The Alphas Triplets

The Dress and the Dream

I couldn’t sleep that night.

The dress hung in my closet like a secret, it’s violet shimmer catching the moonlight every time I moved. It felt alive, humming softly whenever I looked at it - like it already knew it belonged to me.

Everyone else had gone to bed hours ago. The house was finally quiet: no clinking dishes from the kitchen, no muffled arguing from my siblings rooms. Just the low hum of the night wind through the trees and the rhythmic ticking of the old clock in the hall.

I sat on my bed, staring at my hands. The cut was gone, but the phantom pain hadn’t left. It pulsed in time with my heartbeat. Each throb felt like a whisper under my skin, a reminder that something was changing.

When I finally lay down, exhaustion took me quickly. But the darkness that greeted me wasn’t sleep - it was deeper, older.

I stood in the forest behind our pack house. Only it wasn’t really the forest I knew. The trees were taller, impossibly tall, their branches woven together into a black canopy that swallowed the stars. The moon above was full, larger than I’d ever seen, burning with soft violet glow that painted the world in shades of silver and shadow.

Mist swirled around my feet. Cool and alive. Somewhere ahead, a voice whispered my name.

“Jennie…”

I turned, but no one was there.

“Who’s there?” My voice sounded small, fragile against the vastness of the woods.

“Come,” the voice said again. It wasn’t one voice but many - like wind through hollow bones, a chorus of ancient spirits.

My pulse quickened, but my feet moved on their own. Each step drew me deeper until the mist thinned and the forest opened into a clearing bathed in moonlight.

At its center stop a woman.

She wasn’t flesh and blood. She was light made shape, her form woven from the moon itself. Silver hair drifted around her like a veil of smoke, and her eyes glowed the color of amethyst. Power rolled from her in waves, ancient and beautiful and terrible.

I dropped to my knees without meaning to. She smiled, and the world brightened.

“Rise, child,” she said, her voice both soft and commanding. “You kneel before no one.”

I stood, trembling. “Who are you?”

“I am the beginning,” she said. “The Mother of Wolves. The one your kind calls the Moon Goddess.”

My breath caught. I had grown up hearing her name in prayers and blessings, but she was myth - story - symbol.

“You’re not real,” I whispered.

Her smile deepened, sad and knowing. You say that because you still live half asleep. But your blood remembers me.”

Light touched my skin. The cut on my palm flared briefly, glowing silver before fading.

“I healed because of you?” I asked.

“Because of what you are,” she said. “Your blood carries my mark. You were born beneath a rear star - the one that burns even in darkness. You your brother, and your sister were bound to it when you first drew breath.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

“You will,” she said simply. “The night of your eighteenth birthday, the moon will rise blood - red. That is when you will shift for the first time and when fate will set itself in motion.”

“Fate?” I asked. “What fate?”

She looked past me, into the darkness between the trees. Her expression changed - sadness, perhaps fear.

“There is a shadow moving through the packs,” she said. “Old hatred wearing a new face. It will come for you, as it has for those before you.”

I felt a chill crawl up my spine. “How do I stop it?”

Her eyes met mine, and for a heartbeat the world stilled.

“By becoming what you were born to be - the Royal Star Luna.”

The title echoed inside me like thunder. I wanted to speak, to ask what it meant, but light exploded around us. The ground shook; the moon split into shards of silver light.

The Goddess’s hand brushed my cheek. “Do not fear your power, Jennie. Fear the day you try to hide it.”

Then everything shattered.

I woke gasping, drenched in sweat. The clock read three a.m. The air was heavy with the scent of rain though the windows were closed. Outside, thunder rolled softly across the mountains.

My hand burned. When I looked down, a faint silver crescent moon shimmered on my palm - there for only a heartbeat before fading.

It wasn’t just a dream.

Emma stirred inside me, her voice clearer then ever.

She came to you.

“You saw her to?” I whispered.

I felt her light. She has claimed us.

The room felt too small, too human. I pushed open the window, letting the cold air rush in. Somewhere far off, wolves howled - a call and an answer. The sound sank into me, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to answer back.

The moon hung low, veiled in storm clouds, but I could still see her - pale and watchful. And I knew, with certainty that shook me, that my life was no longer my own.

The morning came too soon.

When I opened my eyes, the sunlight slicing through my curtains felt sharper than it should have - almost like it cut. The world was louder too: the distant hum of the pack’s training field, the faint crackle of bacon in the kitchen, the heartbeat of someone walking down the hall.

I sat up slowly, my head heavy, my body humming with something I couldn’t name.

The dream - no, the meeting - still lingered, pressed into the back of my mind like a bruise. I could still hear her voice: Fear the day you try to hide it.

I looked down at my hands again. The crescent mark was gone, but my skin shimmered faintly where it had been, as if silver had soaked into my blood.

Emma’s voice came softly, almost tender this time.

You’re changing. Your senses, your strength. The Goddess woke what was already there.

“I don’t feel strong,” I whispered. “I feel… wrong.”

No, Emma said. You feel alive for the first time.

Downstairs, the scent of breakfast hit me like a wave - sweet, savory, and too much. My stomach twisted between hunger and nausea.

The kitchen was chaos, as usual. My mother orchestrated everything like a commander preparing for battle, while James and Lilly argued over who was supposed to set the table.

