CELINE I almost killed a guy who had almost rap*d me. Everyone in that house had seen what he was like. Everyone had heard the things he said to me. I had warned him, I had reported him, and nobody had believed me.  So when the lamp cracked against the side of his head, I think I was more surprised than he was. (But to understand how I got there, you have to go back to that evening.) Doland was my step brother, Muize's best friend, and for two years he had treated me like something he was owed. It started with comments; like sexy, nice legs..  Then a hand on my waist whenever he squeezed past me in the kitchen. Then a slap on my backside. Then he waited outside the bathroom door until I came out.  Every time, I told him to stop. Every time, he laughed like I'd told a joke. I reported it. Of course I did. I told my mother first, and she sighed, said he was a boy with a crush, and asked me not to make things awkward in her new home.  I told Muize, who said I should be flattered. I told my stepfather once, when he was home long enough to listen. He promised to talk to them.  He did. Doland apologised with a grin, and the next day was worse. So I stopped telling people. I learned the rules of that house instead. Take the back stairs. Eat early. Never stand with my back to a doorway. That Friday, around five, I was coming down for snacks when it happened. A hand smacked my backside so hard I yelped. "Damn!" Doland's voice, delighted. "Your stepsister's got a fat b**tt!" I spun around. He was grinning from two steps down, thumbs hooked in his belt, looking at me like a prize he'd already won. I felt disgusted. "Touch me one more time," I said, very quietly, "and you'll lose an ear." "Come on, Celine. Everyone in this house knows I like you." "I hate you!" I snapped at him. He's a man whore and lacked self control. "Chill." Muize drifted out of the living room, drink in hand, not even pretending to be concerned. "He's just playing." "He put his hand on me." "And you're acting like it's a crime. You should be flattered." He smirked. "Not like anyone else is going to. You don't even have a wolf. Or a mate. Unattractive and proud. It's honestly disgusting." The words hit between my shoulder like a thrown knife. I froze, one hand locked around the railing. Doland was smiling. Muize was waiting for me to cry. I didn't. "I'm going to my room." I muttered. "Run along, then." I walked up slowly. I didn't let them see me shake. I locked my door and slid to the floor with my back against it, and only then did my eyes burn. I had made peace with not having a wolf. That's what I told myself. At eighteen I had waited for the change, and it never came. No wolf, no mate, no explanation from the Moon Goddess. And if I'm honest, the fault was my mother's. After she cheated on my father and married Muize's dad, she stood in front of me with wet eyes and begged.  "Please, Celine. I can't lose you too."  So I stayed. My father let me go without a fight, and neither of us had called the other since. I was paying for that choice every single day. A knock rattled my door around eight. "I'm having people over tonight," Muize said, hair styled, smelling of cologne. "What? Your father said no parties." "He and your mother are out of the city. Perfect opportunity." I stared at him. His last party had ended with broken furniture, two people in hospital, and his father furious for weeks. This time the answer had been a hard, final no. "Muize, you can't-" "Don't forget whose house this is." He leaned on the doorframe, and for a second his eyes did something I couldn't read. "Just stay in your room tonight. Lock the door. Don't come out." He left. I locked the door. I wouldn't let him ruin my night. By ten, the walls were shaking. I called my mother, and it rang out. I called my stepfather, who always answered, and tonight he didn't. My throat felt like sandpaper, and my water bottle was empty. I stood at the door for a full minute with my hand on the lock.  "Don't come out." His words rang in my ear. It was only water. Down the stairs, kitchen, back. Two minutes. I went down. The smell hit first: alcohol, smoke, too many bodies. The living room opened up and I stopped moving. It wasn't a party, it was a flood.  Couples kissing and tangled on every surface, a bra hanging from the chandelier, a girl screaming with laughter as a boy tipped a bottle over her head. I kept my eyes on the floor. Muize stood in the middle of it, an arm slung around a girl, looking like a king. Doland was nowhere in sight. Good. I filled my bottle with shaking hands, ran upstairs, locked my door, and leaned against it until my heart slowed. Water. Bed. Sleep. That was the plan. I lay in the dark, listening to the house shake itself apart, and thought of my stepfather. If he had been home, none of this would be happening. Then I heard it. The door clicked. My lock, turning. My locked door, opening. The hallway light spilled across the floor and was swallowed as the door closed again. I didn't breathe. "Celine?" A whisper. A voice I knew. "Are you asleep?" It was Doland. Muize keeps the spare keys in the kitchen drawer. The thought arrived with sick clarity. I closed my eyes and kept still. If I screamed, nobody would hear me