Claimed by My Bully Alpha Chapter 308

Caleb’s P.O.V

The night air was thick with something heavier than just cold. There was a stillness, a silence that pressed down on our chests like a weight we couldn't shake off. I stood just outside the morgue’s back entrance, the metallic scent of old blood and disinfectant wafting from within mixing with the distant scent of pine. My arms were crossed, trying to keep still, to stay grounded, but my fingers twitched every so often. Jade was pacing, his boots scuffing against the cracked pavement, and Shane leaned against the wall like he was trying to disappear into it, his jaw tight and eyes locked on the ground.

Alpha Camden stood ahead of us, stoic as always, his broad back tense and unmoving. Beta Raymond was right beside him, arms folded, brow furrowed so deep I thought it might never smooth again. We were all trying to process what we had just seen. Those rogue wolves... their bodies had simply decayed before our eyes. Collapsing in on themselves like time had fast-forwarded decades in mere seconds. And the blood... god, the blood.

“It was black,” I said, more to myself than anyone else, my voice hushed and disbelieving. “It was black like sludge, like motor oil.”

Jade stopped pacing. “You saw how fast it happened, Caleb. One moment they were whole, and the next—” he exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “That’s not normal. That’s not natural.”

“Because it isn’t,” Shane finally said, pushing off the wall. His voice had that edge, that tightly controlled panic he always tried to hide behind sarcasm and bravado.

“Dead bodies don’t just rot like that. Not in seconds. And blood doesn’t turn black unless—” he paused, looking between us, his face twisted in a mix of confusion and fear, “—unless it’s been dead for a long time. Or something else is messing with it. I swear, it feels like we’re not dealing with just rogues. This feels like… like black magic.”

That word seemed to suck the air out of the circle. Alpha Camden turned slowly, his sharp eyes settling on Shane with a kind of unreadable weight. “Careful with accusations like that,” he said, his voice like gravel and thunder. “Black magic is forbidden. Rare. Dangerous.”

“Exactly,” Shane snapped. “But how else do you explain what just happened? We fought them. We killed them. They bled. They screamed. They felt alive. And then they just… decayed. Like corpses finally remembering they were corpses.”

“I hate how much sense that makes,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair. I looked toward the door we were all avoiding, like the truth was too much to step into. “What if they were already dead?”

Before anyone could respond, the door creaked open, and the morgue’s overhead light spilled out like a harsh, sterile spotlight. The doctor stepped into it, peeling off his gloves, his expression grim, pale, and shaken in a way I’d never seen on the man before. He was one of those types that dealt with the aftermath of carnage daily. Nothing rattled him. But this had.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” he began, voice low and steady, though I caught the tremble he was trying to hide. “But your theory... it’s not far off.”

We all straightened at once. “What theory?” Beta Raymond asked sharply.

The doctor looked at us, his eyes moving from Camden to Raymond, then finally resting on me, Shane, and Jade. “Those wolves… the ones you brought in?” He paused, licking his lips like they’d dried out from fear.

“They weren’t alive. Not in the way you think. Their tissues—what little was left—show signs of extensive decomposition. I'm talking for weeks. Months, maybe. It’s like their bodies had been dead for a long time. The only thing preserving them must’ve been—”

“Black magic,” Shane filled in for him, nodding slowly.

The doctor hesitated, then gave the faintest nod. “There’s no biological explanation for it. Blood that black… that rotten… it’s what you see in corpses long buried. They shouldn’t have been able to move. They shouldn’t have been able to fight. But somehow... something gave them life again. Temporarily. Whatever it was, it didn’t last. Once it wore off… they turned to what they really were. Dead things.”