Chapter 217 Yes, Alpha
The fierce, unyielding vow had barely left Fennigan’s lips when a sharp, frantic knock hammered against the heavy oak door.
The sound shattered the heavy intimacy of the office. Jax instantly tensed, his Beta instincts flaring as he shifted his stance to completely shield the sleeping twins in his arms. Fennigan kept one arm securely wrapped around Leela’s waist, his silver eyes flashing toward the door with lethal, predatory annoyance.
Behind the desk, Elana didn't hesitate. She dragged the back of her hand across her cheeks, wiping away the very last traces of her tears. She squared her shoulders, her spine snapping perfectly straight in her wheelchair as the uncompromising aura of the former Luna slammed right back into place.
"Come in," Elana commanded, her voice perfectly steady.
The brass handle clicked, and the door was shoved open.
Miller practically stumbled into the room. The tech expert looked entirely wiped out, the pale, fluorescent glow of the basement monitors still seeming to cling to his skin. He was clutching a silver tablet so tightly his knuckles were completely white, and the scent of pure, panicked adrenaline rolling off him was thick enough to taste.
He froze the second he saw the glossy photos of the execution-style murders and the suspension tanks scattered across the mahogany desk. Miller violently swallowed hard, his eyes darting to Leela, terrified he had just walked into the middle of the Luna’s psychological breakdown.
But Leela wasn't broken. She was standing tall against her Alpha’s chest, her silver eyes burning with a cold, terrifying fire.
"Report, Miller," Fennigan growled, his voice a low, vibrating warning to snap the tech out of his shock. "What did the Weaver find?"
Miller ripped his gaze away from the desk and looked at his Alpha. "He hit the bottom of the first digital well, Alpha. He broke through the shell corporations hiding the oldest ledgers."
Miller took a shaky breath, stepping further into the office. "It goes back further than we thought. Way further. The financial records and the encrypted communications... they go back to before Alpha Damon and Luna Elana were even mated."
A deadly silence fell over the room. Elana’s hands slowly tightened into fists on the armrests of her chair.
"Read the names, Miller," Jax ordered quietly from the corner, his voice tight.
"That's the thing, Beta... it's not just the High Council," Miller said, looking down at his tablet with visible disgust. "Alpha Damon wasn't just taking blood money from politicians. He was actively partnered with Vane."
The name hit the room like a physical shockwave.
Vane. The psychotic, power-hungry monster who had mercilessly carved the bone fragments out of a screaming, living elemental boy child just to steal his magic.
"They were in so tight," Miller continued, his voice shaking, "that the Weaver says you can't even tell where some of the paperwork ends with one and starts with the other. The ledgers, the research notes, the biological blueprints for the tanks... the signatures blur together. Damon and Vane built this subterranean nightmare together."
Fennigan’s blood ran completely, terrifyingly cold.
The pieces of the thirty-year puzzle slammed violently into place. It hadn't just been a mad scientist's obsession. It was a calculated, decades-long conspiracy.
Elana sat frozen behind her desk, the absolute, nauseating reality of her entire life finally clicking into focus. "He didn't just happen to figure out I had a dormant elemental spark after we were mated," she whispered, her voice hollow. "He targeted me. Vane knew what I was, and Damon mated me to breed an elemental test subject for them."
Leela’s breath hitched. She reached out, her hand gripping Fennigan’s forearm like a vice.
If Damon and Vane had been building this for over thirty years to harvest elemental magic, they hadn't just been waiting for Elana’s dormant spark to surface. They had been waiting for Leela. They had been waiting for the elemental Luna to finally step onto Blackwood territory so they could steal her power and butcher her children.
Fennigan felt the terrifying realization spike through the mate bond. He pulled Leela flush against his side, his glowing silver eyes locking onto his brother across the room. The war had just mutated into something infinitely darker.
"Print everything," Fennigan commanded, his voice dropping into a lethal, demonic rumble that promised absolute slaughter. "Print every single ledger that ties Vane, Damon, and the High Council together. We aren't just going to dismantle the capital. We are going to wipe their entire bloodlines off the face of the earth."
"We were worried about the snakes in the High Council," Jax said under his breath, the words scraping out of his chest like crushed glass. "And we were living in the middle of a viper pit the entire time."
Jax tightened his hold on Caspian and Briar, burying his face in the soft, silver-tipped hair of his sleeping niece and nephew. The sheer, nauseating magnitude of the betrayal was staggering. Every memory he had of his father, every lesson learned, every moment of supposed family loyalty—it was all just camouflage for a slaughterhouse. Damon hadn't been compromised by the High Council; he had been the monster inviting them in.
Fennigan felt the truth of his brother's words settle over the room like a suffocating shroud. He pulled Leela even tighter against his side, his massive hand resting fiercely and protectively over the swell of her belly where Zephyr was safe. For now.
"Vane," Elana whispered, the name tasting like ash on her tongue. Her silver eyes, normally so composed, flashed with a dangerous, ancient hatred from her wheelchair. "If Damon and Vane built this together... then Vane’s followers know exactly what is under this mountain. And if the High Council was funding it..."
"...then they are all connected," Leela finished, her voice dropping into a chilling, Luna-born calmness. The fear that had made her faint was entirely gone, replaced by the volatile elemental fire that Vane and Damon had so desperately wanted to steal. "The High Council isn't just corrupt, Fenn. They are Vane's disciples."
Fennigan looked back at Miller. The tech expert was still pale, standing rigidly by the door and clutching his tablet.
"Get back to the Weaver," Fennigan ordered, his Alpha tone vibrating the very floorboards of the office. "Tell him to cross-reference every single name on those ledgers with Vane's known associates. I want targets, Miller. I want names, addresses, and pack affiliations. I don't care if they wear a suit in the capital or hide in the woods. If they breathed the same air as my father, they are going to bleed for it."
"Yes, Alpha," Miller breathed, giving a sharp, terrified nod. He immediately turned on his heel, practically sprinting out of the office to get back to the tech hub.
As the door clicked shut behind him, the room plunged back into an eerie, violent quiet. The Blackwood pack was no longer just preparing to defend themselves against a political overreach. They were preparing to eradicate a cult that had infected their bloodline for thirty years.