Chapter 174 Little Felix

Chapter 174 Little Felix

Felix

The call came at dawn, and I knew before I answered that something had ended. Marcus’s voice was heavy on the other end of the line, careful in the way it only became when he was delivering news that couldn’t be undone.

“Felix. Your father died an hour ago. The Council is assembling. They want you here by noon.”

I stood in the kitchen with the phone pressed to my ear and the morning light creeping across the floor, and I felt nothing. No grief, no relief, no anger. Only a hollow silence where my father had lived—a space that had been emptied long before this night and never filled.

Soren was still asleep in the bedroom, and I didn’t wake her, because I needed a moment alone with the weight of what was coming.

Donovan Dimitri was dead.

The man who had raised me, controlled me, tried to destroy the woman I loved. The man who had apologized from a hospital bed and maybe, for the first time in his life, meant it. He was gone, and I was Alpha now. Not in training, not waiting, not in name only. The full weight of the pack rested on my shoulders, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to carry it.



Soren woke an hour later, and I told her the news while she sat on the edge of the bed with her hand on her stomach and her eyes on my face. She didn’t say she was sorry, because she knew my relationship with my father was too complicated for simple condolences. She simply held my hand and let me feel whatever I needed to feel.

“What do you need?” she asked.

“I need you to come with me. To the Council House. For the ceremony.”

“You want me there when they make you Alpha?”

“I want you everywhere I go.”

She nodded and stood, wincing slightly as the baby shifted inside her. She was thirty-seven weeks now—heavy and tired and beautiful—and every time she moved I held my breath, because the baby could come any day.

“We should pack a bag,” she said. “Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“In case the baby decides to show up in the middle of your coronation.”

I almost laughed, but the sound stuck in my throat, because the thought of becoming a father and an Alpha on the same day was too much to hold in my chest.



The Council House was full when we arrived, packed with pack members who had come to witness the transfer of power. The elders sat in their usual places, but their faces were different—softer somehow, as if Donovan’s death had reminded them they weren’t immortal.

Morrison met us at the door and led us into a small room where I could prepare. He looked at Soren and then at me, and for the first time since we had known each other there was no judgment in his eyes.

“I’m sorry about your father,” he said. “He was difficult, but he loved this pack. And he loved you, in his way.”

“Thank you.”

Morrison left, and Soren helped me into the formal jacket that marked me as Alpha—the same jacket my father had worn, the same one his father had worn before him. The fabric was heavy and the shoulders broad, and I felt the weight of generations settling on me.

“How do I look?” I asked.

“Like an Alpha.” Soren smoothed the collar and stepped back. “Like someone I would follow anywhere.”

I kissed her then—soft and quick, because there was no time for more.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you too. Now go be Alpha.”



The ceremony was short and formal, the way pack tradition required. Morrison read the words that had been spoken for centuries, and the elders laid their hands on my shoulders, and the pack bowed their heads. I stood at the front of the room with my hands at my sides and my eyes on Soren, who sat in the first row with her hand on her stomach and tears on her cheeks.

When it was over—when the last elder had stepped back and the last blessing had been spoken—I turned to the pack.

“My father was not an easy man,” I said, and my voice echoed off the stone walls. “He made mistakes. He hurt people. He hurt me. But he loved this pack, and he wanted what was best for it, even when he didn’t know how to give it.”

The room was silent.

“I am not my father. I will not rule through fear or control. I will not treat Omegas as property or Betas as servants. I will not isolate myself from the people I’m supposed to protect.”

I looked at Soren—the woman who had changed everything.

“My mate is an Omega. My child will be half Omega. And if that is a problem for anyone in this room, you can leave now.”

No one moved.

“Then we have work to do.”

The pack applauded, and the sound was loud and strange and wonderful.



The celebration lasted hours, with pack members stepping forward to offer congratulations and pledges of loyalty. Soren stayed at my side, smiling and shaking hands and resting when the baby made her tired.

I was speaking with Morrison about the transition of power when I felt her hand tighten on my arm.

“Felix.”

I turned and saw her face—pale and strained, her eyes wide with something that looked like fear.

“What is it?”

“The baby.” Her voice was tight with pain. “I think the baby is coming.”

The world stopped.

“Now?”

“Now.”

I looked at Morrison, who was already reaching for his phone to call for help.

“We need to get her to the hospital.”

“No time.” Soren’s hand pressed against her stomach, and she gasped. “The contractions are close. Too close.”

Morrison took charge, clearing the room and sending for the pack healer. Someone brought blankets and someone water and someone a chair for Soren, but she refused the chair because she wanted to stand, wanted to move, wanted to do anything other than wait.

I held her hand and tried to remember how to breathe.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “You’re going to be okay and the baby’s going to be okay and we’re going to be a family.”

“You’re repeating yourself.”

“I’m nervous.”

“Don’t be. I’m doing all the work here.”

The healer arrived—a woman I had never seen before, with calm hands and a steady voice. She examined Soren and nodded.

“The baby is coming fast. We need a private place.”

Morrison led us into a small room off the main hall, and the healer closed the door behind us.

Soren gripped my hand so hard I felt my bones give.

“Stay with me,” she said.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

The pain was sharp and the hours long and the sounds Soren made were the hardest things I had ever heard.

But at the end, when the sun had set and the room had gone dark and the world was holding its breath, there was a cry.

Small and wild and absolutely perfect.

The healer placed the baby on Soren’s chest, and I looked down at the tiny face, the closed eyes, the little fists waving in the air.

A girl.

We had a daughter.

Soren cried, and I cried, and the baby cried, and none of us knew how to stop.

“What do we name her?” Soren whispered.

I thought of all the names we had discussed, all the possibilities, all the futures we had imagined.

“Hope,” I said. “We name her Hope.”

Soren looked at me with tired, beautiful eyes.

“Hope Dimitri.”

“Hope Dimitri.”

The baby opened her eyes for the first time—dark and curious and full of everything still to come.

And in that moment, with my mate and my daughter in my arms and the pack waiting outside the door, I understood what it meant to be Alpha.

It wasn’t about power or control or tradition.

It was about this.

Protecting the people you loved even when you were afraid. Building something better than what came before. Hope.

The door opened, and the pack came in to see their new Alpha.