Chapter 44 The Chapel Meeting (Declan POV)
Someone off-camera called her name. She looked up, and when she saw whoever was filming, her face transformed. That smile… warm, conspiratorial, like we were sharing secrets the adults couldn't know… exactly the way I remembered it from before.
"Is it recording?" she asked. Her voice. Exactly her voice, maybe slightly deeper but unmistakably hers. "Good. Declan… " she looked directly at the camera, directly at me, " …if you're watching this, it means Julian found you. It means he trusted you with the truth. I'm sorry I couldn't contact you myself. Couldn't let you know I survived. But Garrett would have tracked any communication back to me. Would have finished what he started seventeen years ago."
She set down her book. Leaned closer to the camera.
"I'm safe. I've been in hiding since the execution… they botched it, emergency protocols I'd learned from James let me fake the death markers long enough to escape. Got me to this safe house. People who owed James favors before the Alphas had him killed have been protecting me ever since."
Her expression grew serious.
"I know you've been living with Garrett. I know what that must have been like, being raised by the man who ordered my death. I'm sorry I left you there. Sorry I couldn't take you with me. But leaving meant you stayed alive. Staying meant we both died. I chose your survival over my conscience."
She paused. When she spoke again, her voice was thick with emotion.
"Julian tells That you stood up in the Eclipse Chamber and exposed Project Chimera publicly. That you chose truth over pack loyalty. I'm so proud of you, little brother. That's the kind of courage I tried to teach you when we were young. Never stop asking questions. Never accept easy answers. Never let them make you complicit."
She glanced off-camera, at whoever was filming. Julian, I realized. This was recent… the mention of the Eclipse Chamber. This video was made after everything started unraveling.
"Be careful," Elena continued. "Garrett won't forgive what you've done. Breaking the heir bond is one thing. Exposing the conspiracy publicly is another. That kind of defiance comes with consequences. Don't trust him. Don't trust any of the three Alphas. They've already proven they'll kill to protect their secrets."
She reached forward. The video cut to black.
I stared at the blank screen for a long moment before I could speak.
"When?" My voice came out hoarse. "When was this recorded?"
"Three days ago." Julian pocketed his phone. "Right after the Eclipse Chamber trial. I told her what you did. How you defended Rowan. How you presented the evidence. She wanted you to know she's alive. That she's safe. That she's been waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"For the chance to come back." Julian moved closer. We were maybe ten feet apart now. "For seventeen years she's been in hiding. Watching from a distance. Hoping that eventually it would be safe to reunite with her children. With you. But nothing changed. Garrett kept his power. Project Chimera kept running. More kids got suppressed and erased. She was waiting for someone to expose it from the inside. To break the system open so completely that the Alphas couldn't bury it again."
"So you decided to be that someone."
"Someone had to." Julian's hands clenched into fists. "Do you know what it's like? Being packless? Having your wolf locked away for years, then finally breaking free but having no one to connect to? No pack bonds. No hierarchy. No family to claim you. It's isolation so complete you can't even describe it to people who've never experienced it."
He started pacing, agitated energy making stillness impossible.
"I spent ten years finding the other suppressed students. Tracking them down across the country. Showing them the evidence. Explaining what had been done to them. And do you know what I found?"
"Tell me."
"Broken people." Julian's voice went raw. "Kids who'd been lied to their entire lives. Who thought they were defective or wrong or damaged when really they'd just been chemically suppressed. Hannah Kimura tried to kill herself at nineteen because she couldn't understand why she felt so incomplete. Thomas Chen died at twenty-one from an overdose… never knew he was pack, never knew why he couldn't connect with anyone. Jennifer Reyes died in foster care, labeled 'disturbed,' when her real disturbance was her wolf trying to break through years of forced suppression."
He stopped pacing. Faced me directly.
"They stole our childhoods," Julian said. "Mine. Rowan's. The fourteen original subjects. The dozens more that probably exist in pack territories across the continent. They took our wolves. Our families. Our choices. They experimented on us like we were lab rats and then discarded us when we were no longer useful. And they did it with full Alpha approval. Systematic. Clinical. Monstrous."
"I know," I said quietly. "I've read the files. Seen the evidence. I'm not defending what they did."
"Then help me stop it." Julian moved even closer. Five feet between us now. "Tomorrow. The Concordance ceremony. All three Alphas assembled. Hundreds of witnesses. Cameras broadcasting to pack territories across the continent. That's when we force them to face what they've done. That's when we give everyone their wolves back."
"Wait." I moved to block the doorway before Julian could disappear completely. "You can't seriously think forcing seven people to shift in front of hundreds of witnesses is justice. It's chaos. People will panic. Security will open fire. Innocent wolves will get caught in the crossfire."
Julian turned back, that unsettling golden gaze fixed on me. "Chaos is the point. The pack system only maintains order through suppression and lies. Controlled chaos forces truth into the open where it can't be buried."
"Truth built on corpses isn't truth. It's just more trauma." I stepped closer. "The seven suppressed students who agreed to this—they don't deserve to die for your revolution. They deserve actual choices. Real futures. Not martyrdom."
"They have real choices." Julian's voice went cold. "More than the Alphas ever gave them. I showed them the evidence. Explained the risks. Told them exactly what might happen. They chose freedom over safety. That's their right."
"It's manipulation," I shot back. "You're exploiting traumatized people, using their pain as ammunition against a system that already hurt them. How is that better than what the Alphas did?"
"Because I'm not lying to them." Julian's hands clenched into fists. "I'm not drugging them without consent. I'm not erasing their memories or hiding their wolves or pretending it's for their own good. I'm giving them truth and letting them decide. That's the difference."