Knots of the Hybrid Queen: Claimed by Four Alphas

Chapter 69: Incursion

The thing that came through the breach wasn’t like the demon or the spawn or anything I’d seen before—it was absence, pure void given shape, a hole in reality that consumed light and sound and anything stupid enough to get close.

A probe. The Root testing our defenses by sending a fragment of itself.

And it was eating through our eastern perimeter like tissue paper.

"Fall back!" Kael’s Alpha command cut across the chaos even though he was still recovering from yesterday’s training disaster. "Establish defensive positions! Do not engage directly!"

Do not engage directly because touching the void-creature meant getting consumed, and we’d already lost three fighters who’d tried.

Three more casualties. The count kept climbing.

I reached for the temporal magic because that was what the Fae had spent three days beating into me—use the power, don’t think about the cost, just use it—and focused on the probe.

Freeze.

Time stopped around the void-creature. Not inside it—whatever The Root was, it existed outside normal temporal flow—but around it, trapping it in a bubble of frozen moments.

"Now!" I was screaming at the alliance fighters. "Hit it while it’s contained!"

Fifty wolves. Twenty vampires. Fifteen witches. All attacking simultaneously.

The void-creature absorbed most of it—literally absorbed the magic and physical attacks into its emptiness—but some damage stuck. Cracks appearing in its surface. Light bleeding through.

It was working. We were—

The temporal freeze shattered because apparently three days of brutal training wasn’t enough to hold something made of primordial darkness, and when it broke free the backlash hit me so hard I actually screamed.

My heart stopped. Just completely stopped because apparently that was still my body’s go-to response when temporal magic went wrong.

But this time I knew what to do. The Fae had drilled it into me through repeated death.

Reverse. Rewind. Pull time backward just far enough.

My heart kicked back into rhythm and I was breathing again, and through the bonds all four mates were having absolute breakdowns that I’d died and resurrected myself mid-battle.

No time to process that. The void-creature was advancing.

I reached for the temporal magic again but different this time. Not freeze. Not reverse. Forward. Age.

Age the thing that existed outside time itself.

The magic hit the probe and I pushed every ounce of intent I had into one goal: decay. Entropy. The inevitable march toward ending.

The void-creature shrieked—this sound that wasn’t a sound, more like reality screaming—and I watched as it aged. Watched as whatever sustained it broke down. Watched as it crumbled to nothing in seconds instead of centuries.

Victory.

Except using that much power on something that didn’t want to age meant pushing past every limit the Fae had trained me to, and when the void-creature dissolved I collapsed.

Not passed out. Worse. My heart stopped again and this time I couldn’t muster the focus to reverse it.

Dying. I was dying in the middle of the battlefield because I’d used too much power too fast and my body had decided to quit.

Through the bonds I felt all four mates screaming but I couldn’t respond, couldn’t reach for them, couldn’t—

Someone was doing CPR. Chest compressions. Breathing for me.

One shock from a defibrillator. Nothing.

Two shocks. Still nothing.

Three shocks and my heart finally remembered how to beat, and I dragged air into lungs that had forgotten how to work.

"You died." Kael’s voice was raw. Broken. "Thirty seconds. Your heart stopped for thirty seconds."

Thirty seconds. Not as long as the ninety-second ritual death but still long enough to terrify everyone.

"The probe?" My voice came out hoarse.

"Destroyed." Draven’s clinical assessment. "You aged it to nothing. Completely eliminated. But—" He stopped.

But it nearly killed me. Right. The cost of victory.

"Three casualties from initial contact." Marcus appeared with the count I’d been dreading. "Five wounded. You—" He looked at me. "You stopped breathing. We thought we’d lost you."

Thought they’d lost me. Join the club, I’d thought I’d lost me too. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ

The Fae appeared—of course they did—and Eirlys examined me with the same clinical detachment they used for everything.

"Acceptable performance." They made notes. "The temporal aging worked. The self-resurrection was adequate though slower than optimal. You will survive The Root. Possibly."

Possibly. Great. Very reassuring.

"She nearly died." Thorne’s voice was more growl than words. "Your training nearly killed her and now your war nearly finished the job."

"She did die." Eirlys corrected. "For thirty seconds. And she came back. Which proves the training is working. The Root will push her past death repeatedly. She must be able to return each time."

Must be able to return each time. Right. Because dying once per battle wasn’t enough, apparently I needed to die multiple times and keep coming back.

They left and I just lay there on the battlefield trying to remember how breathing worked while healers checked my vitals and my mates surrounded me broadcasting absolute terror through the bonds.

The void-creature’s body—what was left of it—was still smoking nearby, and that’s when I saw it.

Symbols. Carved into the space where the probe had been. Not random. Deliberate.

A message from The Root.

"Morgana." My voice was barely a whisper. "The symbols. Can you read them?"

She moved closer and I watched her expression shift from clinical curiosity to absolute horror.

"What?" Kael’s voice was tight. "What do they say?"

Morgana’s hands were shaking as she pulled up translation references. "They say—" Her voice broke. "They say ’The Hybrid Queen will open the door.’ Signed by The Root itself."

The Hybrid Queen will open the door.

Not fight The Root. Not defeat it. Open the door for it.

I wasn’t the weapon against The Root.

I was the key that would let it through.

"That’s impossible." Marcus’s voice was flat. "She destroyed the demon. Broke the binding. She’s fought against darkness, not for it." freeωebnovēl.c૦m

"Hybrid magic exists in contradiction." Eirlys appeared because of course they did. "Between states. Between realities. The Root cannot cross fully without a bridge. Without someone who exists in all the spaces it needs to traverse."

A bridge. I was a bridge between realities. Between life and death. Between all the contradictions The Root needed to manifest fully.

"You knew." Draven’s voice was ice. Accusation. "You knew she was the door and you bound her anyway."

"We bound her because she is the door." Eirlys corrected. "Without the fealty oath, she could refuse when The Root comes. Could close herself to its influence. The oath ensures she cannot refuse our commands. Cannot resist when we tell her to open."

When they tell me to open. The oath would compel me to become the door. To let The Root through.

And I wouldn’t be able to stop it.