Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 201

Richard

I brought her breakfast myself. She was curled against the headboard when I entered, her hair tangled and the tray on the nightstand untouched. She didn’t startle, just lifted her eyes to mine with a quiet, watchful look that hadn’t quite softened since she came back.

I set the tray down, something still warm on it, and crossed the room without speaking, though the silence between us was thick with what hadn’t been said yet.

“Hey,” I said quietly, settling on the edge of the bed.

She blinked slowly. “Is it already morning?”

I nodded. “You slept through most of the night. That’s a good thing.”

“I don’t feel rested,” she murmured. “I feel like | lost time again.”

“You didn’t,” I said, brushing the hair back from her face with care, holding her gaze until she blinked again.” You’ve been grounded the whole time. You’re here. And I’m here.”

She didn’t answer right away. Her fingers clutched the blanket loosely, and her breathing stayed shallow. “You have to go soon.”

“Yes.””To the Council meeting.”

“Yes,” I said again, this time with more certainty. “But I’m not letting them touch you. I’m not letting them make a decision about you without a fight, and they’ll know that before the meeting even begins.”

She looked up at me finally, her voice barely steady. ”

What if they already decided?”

I shook my head. “We’re unsure if they even know anything. And if they do know, they’ll have to learn how much it costs to cross me.”

“Richard,” she said, barely above a whisper, “what if this happens again? What if it wasn’t a one-time thing, what if

“I can’t fight it next time, even if want to?”

I leaned in and cupped her jaw gently. “You’re the best fighter I know, and I can’t remember the last time you lost a fight that mattered. You could take on anything. If it happens again, we’ll handle it, but I believe in you more than I’ve ever believed in anyone.”

Her lip trembled, but she didn’t cry. Instead, she leaned her forehead into my palm and exhaled. I stroked her hair once, then again, like I had in the infirmary, and she closed her eyes.

“I hate that you’re walking into that room without knowing if they’re coming for you too,” she said.

“I’m not walking into that room blind,” I told her. “I knowexactly what they’re afraid of, and I’m not going to let them define you by it, not when they never saw the full picture.”

I stayed with her another minute, until she nodded faintly and touched her hand to mine.

“Eat,” I said gently. “I’ll be back soon.”

Then I left.

They weren’t planning a rebellion or issuing a decree.

They were tightening the pressure so slowly it would look like policy, orchestrating something that could later be passed off as procedure rather than attack.

That was how the Council worked when they wanted someone gone, measured voices, polite phrasing, and a rehearsed show of unity to mask the intent to isolate and sacrifice whoever stood in the way.

I didn’t sit because they expected me to. I didn’t sit because that room had stopped being a meeting chamber the moment I walked in. It had become a performance space for a manufactured consensus, and I wasn’t going to let them choreograph my collapse.

The session dragged on, each word dressed up as procedure to hide what it really was. Elder Margrave began predictably. updated by jobnib.com”We need full transparency,” he said, bracing himself like a man expecting applause. “Her relapse wasn’t just an internal incident, it was a systemic breach, and we’ve reviewed internal logs confirming theextent of the episode. There were biometric fluctuations, language disassociation, and identity confusion sustained over a full week. This data was put into the system by your own physician team.”

That silence was broken by something sharper.

A bell tone.

I didn’t hesitate. I left the chamber mid-sentence. The hallway outside had gone still and too quiet.

Three staffers were frozen. One had tears running silently down her cheeks, her eyes wide and unfocused. Anothertrembled so hard I thought his knees might buckle. The third stared ahead blankly, his whole body locked. I knew ail three of them. One had brought Amelia a blanket just last week.

I held back. Every instinct screamed to act-to reach for them, to break the spell, to shout their names, but I didn’t move. I waited. The tone faded, slow and strange like it was draining out of the walls. Their eyes flickered. Their bodies returned.

One collapsed, and a guard caught her.

My heart was hammering. Not from what I’d seen, from the fear that Amelia had felt it upstairs, that she was alone when it happened, and that I wasn’t there to stop it.

Back inside, I didn’t sit. I stood in the doorway, still trying to slow my pulse and swallow the taste of fear in my mouth.

“This is already here,” I said. “This is the weapon, not Amelia, not hybrids. It’s the sound, the system it rides in on, and it’s spreading faster than anyone here is willing to admit.”

Shira’s voice was faint. “How do we stop it?”

“We start by not dismantling the only person who’s survived it,” Nathan said.

“She isn’t your shield or your excuse, and she isn’t going to make this easier to explain to the public just becauseyou’re all afraid to admit how deep this goes,” I added.

She’s a person. Start acting like it.”