My Alpha Boss Gave Me Triplets – Episode 38
The monitor alarm struck before Evie felt pain. Three heart rates accelerated, then vanished from the display as if every sensor had failed simultaneously. Doctor Lara checked the leads and found them secure. The failure was not electrical; something had cut the signal between the device and the children.
Leopold reached for Evie and stopped. Through the bond he felt nothing—no fear, no heartbeat, not even the empty ache distance usually created. The silence was more terrifying than pain.
“Tell me what you feel,” he said.
“Pressure, but no contractions.” Evie placed his hand where the strongest triplet usually moved. “They are still there. Believe me.”
He did. Without the bond confirming a word, Leopold ordered Lara to treat Evie’s report as fact. The promise he made after discovering the severing seal faced its first test, and he did not hesitate.
Lara used a portable ultrasound unaffected by the magical interference. Three heartbeats appeared on the screen, fast but steady. Relief shook Leopold so visibly that Evie covered his hand with hers.
Max reported black smoke spreading through Evie’s room. The housekeeper had been evacuated, and human firefighters found no heat or ordinary combustion. The smoke followed the walls toward the library where the temporary ward had been created.
The elder identified the phenomenon as a shadow path. The shard had absorbed fear from every attack, then released it through the house to contaminate the Stonehearth seal. Every moment Evie doubted Leopold and every moment he feared losing the heirs had fed it without their knowledge. If the shadow reached the archive, temporary wards would no longer protect the bond. Worse, any new ward created with the corrupted seal might carry Darleen’s influence directly into them.
Leopold wanted Evie moved to another property. She refused to run before they understood whether the shadow would follow her. The severing magic targeted the bond, not the building. Distance could leave them isolated when silence already separated their senses.
They returned to the estate with Lara between them and human officers leading the route. Wolves remained outside the affected wing because the smoke amplified aggression. Human firefighters wore sealed masks and marked a path with physical guide ropes in case the shadow distorted sight. Darleen had designed another defense that turned instinct against anyone relying on it, but the mansion also housed people who could act without wolf senses. The weakness she despised became the operation’s greatest protection.
In the archive, the black veins had reached the Stonehearth seal. Evie opened the ledger while Leopold guarded the door. A note hidden beneath the ward instructions described the shadow’s weakness: it grew from unspoken fear and weakened when both bonded partners named what they had withheld.
The ritual seemed absurd beside smoke and armed guards, but the curse had always punished choices concealed behind power. Evie placed one hand on the seal. “I am afraid that if the bond disappears, you will stop choosing me.”
The nearest black vein retreated a fraction.
Leopold placed his hand beside hers. “I am afraid you will never believe any choice I make is free of the curse.” More smoke withdrew, revealing the silver edge of the seal.
Evie admitted she wanted him near her even when his protection angered her. She confessed that part of her still measured every kindness against the morning he ordered her never to speak to him again. Leopold admitted he had called their relationship transactional because wanting a human mate made him vulnerable to his pack’s judgment, and because desire felt less dangerous when disguised as obligation. He acknowledged that his shame had become hers to carry. Each truth removed a path the shadow could use.
The silence between their minds broke. Evie felt Leopold’s fear return first, followed by three bright pulses answering from within her. The restored bond carried no command, only recognition freely renewed between them after the truth.
The shadow collapsed toward the shard in Evie’s room. Lara sealed it inside a container lined with salt and Stonehearth silver. The black mark remained, but it no longer reached beyond the glass. She warned that containment was not destruction. If Darleen possessed another object tied to Leopold, she could rebuild the path elsewhere, so every personal item removed from the mansion or office had to be accounted for.
Max arrived with news from the captured brother. Under formal questioning, he remembered the intermediary using the name “Cristin” during one call. Company records identified Cristin as the missing medical-office assistant.
Cristin’s apartment had been emptied, but investigators found Blackhart payments and copies of Evie’s appointments. The payments began before Evie’s pregnancy, suggesting Darleen had recruited her to watch Leopold’s medical records first. One calendar entry marked a prenatal examination two days later at an outside imaging clinic.
Evie had never scheduled that appointment. Someone had created it using her medical credentials and notified her family. The false booking included transportation instructions from Stonehearth’s own office.
As Max canceled the appointment, Doctor Lara received confirmation from the clinic. A woman claiming to be Evie had already arrived, signed consent forms, and entered an examination room with Darleen Blackhart.
The false patient was not meant to fool a doctor for long. She was there to create medical records showing that Evie and the triplets had voluntarily left Stonehearth protection.