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CHAPTER 18
publish date:
2026-06-15 03:26:44
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Shattered By The Alpha CHAPTER 63
The public results segment happens at dusk, on the central platform beneath the Alpha King's crest, with the full assembly of the pack and its visitors gathered along the risers and standing in loose clusters around the field's edge. Lanterns have been strung along the perimeter fence. The formality of it is heavier than anything I experienced yesterday, the particular weight of a ceremony that has happened the same way for generations and is not going to bend for anyone.Commander Holt stands at the platform with the official scroll in hand. He has run this reading for years, I learn later, though never before with a name on it that meant as much to him as the one near the top of tonight's list.He reads through the categories in descending order of rank significance. Combat rounds first, then tactical, then the combined academic and field score that determines final standing within each age bracket. The crowd responds in its expected patterns, applause for familiar names, murmurs fo
Shattered By The Alpha CHAPTER 62
Day two begins with the live combat rounds, the portion of the Trials that draws the largest crowd and carries the most weight toward final placement. The risers are full by mid-morning, pack representatives from across the region filling in beside the compound staff and the assembled families of competing candidates. I do not look for my father in the crowd when I arrive. I tell myself this is because I am focused on the work. It is only partly true.My category is paired by a randomized draw conducted the night before. I am matched against a girl named Castellan from a northern border pack, ranked second in her age group regionally, broad through the shoulders and known, according to the murmur that moves through the staging area before the round, for closing distance fast and finishing early.I have read her file. Kade made sure of that weeks ago, the same careful preparation he has brought to every part of this process. I know her tendencies before she steps onto the mat, and Raya
Shattered By The Alpha CHAPTER 61
The Pack Trials ground is larger than I remembered it being, though I have walked past it nearly every day of my life. Today it is dressed for something else entirely, banners along the perimeter fence, formal seating risers built up along the western edge, the Alpha King's crest mounted above the central platform where the rankings will eventually be read. I stand at the edge of it in the grey light before the gates open and I let Raya take in the full shape of the space the way she takes in everything, completely and without hurry.The first day is assessment. Academic evaluation in the morning, ranked combat demonstration in the afternoon, a written tactical component woven through both. I have done versions of all three things so many times in the last six weeks that my body has stopped treating them as separate categories. There is just the work, and the work is mine.Mira finds me at the candidate staging area, where six benches have been arranged beneath a canvas awning for the
Shattered By The Alpha CHAPTER 60
The night before the Pack Trials I run the patrol trail alone.This is not a decision I made. It is just what happens. Bren offers to come and I tell him no, not tonight, and he understands because he has been learning to read me the same way I have been learning to read him, one morning at a time, from the current moment forward. Mira texts at nine to say she is at the courtyard if I want company and I text back: tomorrow. She sends back one word: yes.I go out through the side door and across the compound in the dark and through the east gate and onto the trail, and Raya is with me from the first footfall the way she has been with me from the beginning, not behind me or ahead of me but beside me, present and certain and entirely mine.I run four miles. Not the long circuit. The familiar one. The one I know by the sound of the gravel under each specific section of the path, by the smell of the eastern boundary as it comes close on the right side, by the notch in the outer tree at the
Shattered By The Alpha CHAPTER 59
Three days to the Pack Trials. Bren knocks on my door at four-fifty in the morning.I am already awake. I have been awake since four-fifteen, lying in the dark with Raya quiet inside me and the house holding its usual pre-dawn stillness and the thought of three days sitting in my chest like something that is too large to be abstract anymore but too close to be fully real yet.The knock is not urgent. It is the knock of a person who thought carefully before raising their hand and is not entirely certain they made the right decision.I open the door. Bren is in his running gear. He has his shoes on and his hair is pulled back and he is carrying one of the patrol trail maps from the equipment board downstairs, which means he planned this before he came to knock.He says: will you run the trail with me.Not a question. Or rather, it is structured as a question but it is delivered as something that has already been decided and is now waiting to find out if the decision was the right one to
Shattered By The Alpha CHAPTER 58
Nia goes to Holt that same afternoon.I know this not because I arranged it or checked on it but because Mira tells me, at the east wall before the evening session, with the measured expression she uses when information is significant enough to require careful delivery.She went, Mira says. Two hours after lunch. Holt's assistant confirmed the appointment. She was in there for forty minutes.I nod. I finish wrapping my left hand.Mira watches me. She says: you are not surprised.No, I say.She is quiet for a moment. She told him everything?That was what I asked her to do, I say. In writing and on record. I think she did.Mira wraps her own hands with the focused efficiency she brings to all physical preparation. She says: Holt did not come out of that office for another hour after she left. His assistant said he was writing.I think about this. Holt writing for an hour after receiving Nia's account means the account has enough detail and specificity to require a formal response. It m
Shattered By The Alpha CHAPTER 30
Kade makes the announcement on Friday morning.He stands at the head of the training ground in the particular stance he uses when what he says is official — shoulders squared, evaluation file open in his left hand, the professional distance fully assembled. The entire advanced group is present. Rey
Shattered By The Alpha CHAPTER 29
I wait two days before I address it.This is intentional. When something like this runs through a group — a lateral campaign, the kind that works through information and proximity and doubt — the worst response is an immediate one. An immediate response is defensive, and defensive responses confirm
Shattered By The Alpha CHAPTER 28
Nia changes tactics on Monday.I notice it before anyone tells me, because I have spent seven years reading Nia Strand and I know the difference between her forward campaigns and her lateral ones. A forward campaign is direct — the hallway comments, the heels on concrete, the specific and targeted
Shattered By The Alpha CHAPTER 1
"You were an accident, Zara. The sooner you accept that, the easier your life gets."My father said that to me on my twelfth birthday. He was standing in the kitchen, coffee in hand, not even looking at me. I had just walked in wearing the dress Dara helped me pick out the night before. I thought m
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