Stealing the Alpha’s Heritage

Chapter 9

"They're gone! My babies are gone!" The scream tears from my throat as I claw through the destroyed pillow fort, searching for something, anything that proves this is a nightmare.

"Get the trackers!" Evander's voice cuts through the hallway like a whip crack. "Lock down everything! If a mouse farts on this territory, I want to know about it!"

Warriors flood the room within seconds, their boots thundering against hardwood. Elena rushes in behind them, medical bag forgotten as she takes in the scene—the open window, the torn fabric, my hands bleeding from gripping the Silverfang crest too tight.

"How did three guards miss this?" Evander grabs the nearest warrior by the throat. "Were they what—comparing dick sizes in the hallway?"

"Alpha, we had protocols—"

"Your protocols are worth less than the shit I stepped in this morning." His grip tightens until veins bulge in the warrior's neck. "Children were stolen from under your noses during a party with five hundred wolves present."

"Evander, choking him won't reverse time!" Elena pulls at his arm.

He releases the warrior, who collapses gasping. Evander turns to the others, his brown eyes burning with the kind of fury that makes grown wolves wet themselves.

"Every shadow, every corner, every hole a rat could crawl through—search it." His voice drops to something that makes my skin crawl. "If you find a Silverfang wolf, I want them breathing but wishing they weren't."

The warriors scatter. Only Elena remains, kneeling beside me as I rock back and forth on the floor, clutching the torn fabric.

"Aria, your hands look like you've been fighting glass." Elena's voice sounds underwater. "Let me at least stop the bleeding."

"He didn't just plan this—he choreographed it." The words come out fractured between sobs. "Every word downstairs was just theater while his people were up here stealing pieces of my soul."

"We'll get them back," Elena says, but her voice cracks like cheap plastic under pressure.

My phone buzzes. The sound slices through my hysteria. Unknown number. My hands shake so violently I nearly drop it.

"Don't," Evander warns, reaching for the device. "It could be—"

But I'm already swiping to open the message. The words blur through my tears before snapping into cruel focus.

Your pups are enjoying their first lesson about loyalty. Amazing how quickly children learn who their real father is when properly motivated.

"It's him." The phone slips from my numb fingers. Evander catches it before it hits the floor. His face hardens to granite as he reads.

Another buzz. This time it's a photo that loads in slow, torturous pixels. My babies stare back from the screen. They're in the back of what looks like a black SUV.

"They're still in the vehicle," Evander observes, zooming in on details I can't process through my panic. "Look at the reflection in the window. That's the Riverside gas station, maybe twenty minutes from here."

"Then we can catch them!" I lunge for the door, but Evander blocks my path.

"They're already gone, Aria." His voice carries the weight of battlefield calculations. "He's showing us exactly what he wants us to see."

My phone buzzes again. Another message materializes on the screen.

Every hour you spend in another Alpha's bed is an hour they spend learning what abandonment feels like. I've already told them how you chose comfort over family. Children are so impressionable at this age.

"Monster," Elena breathes, reading over my shoulder.

"He's trying to break me." My voice sounds foreign, hollow. "Using them to—"

I don't wait for another photo.

"You have soldiers," I turn on Evander, desperation making me vicious. "Weapons. Allies who owe you favors."

"I have sixty-eight warriors against his three hundred." His laugh could strip paint. "Should I gift-wrap them for the slaughter?"

"You promised protection!"

"I promised sanctuary within my borders." Each word lands precisely, deliberately. "Your children were extracted because you've spent three years treating me like a hotel with benefits."

"You're seriously negotiating right now? While looking at that picture?"

"Accept my mark." The words hang in the air like a guillotine blade. "One bite, Aria. Then legally, politically, those become my cubs to retrieve."

"You're auctioning your army while my three-year-olds are being indoctrinated?"

"I'm establishing terms." He moves closer, and suddenly the room feels airless. "Three years I've played pretend daddy. Three years of bedtime stories and scraped knees and teaching them to fish. You think I don't want them back?"

"I think you want me more than you want them safe."

"Maybe I want both." His hand reaches for my face but I jerk back hard enough to hit the wall. "Is that so unforgivable? Wanting the woman I've protected to finally stop treating me like I'm made of poison?"

"This isn't protection—it's extortion with extra steps."

"It's reality." He turns away, shoulders rigid as rebar. "You want an army? There's a price. You want to play the tragic widow forever? That's free."

"They're three years old, Evander! They still believe in monsters under the bed!"

"Well now the monster has them in it." He strides toward the door, each step deliberate as a funeral march. "When you decide what they're worth to you, I'll be in my office calculating casualty projections."

"You're really walking away? Look at Finn's face in that photo!"

He pauses at the threshold without turning. "I've been looking at those boys' faces for three years, wondering when their real father would come knocking. Now I know. And you're still treating me like the enemy."

"Evander, if you leave this room—"

"What? You'll reject me too?" His laugh is all broken glass. "Get in line behind my father, my first mate who died calling another man's name, and now you—who can't even pretend to need me unless your world is literally ending."

He's gone before I can respond, his footsteps echoing like a countdown.

Elena hovers in the doorway, her face a map of conflicts she doesn't want to voice.

"He's bluffing," she says finally. "His pride is bleeding out and he's saying things he can't take back."

"No, he's been waiting three years to say exactly that." I sink onto what's left of the bed, Finn's stuffed wolf pressed against my chest. "Every kindness was an investment. Every bedtime story was building credit."

"You can't actually believe—"

"What I believe is that my sons are learning to hate me right now!" The phone burns in my hand as I stare at their faces. "Thorne's probably telling them I abandoned them for better prospects, and the worst part? Some piece of it is true."

Elena sits beside me, her hand finding my shoulder. "There has to be another option. Someone else who could help."

But staring at that photo—at Kael trying to look brave and Finn who's already given up—I know there isn't. Every second I waste deciding is another second Thorne has to rewrite their memories.