Chained By The Alpha By Jessica Hall

With no warning, Lydia’s form begins to shift, her body contorting as fur sprouts across her skin. The crowd gasps, murmurs rising like a storm around us. The rules were clear no shifting allowed until the second round and yet here she stood, a fully transformed wolf with gleaming teeth bared at me. I suck in a breath and take a step back, waiting for her father to call her out or for us to break for round two

Surely, they don’t expect me to just continue from the moment she shifts

“What the hell is going on?” Alpha Greyson’s voice booms over the commotion, and I can’t help but feel a sliver of relief at his intervention

“Joseph, you’re putting your daughter at risk!”

he bellows, stepping forward. His stature commands attention, and his concern for me is evident despite the chaos as he shoves through the crowd

“Stay out of this, Greyson,” one of the Alphas retorts, their loyalty to tradition over safety clear in their stern voices

“Rules are rules! She can’t fight a wolf in her human form,” Greyson argues, his hand slipping into his pocket, retrieving his phone with an air of authority

Dad pulls me aside, his grip firm on my shoulder. “Keep your distance, watch her movement; you know how to handle a wolf” he says hurriedly, his eyes flickering with a father’s worry

Before I can respond, the sound of another

commotion draws our attention. Alpha Zayn’s brother, Beta Vance, strides toward us, his expression a mixture of confusion and anger

“What’s happening here?” he demands, his voice cutting through the noise

“An unsanctioned shift during a title fight,” Greyson replies, his eyes never leaving mine, silently communicating his disapproval

Alpha Dane and Alpha Samuel move toward Alpha Greyson and Beta Vance, who must be training with the Lakeview pack, while my father says nothing, allowing Samuel to deal with Greyson. Dad and Greyson have always had a strange relationship

“Damn it, what the hell is going on here?” Vance’s voice booms over the commotion of Greyson and Samuel arguing; his brow

furrowed in confusion and irritation

“Back off, Vance,” Alpha Dane snaps. “This doesn’t concern you.”

But Greyson intervenes once again, a sly grin

spreading across his face. “Oh, but it does,” he says, almost too casually. “We’ve got ourselves an alpha fight. Cleo and Lydia are going at it.”

Vance scoffs, disbelief etched into every line of his face. “You’re kidding, right?” But there’s no humor in Greyson’s eyes as he shakes his head

“Don’t worry, I already called Zayn,” Greyson adds, just as my father’s growl ripples through the air, thick with his disapproval

“Zayn has no place here,” my father barks out, his glare searing. “He’s nothing more than a mutt trying to interfere in matters that don’t

concern him.”

“Actually,” Greyson corrects, his tone shifting to match the deadly lilt of my father’s, “any alpha sworn in or not is subject to oversight by all the city’s alphas. You know that, Joseph. And last I checked, Zayn’s head of the council, so he has every right to oversee this bullshit.”

As if summoned by the very mention of his name, Alpha Zayn enters the fray, his strides purposeful, his gray eyes stormy

“You wouldn’t be breaking the law you helped write, would you, Joseph? The one you penned when you accused me of murdering my own father?” Zayn calls as everyone moves to get out of his way

My father’s face contorts with anger, and he turns on Greyson, who stands his ground with a

smirk that makes my skin crawl. “You all need to stop sticking your noses where they don’t belong!”

“I’m sure Clara wouldn’t have agreed with you,” Greyson sneers, “1f she were here. But no, that harlot you call a mate made sure she’d never get a say about anything concerning her pack, didn’t she?”

Confusion crashes over me like a tidal wave. My mother, she was spoken of so little, and now this? What did Linda have to do with

Before another thought can form, my father erupts, his fury unleashed, but Alpha Samuel steps in, a wall of calm in the chaos

“Linda had nothing to do with Clara’s death,” he asserts, though I’m not convinced anyone believes him

“Are we doing this or what?” Lydia interrupts, strutting forward in just a shirt she has stolen from somewhere with a smug tilt to her lips

“No, you aren’t,” Zayn declares, his gaze locking onto Lydia with enough intensity to set the grass ablaze. “Cleo hasn’t shifted.”

Lydia’s hands fly up, her exasperation clear as day. “There’s nothing in the rules that says an unshifted alpha can’t challenge a shifted one,” she retorts

“Did you challenge her, Cleo?” Zayn asks, turning his piercing silver eyes on me. I open my mouth, but no words come out-only silence

Yet as his gaze runs over me, I see the flicker of anger in it at my bleeding face

“Thought so. This isn’t happening,” Zayn concludes, about to turn away when my father’s voice invades my mind, commanding me to speak

“Tell them you challenged her, Cleo; I will not be made to look like a fool by this prick.”

I glare at my father when he speaks again. “Or you step down,” he warns. Seriously, his

ego is bigger than his care for his daughter. I grit my teeth

The weight of their stares squeezes the air from my lungs. I step forward,

my

resolve

faltering under the heavy expectations of everyone

“I… [challenged Lydia,” I admit, my voice barely a whisper, and Zayn’s entire body

tenses and he stops, turning back to me

“See? All settled,” Samuel says with a nod, and Lydia practically leaps towards the ring

“Wait,” Zayn interjects, his eyes burning into

mine. “You challenged her?” he knows I’m lying

I stand mute, my heart pounding in my chest, betraying the truth without uttering a

single word. Zayn growls, storming toward me and grabbing my arm, my father moves to intervene, but Alpha Greyson becomes a wall between Zayn and him

Zayn’s grip on my arm is firm, his eyes searching mine for any sign of surrender. “It’s

suicide, Cleo,” he says through clenched teeth

“You don’t have to lie for him.”

“Admit it, and we can put an end to this madness,” Alpha Greyson adds, coming over to us while Vance keeps my father back