Chapter 466:

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I studied him. We had spent too long chasing shadows. Every report we received about the Chimera led to another disappearance. Every trail ended at an abandoned village, a burned settlement, or a dead wolf who had known too little before he died. I had investigated them with Nero before he left. Then he was gone, and Remi was gone, and the palace had become unbearably quiet.

The others believed I was waiting. I wasn’t. I had made my decision the night after they left: if the Chimera refused to come into the light, I would walk into their darkness myself.

I had followed their movements until I discovered one of their scouts near the western border. I didn’t attack him. I let him see me. I let him believe he had found an Alpha wandering too close to something he shouldn’t have known existed. The scout followed me, and I allowed them to believe they had captured me. When they offered me a place among them, I accepted. They believed I had knowledge. They believed I was tired of watching other Alphas gain power while my own territory remained threatened. They believed I was angry enough to turn against my own kind.

They were wrong. I wanted their secrets. And now I had found more than I expected.

“Alpha.”

A sound came from the tent behind us, and moments later an older, shorter wolf emerged from the passage. He was a different physician. He came closer. “You’ve been asking many questions lately.” His eyes narrowed. “You are an Alpha. You should understand that knowledge can be dangerous.”

I smiled. “So can ignorance.”

Be 𝗽𝖺𝗿𝘁 о𝗳 𝘰𝘂r 𝗰o𝗺𝗺u𝘯і𝘁𝗒 𝘰𝗇 𝘨а𝘭𝗇о𝗏𝘦l𝗌.со𝘮

He studied me for a moment. Then he laughed and looked at Mitch. “And your assistant?”

“Mitch notices things.”

Mitch shifted his weight. The physician stepped closer to him. “You remember everything you see, don’t you?”

The physician’s expression changed, and I knew what he was thinking. He wanted to use Mitch.

“He could be useful to you,” I said.

The physician looked at me. “And you would allow that?”

“If it gives me access to more of your work.”

A slow smile spread across his face. “Perhaps we have more in common than I thought.”

I returned the smile. “You might be right.”

The physician’s eyes remained on me for another moment before he stepped away. “Then perhaps you deserve to see something most wolves never will.”

Alpha Manuel POV

“Then perhaps you deserve to see something most wolves never will.”

The physician’s eyes remained on me a moment longer before he stepped away. I kept my expression calm. “What?”

He smiled. “The one who built this place.”

Mitch shifted beside me. I glanced at him briefly before looking back at the physician. “You mean the Chimera.”

The physician’s smile widened. “Yes.”

The name alone seemed to change the air around us. I had heard it whispered by soldiers. I had seen the fear in the eyes of wolves. I had spent days inside this den collecting every piece of information I could find. Yet I had never seen him. That was deliberate. The Chimera did not walk among his soldiers like an ordinary Alpha. He stayed below them, hidden.

“Come,” the physician said. He turned and began walking, and I followed, with Mitch close behind me.

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