Fated to Three Alpha Brothers

FALLEN PRINCESS

SUMMER

The old house looked smaller than I remembered.

That happened sometimes, when you left a place for even a short time. You came back expecting it to be the same and found instead that the space had contracted, like something had let the air out of it while you were gone. The front path was uneven, the paint on the window frames was peeling in the way I'd always told myself I'd fix someday, and the garden my mother had kept was mostly weeds now, quiet and unaccusing about it.

I leaned the bike against the front fence and stood there for a moment, tote bag on my shoulder.

This is fine, I told myself. It's just a house. Go in, get your things, come back.

I'd gotten a new phone at the shop in town first. A simple one, nothing fancy, though Darren's card could have bought me something considerably fancier. On the walk back to where I'd locked the bike, I'd sent Maya a text from the new number.

It's Summer. New phone. I'm okay. I know you must be worried. I'm sorry I didn't find you before I left last night. Something happened, but I'm safe. I'm going to be transferring schools starting Monday. Hearthstone Prep. Please don't tell anyone where I am. I'll explain more later. xx

Her reply had come in under a minute.

OH MY GOD. Summer. I have been losing my MIND. Are you actually okay? What happened after you left?? Is it connected to the Hearthstone letter?? I have SO many questions. Please be safe. I won't say anything. Text me when you can. Love you.

I'd stared at that last part for a moment. Love you. So simply said. I'd typed back love you too and meant it, and then put the phone in my bag before I could spiral about the fact that Maya was probably the only person in Crescent Ridge who was going to notice I was gone.

The front door was unlocked. It always was, because there was nothing inside worth stealing. I pushed it open and went in.

The house smelled like itself. That was the thing about places where you'd lived alone for a long time — they started to smell just like you, a quiet closed-circle of familiar that was both comforting and a little lonely.

I didn't have much. That was the thing I hadn't fully appreciated until I started packing, how little I'd accumulated in four years. A box for clothes, which took less time than expected. A box for books, which took longer, because I'd check each one for the pressed flowers and folded notes I'd used as bookmarks, accumulating them the way people accumulate lives. The kitchen things I'd brought from home — a mug with a chip on the rim, a wooden spoon my mother had kept in the crock on the counter since I was small.

I carried the first two boxes out to the front path and went back inside for the last sweep.

I almost missed it.

I'd already turned toward the door when something caught the corner of my eye, a glint up high, at the top of the bookshelf where the shelving met the ceiling cornice. I turned back.

The picture frame. My mother and father, in a photo from before I was born. Both of them were young, my father's arm around her shoulders, my mother laughing at something off-camera, the light on them the gold of late summer afternoon. I'd put it up there four years ago, high enough to be almost invisible, high enough that I wouldn't have to look at it every day but couldn't bring myself to pack it away.

I'd forgotten it was there.

I looked at the shelf. Tall, built-in, with solid horizontal planks spaced wide enough to function as crude steps. The chair I'd normally use was buried under folded linens in the kitchen.

I grabbed the second shelf, tested my weight on the first, and climbed.

It was fine, initially. Solid, evenly spaced. I made it to the third shelf and reached up, but I'm not quite far enough. Just a few more inches. I shifted my foot to the fourth shelf and stretched.

My fingers closed around the frame.

The shelf gave way.

A small, sickening shift under my left foot, the wood grinding against its bracket — then the bracket let go, the shelf dropped, and I dropped with it, the frame clutched to my chest, the ground rushing up fast —

“Ahh!”

I didn't hit it. I thought my back would hit solid ground, but no.

Two arms caught me. Solid, immediate. One across my back, one under my knees, lifting me clean before I'd finished processing that the falling was over.

Uh oh. Who could this be?!

I had my eyes shut. I opened them.

Maddox Voss was grinning down at me.

"Well," he said pleasantly, "this is a dramatic way to say hello, but I guess that’s your style lately."

I was relieved, but I couldn’t move. I just stared at him. He was still grinning, completely unbothered by the fact that he was holding a person he'd just plucked out of the air, his gray hazel eyes lit with the particular delight of someone who has stumbled into a good story.

And there was something about his eyes… the way they shined, it was captivating. He was handsome, in a different than Logan was. Logan had this aura that was menacing and even scary. Maddox didn’t have that. There was danger in his eyes, sure, but also something that could feel… fun?

"Y-you can put me down now," I stammer. My cheeks turning red for no reason.

"I just saved your life. Let me have this for a second."

"Maddox." My cheeks turning even redder.

"Three seconds. Two. One." He set me on my feet, neat and unhurried, and stepped back with a small, satisfied bow. "You're welcome, by the way."

"I didn't say thank you yet."

"No, but you were going to. I could tell. You had the face."

"I don't have a face."

"Everyone has a face." He looked at the collapsed shelf on the floor, at the bracket dangling from the wall, then back at me with an expression of cheerful bewilderment. "What were you doing up there?"

I looked down at the frame in my hands. My parents, still laughing, still gold-lit, still caught in a moment that had happened long before I existed.

"Getting this," I said.

Maddox looked at the photo. Something in his expression shifted. Not dramatically, just a small softening at the edges, the grin settling into something quieter. "Your parents?"

"Yeah."

He nodded, once, and didn't push further. Instead he looked around the room at the boxes by the door, the stripped shelves, the anonymous furniture that had never really been mine.

"Is this everything?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "That's everything."

He picked up the two boxes without being asked, one under each arm, and headed for the door. I followed with the third box and the picture frame tucked carefully against my chest.

"Your mother sent you, didn't she," I said, to the back of his head.

"She suggested it," he said. "I volunteered."

"There's a difference?"

"Significant difference. I'm the one who wanted to come." He angled sideways through the doorframe with both boxes and set them on the front path. "Logan could have brought you his muscles and Rhett could have brought, well, himself. But I, I bring personality." He spread his hands. "You're welcome. Again."

Despite everything, I laughed. A small sound, surprised out of me. Maddox looked extremely pleased with himself.

“What?” I asked when I noticed him staring at me.

“Nothing. You’re really pretty when you laugh.” He said ever so casually, and my cheeks turned hot again.

He seemed amused by my reaction. A half smile tugged on his lips as he took out his phone, sent a brief text, and a dark car appeared at the end of the road within minutes. A quiet, steady man loaded the boxes into the boot while Maddox held the bike and I stood with my frame and tried to work out how I felt about none of this being my own doing.

"I can still ride back," I said.

"You could," Maddox agreed. "Or you could ride in the car like a person and talk to me, which would be significantly more fun." He tilted his head. "I have good chat. Ask anyone."

I looked at the bike. I looked at the car. I looked at Maddox, who was watching me with the patient good humor of someone who had already decided how this was going to go and was simply waiting for me to arrive at the same conclusion.

"Fine," I said. "But only because the boxes wouldn't fit on the bike."

"Obviously," he said. "Purely logistical."

He then coolly moved to the passenger door and opened it, lending his hand out to me.

“After you, princess.”

A beat. My heart just skipped at the word.

But quickly, I looked down and took his hand before he noticed anything.

- - - To be continued - - -