Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 188

Amelia

The broadcast hit before sunrise, static flickering across every public screen, bleeding into household feeds, station walls, and personal comms. It cut through scheduled programs and sleep cycles alike, commanding attention with the kind of presence only a well-planned revolution knows how to wield, and there he was, David.

His face filled the frames with theatrical precision, familiar and sharpened by purpose. He no longer resembled the disowned heir lurking in the palace shadows; he looked regal in that overly composed, military way, too crisp, too polished, every detail of his image sculpted to evoke reverence.

His hair had been combed back and frozen in place, his navy uniform spotless but severe, and behind him, a red banner hung against pale limestone: a blood-drop circled by wolf fangs, framed in gold, a new crest for a new dominion.

“I am Commander David of the New Blood Dominion,” he said, voice sharp and rehearsed. “I speak for those who have been silenced, for the wolves left behind by a corrupt king, and for the vampires reduced to poverty under a false peace. We are no longer subjects, and we are no Longer pawns, we are the future.”

It wasn’t the words that caught me. It was how he said them: calm and measured, as if this uprising wasn’t chaosbut inevitability. I felt the tremor of it, the way it burrowed beneath your skin, not with rage but with certainty.

He had spent years in the margins, quietly sowing unrest, and now he had returned not as a martyr but as a man who believed the kingdom should have always belonged to him.

“Richard is not your king,” he continued. “He is a tyrant who speaks of unity while hiding his crimes behind the hybrid he’s placed at his side, a wolf without a wolf and a vampire without a conscience. The Luna Queen is not a bridge; she is the warning. She is what happens when monsters are allowed to breed unchecked.”

I stood in the palace briefing room, every screen replaying his speech on a loop. David’s voice layered over itself like a chant, and I kept my arms folded across my chest because if I didn’t, I would’ve clenched my fists. I didn’t turn to anyone else, I didn’t need to. Their silence was louder than any reaction.

I could feel it in the tension winding through their shoulders and the subtle shifts in their breathing. They weren’t just disturbed by his accusations; they were disturbed by how easily his words could be swallowed.

He wasn’t simply igniting hatred, he was refining it into something elegant.

By the time the emergency council was called, the chamber felt more like a bunker. Some members arrivedstill adjusting half-buttoned shirts, while others came armored like they expected the palace walls to fall..

Richard steod at the head of the table, his posture exact and unreadable, arms folded and eyes scanning the room as if daring someone to say something that mattered.

General Harker struck first. “We hit back now. We target vampire quarter sympathizers, shut down blood caches, tighten the borders, and remind them who runs this kingdom.”

Another voice followed immediately. “Containment is our only option. Amelia’s… outreach has already weakened our posture. If we hesitate again, we lose everything.”

“No,” I said, the word catching on my tongue before I could Tully brace for it.

No one moved. I said it again, louder and with purpose. ” No.”

The room stilled. A few heads turned slowly, and Chausson leaned back in her chair with a deliberate slowness, her arms folded and her smirk blooming like she’d been waiting all morning to be entertained.

“We are not retaliating against civilians for being afraid,” | said, pressing both hands to the table as I stood. “They are hungry and cornered. If we march into their neighborhoods with rifles, we confirm everything David said about us, we make his story real.”One of the generals stabbed a finger toward me. “What about our soldiers? The ones bleeding in our streets?

Maybe you’d notice them if you weren’t so busy baking with bloodsuckers.”

“I’ve buried too many of our children to be lectured on grief,” I said, my voice low and steady. “I’m not asking you to forgive them. I’m asking you to remember that this kingdom still belongs to all of us, not just the ones who follow orders.”

The room fractured. Council members slipped into overlapping arguments about emergency powers, conscription, and public messaging. No one looked at me.

They were too busy planning how to declare war on their own.

No crest, no power, just a man left behind by the life he had once built.

His face didn’t burn with hatred. It drooped under the weight of something older. Something like grief.

He looked at me, and his mouth shook. “She begged.”

I woke with my hands clenched in the sheets, my chest tight, and my throat raw from air I couldn’t quite breathe.

The room felt thick and wrong, as if I’d brought the dream back with me.

I didn’t need to ask who he meant.

She was gone from the records now, her name erased and her death buried under the term threat neutralized. She’d been his mate, his partner, someone who stood beside him when this kingdom still looked like a future instead of a wound.

David hadn’t forgotten her. And now, he was making sure none of us ever could.

This was never about justice. It was about what happens when grief turns inward, when a wound festers without healing, and when a man builds a shrine to his pain and calls it revolution. David lost everything, and now he was dragging the kingdom into his mourning.

Even if we crushed the Dominion, reclaimed the borders, and silenced every channel he had, I didn’t know whatwe’d be standing on when it was over. I just knew the shape of us was already starting to change.