Claimed by My Bully Alpha Chapter 203

Aurora’s P.O.V

"Ashton, how can you say that?" My voice trembled, the weight of his words pressing against my chest like a slow, suffocating force. "Hope is the only thing keeping us alive." My hands clenched at my sides, my breath uneven. How could he even think of giving up now? After everything we had been through, after everything we had to survive till this day, he was just going to let despair take over? 

Ashton exhaled sharply, running a hand through his disheveled hair, his expression caught between frustration and exhaustion. "Aurora, hope doesn’t change reality. It doesn’t stop what’s happening." His voice was low, raw, like he was barely holding himself together. "We keep telling ourselves things will get better, that this is just another nightmare we’ll wake up from, but it’s not. This—this is real." He gestured vaguely around us, at the dimly lit walls that seemed to press closer with every passing second. "And I don’t know how much longer we can pretend we’re okay." 

A chill swept through the room, and I opened my mouth to argue, to tell him he was wrong, that we had to believe in something—anything—because the alternative was too terrifying. But before I could speak, Maggie’s voice cut through the heavy silence. 

"I don’t know how long we can stay alive," she murmured, her arms wrapped around herself as if trying to ward off a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature. "Something is really, really wrong." 

I turned to her, my heart pounding faster. "Maggie, what do you mean?" 

She hesitated, her fingers digging into her sleeves, eyes darting towards the shadows stretching across the walls. "Since last night, I’ve been hearing things." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Through the walls. Strange noises, like—like the house itself is crying." She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing with the effort. "I don’t know what’s wrong, but it’s getting worse." 

A shiver ran down my spine. I had felt it too—the unnatural stillness, the way the air inside the house felt thicker, heavier, like we were being watched. But hearing Maggie say it out loud made it real. I glanced at Ashton, searching for reassurance, for any sign that he would tell us we were imagining things, that there was a logical explanation. But he just stood there, his jaw tight, his eyes dark with something I couldn’t quite place. 

For the first time since this nightmare began, I wasn’t sure if hope was enough.

I sat there, my mind buzzing with unspoken thoughts as Ashton leaned forward, his voice dropping into something almost conspiratorial.

"I'm the only full witch here besides Harmona and Lucas," he admitted, his gaze steady on me as if trying to gauge my reaction. "And I swear, Aurora, the moment you stepped into this house… something shifted. It's like—" he hesitated, searching for the right words. "It's like the air got heavier, like something is waiting to happen. Something big."

His words settled uncomfortably in my chest. The way he said it, with so much certainty, made my skin prickle. I glanced at Maggie, hoping for an answer she didn’t have, before finally letting out the question that had been gnawing at me since we got here. "Then why us? Why were we the only ones chosen? Why our mothers?" My voice was quieter than I expected, but the weight of my own thoughts pressed down on me. "Lucas didn’t just take anyone—he targeted them for a reason. Didn’t he?"

Maggie exhaled, arms crossed tightly over her chest as if holding herself together. "We’ve been thinking about that," she admitted, exchanging a look with Ashton before turning back to me. "At first, we thought maybe it was about power—hybrids from different races, gathering us because we’re… different. But it’s not just that, Aurora. There’s something bigger going on. Something we don’t know yet."

Her voice wavered on that last part, and I could hear the fear laced beneath her words. It wasn’t just speculation. She believed it.

Maggie nodded, her expression grim. "Lucas has been doing this for longer than we thought. We don’t know how many. We don’t know what happened to them. But if he’s still doing it—"

"Then it means they didn’t survive," Ashton finished bluntly, his voice devoid of any softness.

The room seemed to shrink around me, and suddenly, the air felt suffocating. I had stepped into something much bigger than I realized. Something I wasn’t sure I could escape.

The air is thick with the damp stench of the underground, the cold seeping into my bones as I press my back against the stone wall, trying to calm the tremor in my hands. My breath comes in short, uneven gasps, my heart hammering so loudly I swear they can hear it. My voice is barely above a whisper when I ask, "Are we going to survive this?" 

Silence hangs heavy between us, thick and suffocating. For a moment, I think they won’t answer, that maybe they don’t have the strength to say it out loud. But then, the truth comes, raw and unfiltered. 

"We don’t know." The words fall from their lips like dead weight, cold and final. 

I swallow hard, looking between them, searching their faces for any sign of hope, anything to grasp onto. But all I find is exhaustion, the kind that settles into a person’s bones after too long in the dark. "Since the day we were taken," they continue, their voice steady despite the bleakness of their words, "we've been on edge, waiting for it to end. Every second, every breath, we thought it would be our last." 

My stomach twists violently. I knew things were bad, but hearing it spoken aloud, feeling the certainty in their voices—it feels like something inside me is unraveling. I shake my head, my throat tightening. "No. No, there has to be a way out. There has to be—" 

A laugh, soft and humorless, cuts me off. They don’t believe it. Maybe they can’t afford to. 

But then, there’s Lucas. 

He stands apart from the rest of us, and despite the filth and the darkness, there’s something different about him tonight. Something that makes my skin crawl. His posture is wrong—too relaxed, too at ease, like he’s already won some invisible battle.

I don’t understand. None of this should make him happy. None of us should have any reason to be happy.  But today, at the dining table, he seemed ecstatic.

"Something's changed in him," I whisper, more to myself than to them. 

They nod. "He’s been waiting for something. Holding onto it. And now that you're here..." Their voices trail off, but I know what they mean. Whatever Lucas has been waiting for, whatever twisted plan he's been building towards—it hinges on me. 

“And tomorrow is the total solar eclipse.” Ashton says finally, his voice leaning on exhaustion. “Something…whatever it is that is supposed to happen, it’s going to happen tomorrow.”

“Why?” I asked. “What’s so special about a solar eclipse?”

“Witches draw energy from natural sources, like the sun and the earth.” Maggie explained. “But during a total Solar Eclipse, the sun is blocked out by the moon, and that’s when a dark witch’s power is at its strongest. If I had to bet, I wouldn’t doubt for a second that Harmona and Lucas are dark witches.”

A shiver ran through my body at the mention of dark witches. I had no idea what they were, still a novice to the supernatural world, but the way they said it, it couldn’t mean anything good.

Finally, the both got up from the bed, heading towards the door. “We need to go now.” Ashton said before they left. “Rest up, because we don’t know what tomorrow may bring. And if I were you Aurora…I’d expect the worst.”

With that, they both slipped out of the door, and it clicked shut silently after them, leaving me in the darkness of the room and the prisoner to my own swirling thoughts.

And tomorrow... Tomorrow is the total solar eclipse. 

The realization slams into me like a physical force, and for the first time since I woke up in this hell, I feel it—the suffocating weight of inevitability. Whatever is coming, whatever Lucas has planned, it's already in motion. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.