting the crystal altar and raised his claws.