Escaping the Alpha, Claimed in the End novel Chapter 33

Chapter 33

Chapter 33

Ryder’s POV

Two months without her turned me into a machine. I woke before dawn, signed off patrol routes, checked border cameris trained the recruits, sat through reports, then stared at walls until the hours ran out. I ate when Kara shoved food insonn hand. I slept if sleep ambushed me. I spoke only when I had to

None of it touched the void.

Samantha was the only one who broke the loop.

“Again?” she asked the first night I knocked on the old prayer room door,

“Yes.” My voice sounded flat even to me.

She lit resin in a shallow dish, the smoke curling up in thin trails. “Sit down. Just breathe. Don’t fight it-t it take you

I dropped to the mat, palms on my knees. The floor was cool, the room dark except for the small flame and the moo outside the high window. Samantha’s chant was faint and even, a sound you felt in your bones more than heard. The air shifted. The weight in my chest loosened just enough to let something pass through.

Then I saw her.

Not real. Not solid. But Amelia, all the same-standing in the clearing behind the west hedge, moonlight on her hair. lifted like she was listening to a song I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t smell spring on her skin. But she there, and the ache dulled like someone had pressed a cool hand to a burn.

The vision held for a handful of breaths, then thinned and slipped away.

“Again,” I said when the room returned.

“Tomorrow,” Samantha answered. “Your mind needs rest.”

I walked out anyway feeling less like I was drowning.

After that, the prayer room became my second office. I did what the pack needed in the daylight.

When the halls emptied, I found Samantha. She warned me to pace it. I ignored her more than I listened.

Lucas started watching me too closely. He covered for me in meetings, nudged water toward my hard, cursed under has breath when I pushed a session past midnight and showed up hollow-eyed at drills.

“You can’t live on smoke and memory,” he muttered one afternoon in the war room, shoving a plate of food across the “Eat”

“I’m fine.”

“Eat,” he said again, this time using my name. “Ryder.”

I took a bite to shut him up. It tasted like nothing.

Kara took a softer approach. She left soup outside the prayer room some nights with a folded note: She’d make you knih this. A small heart drew itself at the corner. I wasn’t the type to smile at paper, but my mouth reached anyway.

The elders pretended not to notice, which meant they noticed everything Harbin made a sick comment about

9:05am p p pp

Chapter 33.

and Miriam stepped on his foot under the table. I didn’t rise to n. i didn’t have the energy

It kept me moving until it didn’t.

The headache hit on a Thursday, a sharp band behind my eyes that tightened every time I breathed. By evening, my lo felt too hot. I walked into the prayer room and Samantha’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re feverish”

“I’m herr for the ritual. Start.”

She didn’t move. “Alpha, this magic drags the spirit. Your body needs to keep up. Not tonight”

“Start” I repeated, harder.

Her mouth thinned. “Then listen. Go too deep like this, you risk spirit-burn. Wolves don’t get the flu, but we do break in places you can’t see. A few minutes. No more.”

1 sat. She lit the resin. The chant buzzed. The air thinned around me again, a quick tug behind my ribs. The world slud

There she was.

Not in any specific place this time. Just light on a face I knew better than my own. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t catch the words. I reached out. The vision wavered. I reached harder. Heat punched through my skull like a spike.

The floor tilted.

“Enough,” Samantha snapped, grabbing my shoulder. The room snapped back in with a violent lurch. I was sweating through my shirt like I’d run a mountain.

“Again,” I said, breath rough.

“No,” she said. “You’re done.”

I pushed to my feet. The motion set the room spinning. Samantha caught my elbow and didn’t pretend she wasn’t holding most of my weight.

“You pride yourself on control,” she said. “Use it. Or you’ll crawl in here tomorrow.”

I pulled free and walked out, not trusting my own legs to hold me.

By morning, the fever settled behind my eyes and under my skin. My bones ached like a storm was rolling through them. Wolves don’t get sick, I told myself while I signed a supply order.

Wolves don’t shake, I told myself while my hand trembled around a pen. Wolves don’t fold, I told myself while the letters of the page swam and refused to line up.

“Ryder,” Lucas said from the doorway, not bothering with knock or title. “You look like hell.”

“Useful feedback,” I said, not looking up.

He walked closer and set a palm to my forehead before I could move. “You’re burning.”

“Get your hand off me.”

“Then go to the medic wing

2/4

9:05 am P P P P

Chapter 33

have drills

“I’ll run them.”

I finally lifted my eyes. “I said have drills.”

Lucas stared me down. “And I said I’ll run them. Go lie down. If you collapse on the yard. I’m dragging you through the halls by your ankles.”

A tired laugh scraped my throat. “You could try.”

“Don’t make me,” he said, softer now. “Please.”

He rarely said that word to me. I stood, not because I agreed, but because the chair felt like it was moving and I didn’t want him to see it.

On the way out, Kara intercepted me with a blanket and a glare. “Bed. Now.”

“Bossy,” I said.

“Says the man who ignores med orders,” she shot back. “Sleep, Alpha. Or I’ll dose you.”

I made it to my quarters and lay down fully dressed. Heat rolled through me. The ceiling blurred at the edges. Kieran paced once at the back of my mind and went quiet, not sulking this time, just watching with the restless worry of a caged animal.

I woke sometime after dark with sweat cold on my skin and a weight in my chest that wouldn’t shift. My mouth was dry. My heart beat too fast. I sat up and the room tilted, then slowly settled again. The balcony door stood open a crack. Wind moved the curtain. Night pressed against the glass.

I didn’t want a healer. I wanted the only thing that had numbed this ache for even a minute.

The prayer room was empty when I walked in. Samantha was/off duty. Good. I didn’t want her warning voice in my ear. I lit the resin myself, mangled the chant under my breath, and dropped to the mat.

“Come on,” I muttered. “Show me something.”

Smoke coiled. A faint pull caught under my sternum. The edges of the room thinned. Heat pulsed behind my eyes.

“Amelia,” I said into the hush. “Baby. Come here.”

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