Claimed by the Wrong Alphas

Slater

The clock on the bedside stand read 4:02 a.m.

Not that it mattered, I hadn’t slept.

I’d spent the entire night tossing and turning, my mind racing with worry about where Charis had gone after our fight. Every creak of the building, every sound in the hallway had me hoping she might return, but my room had remained empty.

I’d sent Kael a message hours ago asking if he’d seen Eamon, but while the message showed as read, there had been no reply. Rhett was offline entirely—probably back at the hospital where he should have been resting.

That left me with nothing. Just my guilt and the memory of the pain in Charis’s eyes when she’d learned I was the one who reported her to the school authority.

And then the way she’d looked at me—like I was a stranger, like I was someone dangerous rather than someone who loved her—made something twist painfully in my gut.

Unable to bear lying in bed any longer, I threw off the covers. I needed a run. Physical exertion was the only thing that might help quiet the millions of emotions running inside.

Though it was strictly prohibited to shift and run in your wolf form within the Academy grounds, I occasionally broke that rule when the need became overwhelming.

I threw on my running clothes, grabbed my communication band from my desk, and strapped it to my wrist, then headed out the door. The air outside was cold and biting, the kind of chill that went straight to your lungs and helped you forget, even if only for a second.

There was a small forest at the back of the dormitory complex, just beyond the official academy boundaries. I jogged through the quiet corridors and across the moonlit campus toward the tree line.