over that music. If I ran, he'd catch me in the dark. So I lay there and told myself he was drunk. That he'd come to apologise. That he'd turn around any second. The bed dipped. "Don't make this hard," he whispered. His breath stank of beer. "Two years you've walked around like you're too good for me." My eyes flew open. His hand clamped over my mouth. He was on top of me, his whole weight pinning me down, his free hand dragging at my nightgown. "Shh. Nobody's coming. Nobody can hear you. You know that, right?" I fought. Goddess, I fought. I twisted, I kicked, I bit his palm until I tasted blood, and he swore and slapped me so hard the room spun. "Stupid bitch." He pinned my wrists over my head with one hand. "You owe me. Every day I've been nice to you. Every day I've waited." Something tore. The strap of my nightgown. The sound that came out of me wasn't a word. It was pure animal terror. He was going to rape me, and nobody was coming. My right hand slipped free. It found the nightstand. The cold neck of the lamp. I didn't think. I just swung. The base cracked against his skull. "Shit!" He rolled sideways off me. I scrambled up and hit him again, harder, and this time it caught him across the ear with a wet crack that split the air. He collapsed on the floor, one hand clamped to the side of his head, blood running between his fingers. "My ear," he gasped. "You cut my ear-" I stood over him, chest heaving, the broken lamp shaking in my hands. "I told you," I said. My voice was dead calm, and I didn't recognise it. "I told you the next time you touched me, you'd lose an ear." "You'll pay for this." His eyes rolled back, and he went still. I didn't wait to see if he was breathing. I grabbed my bag and shoved in my phone, a charger, a jacket, shoes I put on without tying. I stepped over his legs and walked out without looking back. Downstairs, nobody noticed me. Somebody was dancing on the coffee table. Muize was laughing, his back to me. I walked through them like a ghost and out the front door into the night. The cold hit my face, and my knees buckled at the gate. I caught the post, gasping, my fingers shaking so badly I nearly dropped my phone. I scrolled past my mother's name. Past Muize's. Down to a contact I hadn't touched in two years. Father. My thumb hovered. What if he didn't pick up? What if he hated me for choosing her? I pressed the call. It rang once. Twice. Three times. "Elin?" My whole body folded in on itself. That voice. Deep and warm and unchanged. And that name, my pet name, the one only he had ever called me. "Elin, what's wrong? Why are you crying? Did someone hurt you?" "Father," I choked. "I want to leave. I can't stay here anymore. Please-"

CELINE Silence swallowed the line. One second. Two. Three. I stood at the gate with my heart in my throat, bracing for it. You made your choice. "Come home, Elin." Three words, and I fell apart. My knees gave out. I slid down the cold wall with the phone pressed to my ear, sobbing too hard to answer. "Elin. Listen to me." His voice was low and steady, the same voice that used to talk me down from nightmares when I was seven. "Are you safe?" "I left." I wiped my face. "A boy came into my room. I hit him with a lamp. I don't know if he's okay." The line went hard and cold. "Did he touch you?" "He tried." "Then you did exactly what you had to. You are not in trouble with me. Not now, not ever." I pressed my fist to my mouth to keep from sobbing out loud. "I'll send money and the address," he said, softer. "Try to wait until morning before you travel, sweetheart. It's safer." "I'll try." "You won't." I could almost hear him smile. "That's my girl. I'll be waiting." The money came first, more than I'd expected. Then the address, one line. Savage Moon Pack. I stared at it for exactly three seconds, then booked the first flight out. At the airport desk, the woman scanned my ticket, glanced at the screen, and her smile changed. "Savage Moon? First time?" "I'm visiting family. My father." She studied me, and something in her face shifted. It wasn't a suspicion. It was closer to respect. "Then you're expected," she said, and handed back my pass. Expected? Nobody knew I was coming. I decided I was too tired to think about it. On the plane I pressed my forehead to the window and watched the city shrink into scattered lights. No more Muize. No more Doland. No more swallowing insults and calling it survival.  I thought about my mother, and whether she would even ask if I was okay. Probably not. I thought of Muize in my doorway, telling me not to come out, and the strange look in his eyes, as if he'd known. I shoved the thought away and slept. Dawn was breaking when I landed at Savage Moon Pack. The air was cleaner here, heavy with pine and something wilder underneath. I took a breath so deep my ribs ached. I was pulling out my phone when I heard the engine. A car came straight at me, far too fast. It clipped my hip and sent me spinning, and my ankle cracked against the pavement. Pain exploded up my leg like fire. "Are you out of your mind?" I snapped, curled around my foot. "Do you not have eyes-" "Don't move." A man was already crouching in front of me, and every insult died in my throat. He was huge. Dark hair falling over his forehead, a jaw sharp enough to cut glass, and silver eyes, clear and intense as a winter morning, with something warm flickering underneath. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I looked down for one second. There's no excuse." He had just apologised. A man who looked like that, in a car like that, had admitted he was wrong without a single excuse. The anger drained out of me so fast it was embarrassing. He took my ankle in both hands, impossibly gentle for someone his size. His scent reached me, dark wood and rain, and something pulled low in my chest. Faint, but unmistakable. It's the pain, I told myself. "You can't heal?" he asked, frowning. I looked away. Any wolf could shrug off a sprain in minutes. Mine was getting worse, and it told its own embarrassing story. "I'm slow." He studied my face, and for one terrible second I thought he knew everything. About the wolf I didn't have. About the girl who had run. But all he said was, "Then we'll get you to a doctor." "I don't need-" He lifted me before I could finish. I went rigid, every instinct from two years of unwanted hands snapping to alert. But his hold was firm and careful, like he was afraid of hurting me.  I couldn't remember the last time someone had held me like I was worth being careful with. Slowly, I stopped fighting. "You're very bossy for a man who just ran me over," I muttered as he set me in the passenger seat. His mouth twitched. "I know" "Where were you headed?" he asked on the drive. "My father's house. I haven't seen him in two years. I wasn't sure he'd want to see me." He was quiet for a moment. "Fathers usually do," he said gently. "Even when they've been hurt." My throat closed. I didn't answer. Then the iron gates swung open, and I forgot my ankle entirely. The mansion was a palace, all towers and pale stone rising out of the pines, with servants lined along the steps. "Is this where you live?" "It's the pack house. You get used to it." He carried me inside, and the staff stopped moving. "Greetings, Alpha Zithan." I went rigid in his arms. Alpha? He had apologised on the roadside. He had carried me like I was worth protecting. I didn't know what to do with that, so I buried my face against his chest and pretended I hadn't heard. He laid me in a quiet room and left without a word. A doctor came, rubbed cold ointment on my ankle, and went. I grabbed my bag. 'You didn't come here to be rescued by a handsome stranger. You came for your father.' I limped into the corridor, and halfway to the stairs a shoulder crashed into mine. I caught the railing. "Excuse me?" I snapped, spinning around. It was Alpha Zithan. I smiled, because honestly, I was relieved. I owed him a thank-you. "Alpha-" "Are you blind, or something?"  His eyes swept me from head to toe, slowly, as if I were a stain on his floor. I was speechless and just stared. Same face. Same dark hair. Same jaw.  Wait. His eyes. They weren't silver. They were ice blue, cold and flat, as though my standing on those stairs were a personal inconvenience. He turned and walked away. That could not be the same man who had apologised on the roadside and asked in the softest voice whether I could heal. I gripped the railing and stared after him. Either Alpha Zithan had a serious personality disorder, or something far stranger was going on in this house.  What the hell was that attitude?

CELINE I stood at the top of the stairs and stared at the empty corridor where the cold-eyed man had been. Are you blind, or something? Silver on the roadside. Ice blue on the stairs. I had seen both, and I wasn't delirious. Maybe it's contact lenses, I decided.  Rich people wear contact lenses. Colourful ones. It didn't explain the personality, but it was the only theory I had, so I started down. Thank him. Leave. Find your father. "Well. Who do we have here?" I stopped on the last step and turned. He was leaning against a marble pillar, arms crossed, enjoying the view. Same face. Same jaw. But his eyes were light green, bright and mischievous, and his smile was the most unrepentantly flirtatious thing I had ever seen on a human being. "A pretty girl like you wouldn't go unnoticed around here," he said, pushing off the pillar. "How have I not seen you before?" "Alpha Zithan?" I said carefully. "Mm." He tilted his head as if tasting the name. "Is that what you're calling me?" "I came to thank you." I stepped back. "Your eyes were silver this morning. Then blue ten minutes ago, when you shoved me on the stairs and asked if I was blind. Now they're green." For a second he went completely still. Then he laughed, silently at first, then out loud, head thrown back, a sound that echoed up to the chandelier. "Blue? Darling, I've never insulted a pretty woman in my life." "That's an outright lie. Do you have a condition?" "You're the first woman who's asked if I'm ill before asking my name." "I know your name." "Do you?" I opened my mouth, then closed it. He had never once said yes. 'Three moods, three eye colours, one face.' Was that even possible?  