Knots of the Hybrid Queen: Claimed by Four Alphas

Chapter 37: Assembly

The wolf packs arrived at noon—four Alphas with their seconds and fighters, all of them looking at me like I was either their salvation or their doom depending on who you asked.

I stood in the main hall with Kael at my side and tried not to focus on how my palms were sweating or how my thumbnail kept finding my finger or how I wanted to run before any of them decided I wasn’t worth following.

"Alpha Marcus of the Northern Ridge Pack." Kael’s voice was formal. Professional. "Alpha Sienna of the Coastal Guard. Alpha Thomas of the Mountain Territory. Alpha Chen of the Eastern Forest."

Four Alphas. Roughly a hundred wolves between them. All here because I’d asked them to fight for a prophecy they weren’t sure was real.

No pressure.

Alpha Marcus was maybe fifty with grey streaking through dark hair and eyes that missed nothing. He looked me over once—assessing, not hostile—and nodded. "Hybrid Queen."

Not a question. An acknowledgment.

I could work with that.

"Thank you for coming." My voice came out steadier than I felt, which was a minor miracle considering my heart was trying to break through my ribs and relocate somewhere safer. "I know asking you to risk your packs for a hybrid you don’t know is—it’s a lot. But the demon doesn’t care about pack territories or alpha hierarchies. It’ll kill all of us if we don’t stop it together."

Silence while they processed that.

Then Alpha Sienna—younger than Marcus, maybe thirties, with scars that said she’d earned her position the hard way—stepped forward. "Show us what you can do."

Direct. I appreciated that even though what I could do was still mostly break crystals and occasionally not pass out from magical exhaustion.

"I can show you what I’m learning." Honesty felt safer than posturing. "I’m not going to stand here and pretend I’m some all-powerful Hybrid Queen who has this handled. I’m terrified and I’m still learning to use my magic without killing everyone around me. But I’m trying. And with your packs backing mine, we might actually survive what’s coming tomorrow."

More silence.

Then Alpha Marcus smiled. Just a small thing but it reached his eyes. "Honest. I like that."

"We’ve been preparing for this fight for three days." Kael took over before I could fumble the moment. "The coven sends twenty vampires. The witches send fifteen. Combined with our packs we have over two hundred fighters against fifteen demon-spawn."

"Fifteen that we know of." Alpha Thomas spoke for the first time—quiet voice, southern accent. "Demons recruit. They could have doubled that number by tomorrow."

My mouth went dry because he was right and I hadn’t even thought about that possibility, which was just another mark in the "Selene is completely unprepared for leadership" column.

"Then we prepare for thirty." Draven appeared at my other elbow and I tried not to lean into him even though his presence grounded me in ways I desperately needed. "We set defensive positions. Pair wolves with vampires for speed. Witches provide cover fire. The Hybrid Queen targets the demon itself."

The way he said it made it sound simple. Easy. Like I wasn’t going to be facing down a creature that had been alive for centuries while trying not to accidentally kill my own allies with uncontrolled hybrid magic.

"The demon wants her." Riven moved to stand beside Draven. "That’s its weak point. It’s been testing her. Watching her. It thinks she’s the key to consuming all of us."

"So we use that." Alpha Chen was the youngest of the four, maybe late twenties, and her voice had an edge that said she was used to fighting dirty. "We let it come for her. Set the trap around her. Hybrid Queen as bait."

Bait. Great. Love being bait for a demon that could probably kill me in under a minute if I wasn’t fast enough.

Through the bonds I felt all four alphas spike with protective fury and had to push calm at them before they did something stupid like veto the plan that actually made sense.

"I can be bait." My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "If it means drawing the demon into a position where we can actually kill it, I’ll do it."

Kael’s hand found the small of my back. "Not alone."

"Not alone." I agreed. "But I’m the target either way. We might as well use it strategically."

The four visiting Alphas exchanged looks that probably meant they were talking through pack mind-links I wasn’t part of, and I stood there trying not to fidget while they decided if trusting me was worth the risk.

"We’ll fight." Alpha Marcus spoke for all of them. "Our packs are yours until the demon falls."

The relief was so sharp I almost stumbled. free𝑤ebnovel.com

"Thank you." It came out hoarse. Honest. "I won’t waste your trust."

"See that you don’t." Alpha Sienna’s voice was crisp. "We’ve all lost wolves to this demon over the years. Tomorrow we get payback."

The meeting dissolved into tactical planning—Kael and the visiting Alphas coordinating positions while Draven mapped defensive lines and Riven handled weapons distribution and I just stood there trying not to focus on how tomorrow was going to be a bloodbath and I was the lynchpin holding this whole mess together.

Thorne found me an hour later on the roof—because apparently that was my default hiding spot now—and settled beside me without a word.

We sat in silence while the sun climbed toward afternoon and my brain kept replaying worst-case scenarios where I failed and everyone died and Draven ended up enslaved and the prophecy turned out to be wrong about all of it.

"You’re spiraling." Thorne’s voice was rough. Quiet.

"I’m being realistic." But yeah, I was spiraling. "Tomorrow fifteen demons attack and I have to somehow channel volatile hybrid magic I barely understand while not accidentally killing my own allies. That’s not spiraling, that’s just facts."

"Facts." He was quiet for long enough I thought he’d dropped it. "You broke three crystals yesterday. Channeled pure emotion into physical form. Didn’t pass out."

"I broke crystals in a controlled environment with a witch monitoring me." The distinction mattered. "That’s not the same as using it in battle."

"Same magic." His hand found my ankle—grounding, possessive. "You’ll figure it out when it matters."

The faith in his voice cracked something in my chest and I had to breathe through my nose to keep from losing it entirely, because crying on a roof the day before a demon battle seemed pathetic even by my low standards.

"What if I don’t?" The question tore out raw. "What if I freeze or fail or get people killed because I wasn’t strong enough?"

"Then we die fighting." Simple. Direct. No comfort in it but also no judgement. "Better than dying running." fгeewebnovёl.com

He was right and I hated it.

We sat there while the pack mobilized below—wolves and vampires and witches moving supplies and weapons and preparing defensive positions—and I tried not to focus on how many of them might be dead this time tomorrow because I couldn’t figure out how to aim my magic properly.

My thumbnail found my finger and this time when I notched through skin Thorne caught my hand and held it until the bleeding stopped.

"You’ve got this." Three words. Certain. Final.

I wanted to believe him.

I was choosing to believe him.

Even if my hands wouldn’t stop shaking and tomorrow felt like the end of everything.