Fated to Three Alpha Brothers

NEIGHBORHOOD CREEP

SUMMER

"You'd be known there as one of ours, so no one would bother you."

I instantly froze when I heard those words.

I wrapped both hands around my coffee cup and looked down. The idea of a new school, a new hallway, a new cafeteria to navigate — it should have been daunting. But then I thought about Crescent Ridge High, about the way every room in that building had a memory attached to it that I'd rather not carry anymore.

Which means I won’t have to see Finn Hale or Cara Holt again…

“I think that’s a great idea, isn’t it, boys?” Elara beamed, but the boys didn’t seem to share the sentiment.

Logan looked up slightly from his book, he saw me and looked almost uncomfortable. Maddox was playing with his harmonica again and Rhett didn’t even look up from his sketchbook.

It almost felt like they didn’t want me near them… Maybe I’m too much of a bother?

“So that’s settled then?” Alpha Darren asked.

"I'll think about it," I said, which was more honest than yes but less closed than no.

"Logan's a senior at Hearthstone Prep," Elara offered, with the tone of someone providing useful context. "Maddox is a junior. And Rhett is a sophomore."

I glanced down the table. Maddox had the harmonica back between his fingers, spinning it idly. He caught me looking and grinned.

"Hey, Hearthstone Prep is not that bad," he said. "The teachers are fine, the food is decent, and the library has a fireplace. Very important criterion."

"Maddox did not discover the library until last year," Logan said, without looking up from his book.

"That's not true. I walked through it several times before that."

"On the way to somewhere else."

"Orientation still counts."

I found myself almost smiling. The easy back-and-forth between them had the quality of something long-practiced, the fluency of brothers who have been arguing the same way since childhood.

Logan turned another page.

"We were thinking," Elara said, setting down her tea, "that the boys could show you around today. The neighborhood, the territory. You should know where you are before Monday."

A small silence.

Logan looked up from his book for the first time. His dark eyes moved from his mother to me and then back, and his expression did the closed, controlled thing I was beginning to recognize as his default setting when something was being asked of him that he hadn't agreed to yet.

"I have training," he said. "I can't."

"Logan —"

"I'm behind on conditioning." He said it without heat, without apology — just a fact laid flat on the table. He closed his book, stood, and picked up his coffee cup. "Excuse me."

He left. The room absorbed it the way rooms do when the same thing has happened many times before.

Elara pressed her lips together for just a moment. Then she turned to Rhett.

Rhett was still working at his sketchbook. He hadn't stopped drawing. If he'd heard any of it, he didn't show it.

The silence stretched.

"I can take her," Maddox said finally, with the easy confidence of someone used to stepping into gaps. He leaned back in his chair and looked at me. "I know where everything is. Mostly. The important parts, anyway."

"That's — you don't have to," I said quickly. "Really. I was actually thinking I should probably go home and pick up some of my things. Back at —" I stopped. Back at Crescent Ridge. "Back at my old house."

"On your own?" Elara's voice sharpened slightly.

"I'll be fine. I know the way, and it's daytime. Finn won't —" I caught myself. "It's fine. I just need to get a few things."

Elara looked at her husband. He set his coffee down entirely.

"Take the car," Darren said. "And Marcus — he can drive you."

"I don't want to put anyone out." The words came out before I could arrange them more gracefully. "I don't — I'm used to doing things on my own. I don't need —"

"Summer." Darren's voice was quiet but it had the particular weight that Alpha voices carried, not commanding, but settling. Like something being placed carefully in your hands. "You are not a burden. You are a guest in this house, and we would like to keep you safe."

I looked at my coffee.

"Could I," I started, then tried again. "Could I maybe just borrow a bicycle? There's a market I usually go to, and the pharmacy, and I need to stop at the house for some things. It's not far. I'd rather just — I think I need a little air. To think. If that makes sense."

Another look exchanged between Darren and Elara — that wordless fluency of people who have been making decisions together for decades.

"The paths are safe in daylight," Darren said finally. "You'd stay on Hearthstone territory?"

"As much as I can."

"There are bikes in the shed around the side of the estate," Elara said. She reached across the table and pressed something into my palm — a card, matte black, with no name on it. "And take this. New phone, anything you need. I heard you lost yours last night."

I looked at the card. My throat tightened in the particular way it did when something kind happened unexpectedly.

"I can't —"

"You can," Darren said simply. "Consider it a welcome gift."

I didn't argue again. I was learning when the Voss family had made up their minds.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Twenty minutes later I was standing in the side garden, a lightweight tote bag over one shoulder, trying to remember how long it had been since I'd ridden a bike.

The shed was well-kept, which didn't surprise me anymore. Everything on this property was well-kept, in the unshowy way of a household that simply maintained things because that's what you did. There were three bikes inside — two that looked well-used and one that was clearly Elara's, with a basket on the front. I took one of the used ones, a dark green thing that was sensible rather than pretty, and wheeled it out into the morning sun.

The sun was fully up now, warm on my face, and the garden was alive in a way it hadn't been visible in the dark last night. I could see the labyrinth from this angle, the hedges casting long shadow-lines across the grass, and somewhere inside it I could hear a fountain.

I was about to mount the bike when I heard it.

The rhythmic thud of something repeated and controlled — impact, then silence, then impact again. I turned toward the sound.

On the far side of the garden, where the stone terrace gave way to an open training area half-hidden by a low wall, Logan Voss was working out.

He was shirtless.

I registered this the way you register a fact before you've decided what to do about it — simply, flatly, with no editorial commentary from the rest of your brain. He was shirtless, and it was early, and the morning light was doing something entirely unfair across the planes of his back and shoulders as he moved through whatever he was doing. Not weights — something more like forms, deliberate and practiced, striking a heavy bag with a focused ferocity that made the whole structure shudder on its chain.

He moved like he meant it. Like every motion had been chosen, stripped of everything excess, and kept only because it was useful.

He was muscular, with broad shoulders, and there were scars and bruises all over his body. Beads of sweat were falling down his handsome face, down to his chest and body, even down his perfectly sculpted abs and down the V that leads too…

Ehem. I swallowed hard.

I stood there for slightly longer than was reasonable.

Then he stopped.

He turned — reaching for a water bottle on the low wall — and looked up, and our eyes met across the garden.

Shoot! He saw me gawking!

I should do something or say something clever to not seem like a total creep, but my brain flatlined. The heat that went through my face was immediate and absolute. And instead of being clever, I jerked my gaze away, looked at the handlebar, then looked at the ground, as if I found something extremely important to study about the gravel path.

Oh, moon goddess. Kill me now.

Quickly, I swung one leg over the bike with what I hoped was the energy of a person who had not just been staring, and pushed off down the path toward the estate gate without looking back.

The morning air was cool on my hot cheeks.

Behind me, I was fairly certain I heard nothing — no voice, no reaction, no acknowledgment at all. Which was, I told myself, firmly, as I turned onto the road beyond the gate, entirely fine.

Entirely, completely fine.

I stood on the pedals and rode faster, and tried very hard not to think about the particular quality of Logan Voss's silence, which somehow managed to take up more space than most people's words.

- - - To be continued - - -