Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 264 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 264

Chapter 264 Transfer Protocol

Lady Flourish POV

The tremor beneath the floor came again, hard enough to rattle the broken windows.

I looked toward the doorway where the attacker had disappeared, then back at the terminal. The words on the screen were still there.

“FIRST ALPHA BLOODLINE – TRANSFER PROTOCOL: INITIATED.”

“What does confirmed mean?” I asked.

Rhys was already moving between the fallen chairs and the terminal, checking the system while two guards dragged one of the unconscious attackers away from the center of the room. “I’m trying to find out.”

“I wasn’t asking you.”

My attention went to Elara. She was still near the doorway, her hands no longer pressed against the frame. They were shaking.

“What does confirmed mean?”

She looked at the screen, then at me. For several seconds, she said nothing.

“Elara.”

“The device,” she said quietly. “The one on his collar.”

I glanced toward the broken doorway. “What about it?”

“It wasn’t built to take anything from you.”

Harold stepped closer. Blood ran from the cut on his forearm, down past his wrist, but he seemed unaware of it. “Then what was it built for?”

Elara swallowed. “To verify a blood signature.”

The room went quiet.

I stared at her. “Verify mine?”

She nodded.

“Why?”

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Finished

“Because they needed proof.”

“Proof of what?”

“That you were who they believed you were.”

My fingers tightened around the phone still in my hand. “You knew this could happen.”

“I knew the devices existed.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“I didn’t know they would come here.”

Harold’s voice rose from behind me. “How many more confirmation attempts are we expecting?”

Elara turned toward him.

“I don’t know.”

His laugh was short and angry. “You don’t know?”

“No.”

“You’ve spent years hiding information from us, and now people are breaking into Stonehedge with blood-bound equipment while our systems are being attacked, and you don’t know how many more are coming?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated, louder this time. “If I knew, I would have told you.”

Harold opened his mouth, but Rhys cut across them.

“Wait.”

He had stopped beside the terminal.

“What?” I asked.

“I isolated part of the intrusion.”

I moved toward him. Harold followed, while Elara stayed where she was.

Rhys pulled up several windows on the screen. Lines of unfamiliar code moved across them, mixed with Stonehedge security logs. “This isn’t just someone trying to break into the server. They’re copying specific sections and checking them against another system.”

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Chapter 264 Transfer Protocol

“F-Tech?” I asked.

He nodded.

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“Can you confirm it?”

“I already did.”

He brought up a second screen. F-Tech’s security feed appeared beside the Stonehedge logs. The timestamps matched almost perfectly.

“The same operator,” Rhys said. “Same sequence. Same entry points. They started both breaches within seconds of each other.”

My stomach tightened.

Cheryl had called me during the attack. I had heard the fear in her voice and known immediately that whatever was happening here wasn’t staying inside Stonehedge. Now there was proof.

“Can they still get into F-Tech?”

“I don’t think so. Cheryl’s team locked down the affected servers, and I’ve cut the remaining connection from this side.”

“Good.”

Rhys zoomed in on one section of the code. “There’s something else.”

“What?”

“They weren’t searching randomly. They went after your records first.”

Harold looked at me.

I looked at the screen.

“Which records?”

“Your bloodline profile, from the files F-Tech keeps for your medical and genetic security checks.”

Elara closed her eyes.

I noticed.

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Chapter 264 Transfer Protocol

“You knew,” I said.

She opened them again. “I knew they might look for records that could identify you.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I wasn’t sure they had access.”

“That excuse is getting old.”

She looked away.

“Can you identify the operator?” Harold asked.

Finished

Rhys shook his head. “Not yet. Whoever built this buried their identity under several layers of encryption, but the structure is the same on both systems. They knew exactly where our defenses were weakest.”

I looked at Elara again. “And you still don’t know who they are?”

Her eyes met mine. “I know the kind of people who would look for that bloodline.”

“That isn’t enough.”

“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”

A guard approached Harold, wiping blood from his mouth. “Alpha, the warriors have secured the chamber entrances, but the eastern corridor is still showing movement.”

Harold’s jaw tightened. “Keep everyone above ground until Rhys confirms the route.”

The guard nodded and hurried away.

Before I could say anything else, Magnus spoke.

“The tunnels.”

Everyone turned toward him.

He had been standing near the council table with two guards beside him.

There was blood on his sleeve and dust across his clothes, and for the first time since I had known him, he looked older than he usually allowed himself to appear.

“What about them?” Harold asked.

Magnus took a breath.

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Finished

“The tunnels beneath Stonehedge were built generations ago.”

I stared at him.

“For what?”

He hesitated.

“Tell them,” Harold said.

Magnus looked around the damaged chamber before answering. “They were built to study the First Alpha bloodline.”

Nobody spoke.

He continued, “And to contain it.”

My wolf lifted her head sharply.

“Contain?” I repeated.

Magnus nodded.

“The old families believed the bloodline could become dangerous if it was exposed or used by the wrong people.

They built the tunnels beneath the estate to monitor it, protect records connected to it, and keep certain things away from the surface.”

“You knew about this?” I asked.

“I knew the tunnels existed.”

“That isn’t the same answer.”

“I didn’t know how much of the old system was still active.”

Harold stepped toward him. “You never thought this was worth mentioning?”

Magnus’s face tightened. “Until tonight, there was no reason to believe anyone had found the old network.”

Rhys suddenly looked up from the terminal.

“Actually, there is.”

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Chapter 264 Transfer Protocol

“What?” I asked.

His fingers moved quickly over the keyboard.

“The attackers who ran didn’t leave the estate.”

Harold turned sharply. “You tracked them?”

“Partly.”

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Finished

Rhys brought up the estate map. Several security markers blinked around the council chamber, then disappeared below the floor.

“They’re underneath us.”

A second tremor moved through the room.

It wasn’t as strong as the first, but I felt it clearly through my feet. Dust fell from the damaged ceiling.

“Where exactly?” Harold asked.

Rhys enlarged the map.

“They’re moving deeper underground.”

The room fell silent again.

My eyes went to the cracked floor.

The attackers had come looking for confirmation that I was the person they believed I was. Now they had it.

And whatever they had gone underground to find, they had not finished looking.

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I Refuse To Be Your Luna