Knots of the Hybrid Queen: Claimed by Four Alphas

Three days after destroying the demon and I still couldn’t sleep through the night without waking up convinced my heart had stopped again, which was inconvenient and also probably trauma but dealing with that seemed less urgent than dealing with the twelve bodies we were burning today.

Twelve casualties from the final battle. Not as bad as fifty-three or twenty-eight but still twelve families getting news that destroyed them, twelve pyres I had to watch burn while my brain counted the total.

Ninety-three. Across all three battles we’d lost ninety-three fighters, and the number had replaced all other thoughts in my head like my brain had decided math was easier than processing grief.

"You don’t have to attend all of them." Isabelle’s voice came quiet from beside me. "The funerals. People would understand."

People would understand. Maybe. But I was the Hybrid Queen who’d led them into battle and the least I could do was show up when they died for it.

"I’ll stay." The words came out flat because my emotions had filed themselves under later again and I was running on pure obligation.

The twelfth pyre burned and I made it through the receiving line where family members either thanked me or looked through me like I wasn’t there, and honestly both reactions were valid because I had kept them alive and also gotten their loved ones killed so.

By the time I got back to the pack house my brain was soup and all I wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep for a week, except there was a meeting about alliance stability that apparently required my presence.

"Half the visiting packs want to leave." Marcus’s voice was grim as he spread reports across the conference table. "They agreed to fight the demon. Demon’s dead. They’re considering the bargain fulfilled."

The bargain fulfilled. Right. Because we’d formed the alliance to fight a specific threat and now that threat was gone the alliance was—what, optional?

"Can we stop them?" The question came out before I could think through whether I actually wanted to stop them.

"We can’t force wolves to stay against their will." Kael’s voice was measured. Controlled. "That would make us no better than the demon. They have to choose."

Choose. Right. Choose to stay in an alliance that had cost ninety-three lives or go home and pretend the last two months hadn’t happened.

"What about the vampires?" Because Lysander had been surprisingly helpful during the final battle but also he was Lysander and trusting him seemed like a terrible life choice.

"Lysander confirmed his coven is withdrawing." Draven’s voice was steady—no corruption, no demon influence, just him being clinical and precise. "He fulfilled his bargain. I’m free. He has no further obligation."

No further obligation. Which meant Draven wasn’t going back to being a coven weapon but also we were losing vampire support. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"The witches?" Because Morgana had been instrumental in basically everything and losing her seemed catastrophic.

"Staying." Morgana pulled up notes on her tablet. "The Northern Witch Council voted to maintain alliance presence. Twenty witches stationed here permanently."

Twenty witches staying. That was—that was good. Better than nothing.

"So we lose half the wolves and all the vampires but keep the witches." I was calculating numbers in my head. "That leaves us with what, maybe a hundred fighters?"

"One hundred seventeen." Marcus’s voice was precise. "Plus your four bonds. Plus you."

One hundred seventeen fighters. Down from two hundred. Less than we’d started with before the first battle.

The alliance was fracturing and we’d barely survived with two hundred fighters, so what happened when the next threat came and we only had one hundred seventeen?

"There will be a next threat." The words came out before I could stop them. "The prophecy said destroy the darkness at the root. The demon was just—what, a symptom? A piece of something bigger?"

Silence while everyone processed that.

Then Kael’s voice, carefully neutral: "We don’t know that for certain."

"We don’t know it’s not certain either." I was pacing now because sitting still while discussing potential apocalypse scenarios seemed impossible. "Cassia summoned that demon three hundred years ago. What if she was trying to fight something else? What if the demon was—I don’t know, a weapon? A defense?"

A weapon. A defense against something worse.

My brain was spiraling but also the math was mathing in ways I didn’t like.

"We need to research Cassia’s original summoning." Morgana was already making notes. "Find out why she called the demon in the first place. What she was trying to accomplish."

What she was trying to accomplish. Right. Because three hundred years of demon attacks had to have a reason beyond just witch gone wrong.

The meeting dissolved into logistics and planning and discussions I couldn’t focus on, and I just stood there trying not to focus on how we’d won the battle but maybe not the war.

***

Later—hours later, after the meetings and planning and political maneuvering—I found myself in our room with all four mates and the relief of being alone with them hit me so hard I actually had to sit down.

"We survived." Riven’s voice was soft. Wondering. "All five of us. Against everything. We survived."

We survived. Yeah. Ninety-three others hadn’t but we had.

The guilt was its own weight pressing on my chest but I tried to push it down because spiraling in front of them seemed counterproductive.

"Hey." Kael’s hand cupped my face. "I can feel you catastrophizing through the bond. Stop."

"Ninety-three people died." The words came out broken. "Because I wasn’t fast enough or strong enough or—"

"Because we were fighting a three-hundred-year-old demon that had consumed enough power to level cities." He cut me off. "You didn’t kill them. The demon did. And you destroyed it. Permanently."

Permanently. Right. The demon was dead and Draven was free and the binding was broken and we’d actually won.

So why did winning feel so much like losing?

"Come here." Thorne’s rough voice came from the bed where he’d sprawled across most of it. "All of you. Now."

We went. Because arguing with Thorne when he used that tone seemed pointless, and within seconds all five of us were tangled together on the bed in ways that probably violated fire safety regulations.

"We’re alive." His hand found my ankle—his favorite grounding spot. "That’s enough. For tonight. Just alive."

Just alive. No prophecies. No demon threats. No alliance politics.

Just the five of us breathing in the same space.

Through the bonds I felt Kael’s certainty mixing with Riven’s patience mixing with Draven’s controlled relief mixing with Thorne’s feral contentment, and maybe Thorne was right.

Maybe tonight being alive was enough.

Tomorrow we’d deal with fracturing alliances and prophecy interpretations and whatever came next.

Tonight we’d just—be.

Except that’s when Morgana’s voice cut through the mind-link, urgent and sharp: "Selene. Conference room. Now. We have a problem."

A problem. Of course we had a problem. Why would we get one night of peace?

"What kind of problem?" I was already moving toward the door.

"Magical signature." Her voice was tense. "Unknown origin. Powerful. And it’s—" She stopped. Started again. "It’s getting closer."

Getting closer. Right. Because one demon wasn’t enough, apparently the universe had decided we needed more threats.

No rest for the wicked. Or the Hybrid Queen. Same thing apparently.