CHAPTER 116: CHAPTER 116

Chapter 116

Kaeleen’s POV

The hallway outside our bedroom became my cage. The soft click of the door closing was the loudest sound I had ever heard, a final, definitive barrier between my world of physical power and the ethereal battle being waged for my mate’s soul. I was the Alpha of the Emerald Glade pack, a being of claws, teeth, and command, yet in this hushed, sterile corridor, I was nothing. Utterly, terrifyingly useless.

I began to pace. Three steps to the end of the runner, turn, three steps back. The motion was a desperate attempt to burn off the useless energy coiling in my muscles, the rage and fear that had nowhere to go. Each turn brought me back to face that closed door. From beneath it, I could smell the faint, alien scent of burning herbs and hear the low, melodic murmur of Leilani’s chanting. It was a language I didn’t understand, for a fight I couldn’t join, to save the woman who was the center of my universe.

Elara was outside with me, she was seated on a bench and I could see the worry in the woman’s eyes. Lila stood nearby, pale and trembling, her eyes fixed on me, waiting for an order I didn’t know how to give. They looked to their Alpha for strength, and all I felt was a hollow, echoing void.

My broken ribs throbbed with a dull, persistent ache, a physical reminder of a fight I had won. But that victory felt meaningless now. What was the point of defeating a dozen armed men only to be brought to my knees by a closed door?

The discrepancy, the lie, clawed at the edges of my mind, a problem my brain could latch onto in the sea of helplessness. Alex.

The story didn’t fit. It was a jagged, broken piece of a puzzle that refused to connect. Lila said Alex had called Astrid, claiming I was in the hospital. I knew for a fact that at that exact time, Alex was at the pack clinic, his mind consumed by the birth of his first child.

Two Alexes. Two phone calls. One truth, one lie.

I stopped pacing and faced Lila, my voice low and hard, stripped of all emotion. "Lila, I need you to do something for me. Go to Alex and Rebecca’s cottage. Don’t knock. Use the spare key. I need to know if they are there. If anyone is there. Look for any sign of a struggle, anything out of place. Do not be seen. Report back to me immediately."

Lila’s eyes widened, but she nodded without question. She understood the implication. This was no longer just about Astrid’s collapse; this was about a potential breach, a traitor in our midst. She turned and hurried away, her footsteps silent on the thick carpet.

With Lila gone, the silence in the hallway felt even heavier, broken only by Elara’s muffled grief and the ceaseless, low chanting from the other side of the door. My guilt was a physical weight, pressing down on me, making it hard to breathe. I had been so focused on the external threat, on Leon’s war, that I had become blind. Astrid had been wearing her exhaustion like a shroud, and I had called it strength. She had been drowning in silence, and I had mistaken it for peace. The memory of her standing barefoot and lost outside the wards, her eyes filled with a confusion that mirrored my own, would be seared into my soul forever.

Minutes stretched into an eternity. I pulled out my phone, my thumb hovering over Alex’s name. I pressed the call button. It rang, and rang, and went to voicemail. Of course it did. He was with Rebecca. I called my sister, Serena. Voicemail. She was likely at the clinic too, refusing to miss the birth of her nephew. The logical explanations did nothing to soothe the cold knot of dread tightening in my stomach.

Lila returned, her face even paler than before. "Alpha," she whispered, her eyes wide. "The cottage is empty. Completely empty. There’s no sign of a struggle. It just looks... like they left in a hurry. Rebecca’s overnight bag is gone from by the door."

The news was both a relief and a confirmation of the impossible. It aligned perfectly with the story Alex had told me, that they had rushed to the clinic. But it did nothing to explain the call Astrid had received.

My mind, the mind of an Alpha trained to see threats from every angle, was working furiously. There were only two possibilities. Either someone had impersonated Alex, or Alex himself was the traitor.

I had to be certain.

"Get me the number for the pack clinic," I commanded Lila.

