Chapter 245: Chapter 0245

•ALPHA BENEDICT•

\[TWENTY YEARS AGO\]

The letter sat on my desk for three days before I could bring myself to open it a second time.

I already knew what it said. I had read it once in the study and once again standing in the hallway, my hands shaking so badly that Anna had asked if something was wrong. I told her it was nothing. I lied to my own wife because I didn't know how to say the truth out loud.

Someone out there knew what I was.

I sat down at my desk and opened the drawer, pulling the letter out again anyway, as if reading it a third time would change a single word written on the page.

Letter: "We know about your bloodline, Alpha Benedict. We know what runs through your veins and what would happen to your title, your pack, and your family if this information reached the wrong ears. Werewolves do not take kindly to lycans hiding among them. You understand this better than anyone.

There is a boy currently under the protection of Crystal Valley. Dante Larke, six years old, son of the lycan bloodline we've hunted for generations. Bring us proof of his death, and your secret dies with him. Refuse, and we will make sure every pack in this territory knows exactly what their Alpha truly is."

I set the letter down and pressed my palms against my eyes.

A child. They wanted me to kill a child.

I had built this pack with my bare hands. I had earned every ounce of respect my people gave me, and none of it would matter the moment they learned the truth. Werewolves didn't forgive lycan blood. They saw it as corruption, as something unnatural sitting inside a body that had no right to lead them.

I thought about Cassandra, barely five years old, asleep down the hall, and Damon, my boy. If this got out, it wouldn't just cost me my title. It would follow my children for the rest of their lives.

I told myself I wouldn't do it. I told myself there had to be another way.

The second letter arrived two weeks later.

Letter: "Your daughter has your wife's eyes, doesn't she? We've seen her playing in the courtyard. It would be a shame if something happened to a child so young, wouldn't it? You have until the end of the month, Alpha Benedict."

I read that letter standing in the courtyard where Cassandra had been playing that same morning, and something inside me went cold and quiet in a way I didn't recognize. I folded the letter and put it in my pocket, and by the time I walked back inside, I had already made my decision.

I gathered my most trusted warriors that night.

"We march on Crystal Valley," I told them. "Quietly. No pack alliances, no formal declarations. This stays between us."

"What are we hunting, Alpha?" my Beta asked.

I looked at him for a long moment. "A boy," I answered. "Six years old. Son of the Larke bloodline."

He didn't ask why. None of them did. They trusted me enough not to question orders, and that trust sat heavy in my chest the entire ride to Crystal Valley territory.

We reached the outer edge of the pack lands just before dawn. I gave the order, and my warriors moved through the treeline, torches lit, ready to burn a path through anything that stood between us and finding the boy.

Crystal Valley didn't stand a chance against us. We were larger, better trained, and we came without warning. Buildings caught fire fast in the dry autumn air, and the pack scattered in every direction, warriors and civilians alike running from a threat they hadn't seen coming.

I searched through the chaos myself, moving from building to building, calling out for any sign of the boy. Every child I found who wasn't him made my stomach turn tighter. I wasn't there to hurt children. I was there for one child specifically, and the longer it took, the more people got caught in the fire meant only as cover.

I finally found him hiding behind a collapsed woodpile near the edge of the property, small and terrified, clutching a torn piece of blanket in his fists.

He looked up at me with wide eyes, too frightened to run, too frightened to do anything but stare.

I crouched down in front of him.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I told him, though I doubted he believed me with the fire still burning behind us.

He didn't answer. He just held onto that blanket like it was the only thing keeping him steady.

I looked at him for a long time, this small boy who had done nothing except be born into a bloodline that terrified everyone who heard its name, and I thought about my own children asleep at home, safe because of choices I hadn't wanted to make.

I couldn't kill him.

I made the decision right there, kneeling in front of him with the pack burning around us. I would fake his death instead. I would hide him somewhere far enough away that no one would never think to look, and I would tell them it was done.

But before I could take the boy, their warriors came and fought us. They took the boy, and by the time we were exhausted and heading home, I realized that I hadn't done what I was instructed to do.

If something happened to my children, I would have no one to blame but myself. It terrified me that someone was already watching them and making threats.

But I would die before I let something happen to them.