Nothing in my life made sense today, and, annoyingly, I felt comfortable around him. Where the silver-eyed man had been still and quiet, this one crackled, like standing next to something about to catch fire. When I turned to leave, his hand caught my wrist, gently, and my free hand landed flat against his chest. His scent hit me, cedar and warm spice, different from the roadside man's, and that pull in my chest tugged like a rope drawn tight. I stepped back fast. "Come with me to the Mating Festival tonight," he said, unbothered. "No. I need to find my-" "Wonderful!" "I said no." "You didn't say it fast enough." He scooped me up before I could blink. "Put me down!" "You'll love it." He started up the stairs like a man on a Sunday stroll, ignoring my fists. "Best festival in the territory. I'll have a dress sent." He dropped me onto a bed in a room with tall windows, pointed at me with that infuriating grin, and backed away. "Be ready by sundown, darling. I will never lose." He was gone before I could throw a pillow. I pulled out my phone, and the notifications arrived like a flood. Thirty missed calls from Muize. Five from my father, with seven messages. I opened Muize's first. 'Pray to the Moon Goddess Doland survives this. Prepare to rot in jail.' 'Where the FUCK are you?' And the last one, sent forty minutes ago: Dad's on his way back. I told him everything.' My stomach dropped. His father, my stepfather, would believe whatever story Muize told him. Doland on the floor, bleeding. Me, standing over him with a lamp. He tried to rape me, I told myself, testing how it sounded. And I'm the one who has to run. I hadn't wanted to seriously hurt him. I had wanted him to understand what a boundary was. But he had unlocked my door. He had put his hand over my mouth. I opened my father's last message, cut off mid-sentence. Elin, where are you? Do not leave the air- The screen went black. Battery dead. "You have got to be kidding me," I whispered. The dress arrived that afternoon, carried by three maids who looked frightened of me. "The Alpha's orders," the eldest murmured. I held up my dead phone. "Does anyone have a charger? I need to call my father." "After the festival, miss. The Alpha's orders come first." It was the closest thing to a threat anyone had made to me all day, and it came with a smile. "Which Alpha?" I asked. "Alpha Zithan?" A very long glance passed between them. "The Alpha, miss." They wrestled me into deep green silk, and the youngest couldn't help herself. "The Alpha has never attended a festival, miss. Tonight is the first time he's agreed to go." "Why now?" "We don't know. But he's never carried a girl up those stairs, and he certainly never ordered a dress. Alpha Rythan-" The eldest pinched her arm. "I mean, the Alpha." Rythan. I filed the name away. "Does he have brothers? There are a lot of men in this house with his face." The pins stopped moving. "Two, miss," the youngest burst out, "they're-" "Lina." The eldest's voice was soft and terrible. "The Alpha will explain tonight." I turned to the mirror, and a stranger looked back. Dark hair over one shoulder. Eyes too wide. A girl who looked, strangely, like she belonged somewhere. 'Don't you dare start hoping.' The great hall glittered. Chandeliers, music, couples laughing in low voices, the air thick with perfume and wanting. An actual, real Mating Festival. 'Unattractive. No wolf. No mate.' Muize's voice again. One hour, I told myself. One drink. Then find your father. I told the bartender, "Whatever's strongest," and drank two shots before he could blink. "Something bigger." "You won't make it home in one piece." He warned. "Good thing I don't have a home." He set down a full bottle. I drank from the neck. "Careful, sweetheart." A girl in a silver dress stood at the end of the bar, looking me over with open contempt. "Wolfless. That's what they say. The new girl smells like nothing at all." Wolfless. A different mouth, the same word. It landed in exactly the same place. "I came for a drink," I said evenly. "I'll be gone in an hour." "Make it ten minutes. The Alpha is coming tonight, and he won't want to see something like you in a borrowed dress." "Enough, Ann," the bartender said quietly. "Leave her." She smiled and walked away.  "That one's been waiting years for the Alpha," he muttered. "Everyone has. She'll-" He stopped. A sharp pull struck the center of my chest, so forceful my knees nearly buckled. I gripped the bar. "Does too much alcohol cause chest burn?" The bartender had gone completely still, staring past me at the entrance with an expression I had never seen on a bartender. Fear. "The Blackthorne triplets," he breathed. The music didn't stop, but the whole room inhaled. The crowd parted. Triplets? I turned. Three men stood at the entrance. Three identical faces. Same height, same dark hair, same shoulders filling the doorway as if they owned the air inside. One pair of eyes is silver. One ice blue. One light green. The floor dropped out from under me. Not moods. Not contact lenses. Not a condition. Three men. All day, I had been arguing with a family. The pull struck again, fierce and bone-deep, from all three of them at once, like three invisible ropes tied around my ribs. Across the hall, the green-eyed one found me through the crowd, and his smile slipped into something that looked almost like wonder. And in perfect unison, all three of them spoke the same single word. "Mate."