She fumbled with her phone for a moment before reciting the number. I dialed, my heart pounding a heavy, brutal rhythm against my broken ribs. A nurse answered, her voice bright and cheerful.

"Emerald Glade Clinic, this is Nurse Anya speaking."

"Anya, this is Alpha Kaeleen."

Her tone shifted immediately, becoming respectful and alert. "Alpha! To what do we owe the honor? Are you alright? We heard about the lockdown."

"I’m fine," I said, my voice clipped. "I need information. Is my Beta, Alex, there with his mate, Rebecca?"

I could almost hear her smile through the phone. "Oh, yes, Alpha! They’ve been here for hours! He’s been pacing the floor just like you are now, I’d wager. Rebecca is a champion. We think it’ll be any time now. The whole clinic is buzzing with excitement!"

"What time did they arrive, Anya?" I asked, my voice dangerously calm.

"Hmm, let me see," she said. I heard the rustle of papers. "They checked in... just over two hours ago. A little after nine p.m."

The world tilted. Two hours ago. The exact time frame Lila had given for Astrid’s frantic departure from the house. The exact time Alex was supposedly on the phone with Astrid, telling her I was dying in a hospital downtown.

The phone call was a lie. But the number...

"Thank you, Anya. Keep me informed." I hung up before she could reply.

My blood ran cold. The cheerful confirmation from the nurse was more damning than any accusation. Alex was physically at the clinic. He could not have made that call. Yet...

"Lila," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "Astrid’s phone. Where is it?"

"I... I think she dropped it when she ran out of the house, Alpha. I can go look for it."

"Go."

She scurried away again, leaving me alone with the impossible, soul-crushing truth solidifying in my mind. The technology to spoof a phone number was not unheard of, but it required a level of sophistication, an intimate knowledge of our systems. It pointed to an enemy with deep resources and a terrifying level of access.

Lila returned, holding Astrid’s phone as if it were a venomous snake. She handed it to me. The screen was dark. I pressed the power button, my heart in my throat. It lit up. No password. Of course not.

My thumb, which felt clumsy and foreign, navigated to the call log. My eyes scanned the list. And there it was. The last incoming call.

The name displayed in stark white letters, Alex

The timestamp: 9:07 PM.

My breath hitched. I stared at the screen, willing it to change, to reveal a different number, a different name. But it remained, a piece of irrefutable, digital evidence. The call had come from my Beta’s phone.

The implications crashed down on me with the force of a physical blow.

Alex was like a brother to me. The wolf who had stood beside me since we were pups, who had fought at my back in a hundred battles, who knew my thoughts before I spoke them. If he could be turned, if he could be compromised, then we were already lost. A compromised Beta wasn’t just a traitor; he was a key to every lock, a map to every secret, a kill switch for the entire pack. He knew our patrols, our defenses, our weaknesses. He knew everything.

My mind rebelled. It couldn’t be him. It was a trick, a frame-up. Leon was playing games, trying to turn me against my own.

But the cold, hard logic of the Alpha pushed back. Assume the worst. Prepare for the worst. If there was even a one-percent chance that Alex was a traitor, I had to act as if it were a certainty. The safety of hundreds of my people, of my unconscious mate, depended on it.

A cold resolve settled over me, encasing my heart in ice. The grief, the guilt, the confusion, they were all still there, but they were now secondary to the mission. Protect the pack. Neutralize the threat.

I would let him have his moment. I would let him become a father. And then I would confront him. The thought of it, the image of facing my best friend as an enemy, was a unique and profound agony.

I turned to Lila, my face set like stone, my voice the flat, cold command of a general on the eve of a civil war. "Lila, go to..."

The door to my bedroom opened.

I spun around. Leilani stood in the doorway, her face etched with a deep, profound exhaustion. The air that flowed out of the room was heavy, smelling of ozone and strange, sweet flowers.

She looked directly at me, her dark eyes seeming to pierce through the new layer of ice I had built around my soul.

"Alpha," she said, her voice weary but clear. "It is time. I have done what I can for now. Come."