You Forced Me to Scrub Toilets, But I’m Your Pack’s True Alpha Queen

POV: Claire

A shrill alarm shattered the quiet of the estate at two in the morning.

I bolted upright in bed, my heart instantly leaping into my throat. Footsteps pounded down the corridor outside my room, followed by the frantic raised voices of the domestic staff and the clatter of medical carts.

Something had happened to Noah.

I threw off the covers, shoved my feet into slippers, and raced into the hallway without grabbing a robe. The lights along the west wing were blazing at full brightness. Two nurses ran past me toward the nursery, their faces pale with panic.

"His temperature is past a hundred and five!" one of them shouted into a walkie-talkie. "The regular antipyretics aren't working. It's an internal blood flare!"

A cold dread gripped my stomach. Wolf blood fever.

It was a dangerous, volatile spike in body temperature that only affected pureblood pups when their latent lineage violently clashed with sickness or emotional distress. If left unchecked, the raging heat could scorch a young pup's nervous system within hours.

I reached the nursery door. The room was total chaos.

The heavy curtains had been ripped open, and the air was stiflingly hot. A heart monitor was beeping with rapid, frantic warnings near the head of the bed. Dr. Evans, the Sterling family’s chief physician, was struggling to hold a syringe while two assistants tried to secure Noah's flailing limbs.

Noah was thrashing on the mattress, his small face flushed bright crimson.

Sweat soaked his unruly brown curls, plastering them to his forehead. His tiny chest heaved as violent shivers wracked his small frame. His little fingernails had lengthened into sharp, translucent claws—an involuntary instinct of a pureblood pup pushed to the brink of survival.

"Hold his shoulders!" Dr. Evans barked, sweat dripping from his chin. "If we don't administer the sedative now, his heart rate is going to breach critical limits!"

"I can't pin him down, Doctor!" a male orderly yelled, grimacing as Noah's claws slashed across the back of his hand, drawing thin lines of blood. "His strength is unbelievable!"

"Get away!" Noah shrieked in a raw, ragged voice that tore straight through my soul. "Don't touch me! Go away!"

He kicked violently, knocking an ice pack and a stainless steel tray to the floor with a loud clang. He was completely out of his mind with pain, his eyes glazed and unfocused, fighting anyone who stepped into his reach.

"Noah, please, sweetheart, calm down!" Jessica cried from near the vanity. She stood several feet back, clutching her silk robe, her hands shaking as she watched the boy thrash. "Nathan, do something! He's going to hurt himself!"

Nathan stood beside the bed, his face like carved granite, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscle ticked under the skin. He reached out to grasp Noah's wrists with firm Alpha authority, trying to steady him.

"Noah, look at me," Nathan commanded, his voice low and strained with tension. "Stop fighting. You need the injection."

The moment Nathan's hand clamped down, Noah screamed louder, twisting his body in pure panic. He snapped his teeth toward his father's arm, his small body convulsing against the sheets.

"No! No!" Noah sobbed, tears cutting hot tracks through the sweat on his flushed cheeks. "Claire! Where is Claire? I want Claire!"

The desperation in his cracked voice pierced through the medical monitors and the frantic orders of the doctors.

"I'm here!" I yelled, pushing past the two nurses at the door.

"Wait! Stay back!" Dr. Evans warned, waving his arm. "He is in an uncontrolled frenzy. He could severely injure you!"

I ignored the doctor entirely. I didn't care about the claws or the danger. The biological bond pulling at my chest was screaming, urging me forward with an intensity that drowned out every ounce of caution.

I rushed directly to the bedside.

"Noah, look at me," I said, dropping to my knees beside the mattress.

The boy heard my voice. His frantic thrashing stopped for a split second, his glazed eyes rolling toward me through the haze of fever.

"Claire..." he gasped, his tiny chest heaving.

Without a second thought, I slid my arms beneath his scorching little body and lifted him off the soaked sheets. I pulled him firmly against my chest, wrapping my arms around his trembling shoulders and tucking his head under my chin.

The heat coming from his skin was staggering, burning hot enough to seep through my thin nightshirt.

"Claire, let the doctors handle him," Nathan said, taking a step toward us, his hand hovering near my shoulder. "You're going to get hurt."

"Back away," I snapped, looking up at Nathan with fierce, unyielding protectiveness. "All of you, back away right now! You're crowding him and suffocating him!"

Nathan paused, his dark eyes widening slightly at the raw defiance in my voice. No one ever spoke to him like that, but in this moment, the Alpha in front of me was secondary. Only my son mattered.

I turned all my attention back to the burning boy in my arms.

I closed my eyes and let my inner wolf release its soothing aura, projecting a wave of cool, calming energy into the tight space between us. The natural scent of crushed winter mint and crisp mountain rain rose softly from my skin, blanketing Noah in pure, maternal safety.

"I've got you, sweetheart," I whispered into his damp hair, rocking him with steady rhythm. "You're safe now. Take a deep breath for me. Let the fire go."

Noah's small hands gripped the fabric of my shirt, twisting it into tight knots. His trembling fingers dug in, his claws retracting against my skin as the tension drained out of his stiff limbs.

He buried his face into the hollow of my neck, breathing in my scent like a starving child finally given water.

The rapid beeping of the heart monitor began to slow.

One beat at a time, the chaotic tempo leveled out. The crimson flush on Noah's cheeks faded into a soft pink, and the violent tremors that had wracked his body eased into gentle, exhausted shudders.

Dr. Evans stared at the monitor screen in stunned silence, his mouth slightly open. "His core temperature... it's dropping. It's coming down on its own."

The nurses looked at each other in total disbelief.

I tightened my embrace around Noah, resting my cheek against his soft, sweaty curls. My own tears slipped down my face, dripping into his hair as my heart ached with fierce, overwhelming love.

Noah let out a long, heavy breath against my collarbone. His small body went completely slack with exhaustion, resting his entire weight against me.

Then, right as he drifted from fevered agony into deep, peaceful sleep, his tiny lips moved against my skin.

"Mama..." he whispered, his voice faint but unmistakably clear in the quiet room. "Mama..."

The word hung in the air like a thunderclap.

My heart stopped beating.

I froze, tears spilling freely down my cheeks as I pressed my face into his hair, holding him so tightly I could feel the steady, calm rhythm of his pulse against mine. He had never said that word in three years. Not once.

Across the room, the silence was deafening.

Nathan stood frozen by the edge of the bed.

The color had completely drained from his sharp face. His dark eyes were locked on Noah's sleeping figure resting peacefully in my arms, then snapped up to my tear-streaked face with terrifying intensity.

A dark, turbulent storm raged in his gaze.

The raw, primal aura radiating from Nathan flared violently, thick with a deep, suffocating shock that filled the entire room. His son hadn't spoken that sacred word since the woman he knew as his mother passed away three years ago—yet Noah had just spoken it to a governess who had arrived barely two days ago.

Nathan stepped forward, his eyes boring into mine like daggers, burning with an intense, unyielding suspicion that threatened to tear my secret wide open.

"Claire," Nathan said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly rasp that made the medical staff freeze in place. "Who are you really?"