“Good morning, my loving children!” my father’s voice boomed as he walked in, grinning as if last night’s tension never happened. “Eat up. You’ll need your strength for the party tomorrow.”

He kissed my mother’s cheek, and for a moment I saw them not as Alpha and Luna, but as two people who still loved each other through every storm. It made me ache in a way I didn’t understand.

I slid into my seat. My siblings were already digging in. French toast, eggs, fresh fruit - it all looked beautiful. I picked up a slice of toast, but the moment I bit into it, the sweetness hit too hard.

“Jennie, eat,” my mother said within looking up. “You need energy.”

“I’m not hungry, I murmured.

Lilly shot me a look. “That’s a first.”

I almost smiled, but Emma’s voice whispered through me again.

You crave something else now. Not human food. Not yet. When you shift, you’ll understand.

I pushed the plate away and drank some orange juice instead. It tasted like sunlight and metal.

After breakfast, my mother called me into her office to go over the final party details. I followed, my body restless, the house feeling too bright, too loud.

“Sit,” she said, pointing to the chair across from her desk. “We have a lot to cover.”

I tried to focus as she talked about guests and ceremony rites, but her words blurred together. My pulse beat in my ears - slow, steady, heavy. My senses were spinning.

“Jennie? Are you even listening?”

“I - yeah, sorry. Just… distracted.”

She frowned, studying me the way only a Luna could. “You look pale. Are you feeling alright?”

“Just tired.”

It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. I felt too awake - as if every nerve was wired to lightning.

Her gaze softened. “Tomorrow is a big day sweetheart. It’s normal to be nervous.”

“Mom,” I said quietly, “have you ever… seen the Goddess?”

That made her pause. “Why would you ask that?”

“I dreamed of her. She spoke to me.”

Her fingers tightened around the papers she was holding. For a long moment, she didn’t answer. Then she set them down and came to kneel beside me.

“The Goddess doesn’t appear to just anyone, Jennie. Only those she’s chosen. What did she say?”

“That I was born under a rear star. That … something’s coming. Something dark.”

Her face went still, but her eyes betrayed her fear. “Your grandmother once said the same thing to me - that the bloodline of the Red Moon carried something ancient. I didn’t want to believe her.”

“Why not?”

“Because every prophecy comes with a price.”

The words hung between us like smoke.

Before I could ask more, a knock sounded at the door. Marcus stepped in, his expression unreadable. “Luna Mika, Alpha Michael requests your presence. There’s an issue with the northern patrols.”

“Rogues?” She asked sharply.

“Unconfirmed,” he said. “But something’s moving near the borders.”

Her eyes flicked to me, worry shadowing her expression. “Stay inside today. No training, no wandering.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She touched my cheek - gentle but firm - then followed Marcus out. The door shut, leaving me alone with the sound of my own heartbeat.

The silence didn’t last long.

A soft knock came again, lighter this time. Lilly’s voice. “Jennie? Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

She slipped through the door, her golden curls tired back messily,a streak of flour on her cheek. “Mom sent me to check on you. You look… weird.”

“Thanks.”

She grinned. “Not bad weird. Just … intense. Your eyes look darker than usual.”

I glanced at the mirror on the wall. She was right. My irises, usually a deep brown, shimmered faintly - silver at the edges.

“Must be the lighting,” I said quickly.

Lilly leaned against the seat, studying me.

“You’ve been quite since yesterday. What’s going on?”

I hesitate. I wanted to tell her everything- the healing, the dream, the Goddess - but something held me back. Some instinct whispered that it wasn’t time yet.

“Just nervous,”I said.

She shrugged, not buying it but letting it go. “You’ll be fine tomorrow. You always freak out before big things and then crush them. Remember when you thought you’d fail your combat test?”

I smiled faintly. “You mean the one I passed while you tripped and nearly took out the instructor?”

She laughed, throwing a paper ball at me. For a moment, everything felt normal again.

But when she left, the air in the room changed.

The shadows under the furniture deepened, the sunlight dimmed. My skin prickled.

Emma’s voice came, sharp and alert.

He’s watching again.

My breath caught. “Who?”

The one who betrayed you. His scent lingers on the wind.

“Carter?”

Yes. But not close. Not yet.

I moved to the window. The forest beyond our property looked peaceful - sunlight cutting through pine, the river flashing between the trees. But beneath that beauty, I felt it: a pulse, dark and waiting.

“I thought father banished him from the grounds.”

Evil doesn’t need permission to linger.

A chill traced down my spine.

By sunset, the feeling still hadn’t left. I stood outside on the balcony, the evening breeze tugging at my hair. The horizon burned with violet and gold, and for a brief moment, the work looked calm again.

Then the moon rose - not silver this time, but pale lavender, the same color as the Goddess’s eyes.

Emma sighed softly inside me. The Goddess watches. Tomorrow, everything changes.

I leaned on the railing, staring at the sky. The memory of her words echoed like a heartbeat in the night.

Fear the day you try to hide it.

I didn’t know what the next night would bring, but I knew this: the girl who’d cut her hand on a carving knife was gone.

Something new had taken her place - something born of blood, moonlight, and prophecy.

And she was only just beginning to wake.