Claimed by My Bully Alpha Chapter 298

Aurora’s P.O.V

I still remember the way Caroline’s voice lowered when she first mentioned the rogue wolves. It wasn’t just fear—it was the sort of trembling dread you carry in your bones, like a memory you wish you could unhear. We’d been sitting by the stream behind the old training fields, the wind tugging at her blonde hair, and for a moment, it had almost felt peaceful—until she said it.

“They’re not like us anymore,” she whispered, eyes darting around as if speaking of them aloud might summon them. “Rogues… they’ve lost their minds. They’re not wolves anymore, and they’re not human either. Just... beasts. They’ve lost their abilities to turn back into their human form.” I had blinked at her, waiting for her to laugh and say she was joking, but she didn’t. She stared at the water, her fingers tightening around a small stone until her knuckles turned white.

“They’ve been exiled, abandoned, some broken from birth or ruined by loss. And once they give in to that madness, give in to their animalistic instincts, there’s no coming back.” The words clung to me like smoke, long after we walked away from the stream. I remember thinking—how can a wolf forget its own humanity? But now, as I heard the hurried footsteps outside the door and the panic spreading through the pack, I understood exactly what she meant.

Caleb was waiting for me by the door, his tall frame tense, hands balled into fists at his sides as he opened the door to look outside. There was a certain stillness in him that only came when he was trying very hard to look calm for my sake. I reached for him, my fingers curling into his sleeve. “Caleb,” I said, my voice lower than I intended. “What happens now?”

He looked down at me, the faintest trace of something soft in his eyes, but it vanished quickly. “We get the non-fighters out of here first,” he said, his voice steady. “We’ll move them to the safest spot in the packhouse. They’ll be guarded. The rest of us… the warriors, the fighters… we go to meet them.”

Them. The rogues. My stomach twisted.

“All of you?” I asked, already knowing that as the future Alpha, he had to be present. “There’s no other way? No way to avoid… this?” My voice cracked at the end and I hated how small I sounded, how scared. But I was scared. How could I not be?

He exhaled slowly, the weight of something ancient pressing into his shoulders. “Aurora,” he said, and I knew this version of him—calm, resolute, determined. “I’m the future Alpha. If I don’t stand now, if I don’t fight for my pack when it counts… then they’ll never trust me. I won’t just lose their respect. I’ll lose the right to lead. My father will be there too, fighting in the front lines. I have to do the same.”

I bit down on the panic rising in my throat. “But what if you get hurt?” I whispered. “What if this isn’t just about leadership or duty or trust? What if it’s your life?” He didn’t flinch. He never did.

“Then I die protecting what’s mine. And that’s a death I’ll take over living in fear.”

I wanted to shake him, to scream that it wasn’t fair, that being brave didn’t mean throwing yourself to the wolves—no pun intended. But I saw it in his eyes. He had already made peace with the possibility that tonight might be the last full moon he’d ever see.

The air itself felt heavy, as though the world itself was holding its breath. And I—I didn’t know what to do with the ache in my chest. “I just wish there was another way,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. Caleb reached for my hand then, not as the future Alpha, but just as the boy I loved.

“So do I,” he said. “But wishing won’t stop them. And we can’t keep running.”

The second we stepped out of the room, the hallway bathed us in an eerie red light that pulsed like a heartbeat—ominous, rhythmic, almost alive. I could feel the tension crackling in the air, like static before a storm, and the moment my eyes adjusted, I instinctively reached for Caleb’s hand, needing something real to ground me.

The light turned his face into a mosaic of shadow and crimson, his brows furrowed, jaw clenched, but his grip tightened reassuringly around mine. We didn’t speak at first. There was too much to take in—the siren-like wail in the distance, the faint smell of smoke and metal, and the strange silence that had settled around this part of the compound. I hated it. Every fiber of my being screamed that something was wrong. Deeply, unfixable wrong.

Then my voice found me. “We need to get to Riley,” I said, maybe too quickly, my breath hitching in my chest. The idea of him—alone, scared, possibly in danger—ignited a fire in me. Riley was my little brother, my family, and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. Not after everything.

Caleb didn’t question me. He nodded once and took the lead, his movements swift but cautious, always staying just a step ahead. We turned a corner, and that red light was still with us, like a silent guide. I remember thinking how strange it was—how only some of the hallways were painted in it, not all. Others were pitch black or flickering with dying bulbs, as if the building itself was choosing who lived and who got lost.

"Why is it only lit up in certain places?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, as if I was scared the walls would hear me.

Caleb glanced back. “It’s a guiding system. Emergency protocol. The red light leads to safe zones,” he explained. “It’s not random. It’s designed to funnel people in the right direction.”

Safe zones. That was supposed to make me feel better, wasn’t it? But it didn’t. Not really. Because all I could think about was how Riley wasn’t with us—how I had left him in his room thinking everything was fine, and now all hell had broken loose.

When we reached his door, I threw it open, my heart already pounding, hoping—praying—that he would be there, maybe just hiding under the bed or playing one of his little pranks, that cheeky grin on his face as he said, “Gotcha.” But no. The bed was unmade. The room was cold. Riley was gone.

“Riley?” I called out anyway, my voice cracking. “Riley, baby, where are you?” I took a shaky step inside, looking around for any clue. A dropped toy. A shoe. Anything.

But there was nothing. My throat tightened, and panic began to curl inside me like smoke filling a room. “He’s not here. Caleb, he’s—he’s not here.”