Page 49 of Bully Alpha's Secret Baby

“Damien, it’s bad,” the strange voice on the other end says as soon as I pick up. There’s panic laced through every word, and I can already feel the shift happening. The one where the calm morning I’d hoped for dissolves into chaos. “There’s been an attack. A big one.”

“How bad?”

“Real bad. We’ve got injured, and we can’t reach Alpha Patrick. We need you here. Now.”

The words slam into me like a freight train. All of our packs have been on edge for weeks, ever since the attacks started. But this… this is something else.

I throw the covers back and sit up in bed. “I’m on my way.”

Jade’s watching me, no doubt already piecing together what’s going on. She doesn’t say anything, but I can see the concern in her eyes. She’s good at hiding it, but I know her better than that. Hell, I can feel the tension rolling off her in waves.

“What happened?”

“There’s been an attack. East Hills.” I run a hand through my hair, trying to shove down the frustration. “It’s bad.”

Jade’s quiet for a moment. I know what she’s thinking, because it’s the same thing I’m thinking. Whoever did this, whatever did this, isn’t going to stop.

She sits up and pulls the sheets around herself like a shield. “You have to go.”

It’s not a question; it’s a fact. I do have to go. My pack needs me, and right now, they come first. But it doesn’t stop me from hating every second of it.

“I don’t want to leave you,” I admit, surprising even myself. “But I have to.”

“I know,” she says. “You’re the alpha. They need you.”

There’s a part of me that wants to argue, to tell her I’d rather stay here, wrapped up in this fragile peace we’ve somehow found. But I can’t. Duty calls, and I’m not the type of guy who ignores it.

I lean over, pressing a kiss to her lips, soft and lingering, as if I can somehow make up for leaving her. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Be careful,” she whispers, and I can hear the weight behind those words. She doesn’t need to say more. I know what she’s thinking. Hell, it’s what I’m thinking, too. There’s no guarantee I’ll come back unscathed. There never is.

I pull away, grabbing my jeans from the floor and yanking them on in record time. Jade watches me with her arms wrapped around her knees, and for a second, I let myself wonder what it would be like if things were different if there weren’t attacks, pack politics, and the looming threat of something darker hanging over us. But that’s not the world we live in.

As I head for the door, I glance back at her one last time, taking in the sight of her in my bed, looking both vulnerable and strong at the same time. It’s a sight I want to hold onto, one I’m not ready to let go of.

“I’ll be back,” I promise again. “Keep an eye on Penny. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

The minute I’m out the door, I’m already shifting gears. Alpha mode kicks in, pushing aside the peace of the last few hours with Jade. It’s like flipping a switch—I go from basking in the warmth of her presence to steeling myself for the chaos waiting on the other side.

Alec is already outside, pacing near his truck. He catches sight of me, and I can see the tension in his jaw. “What’s going on?” he asks before I even reach him. “I heard something went down at East Hills. How bad is it?”

“Real bad,” I say, striding past him to grab my gear from the truck bed. “Pack member called it in. There’s been another attack. We need to move now.”

Alec swears under his breath and kicks at the dirt. He’s always been the level-headed one in the pack, but even he looks rattled. “Who’s coming with us?”

“I’ll radio the others,” I tell him, pulling out my phone. “We’ll need everyone we can get.”

Within minutes, I’ve gathered the key members of the pack. There’s Alec, my right-hand man, who’s as solid as they come. Then there’s Mason—big, broad, and always ready for a fight. And Leah, one of our fiercest warriors, quick on her feet and sharp as hell. We pile into the trucks, and the urgency crackles through the air like static.

We make the drive to East Hills in record time, and my fingers grip the wheel tighter with every mile. The landscape rushes past, the trees blurring into a dark green wall as we close in on the neighboring pack’s territory. The closer we get, the more I feel it. A wrongness in the air, like something evil is crawling beneath the surface.

When we arrive, the scene is worse than I expected.

Blood stains the ground, and the scent of it hits my stomach like a lead weight. Shifters are scattered across the clearing, some injured, some dazed, and a few… motionless. Patrick, the alpha of East Hills, is lying near the tree line. His body is twisted in an unnatural way. He’s hurt, badly, and my stomach clenches at the sight.

“Damien!” one of his shifters yells as we jump out of the trucks. “It’s chaos out here. They came out of nowhere—”

He’s cut off by a deafening roar, and my head whips around just in time to see it: a demon—twice the size of any shifter. Its massive, hulking frame is covered in slick, blackened scales that glisten under the sunlight like oil. Its eyes glow yellow, with pupils slitted like a serpent’s, and its long, jaggedhorns curve menacingly from its skull. Muscles ripple under its leathery skin as it moves with an unnatural fluidity. The creature’s mouth is full of razor-like teeth, dripping with a dark, viscous liquid that sizzles when it hits the ground. The stench of sulfur and death hangs in the air around it, choking everything in its path.

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