Fated to Three Alpha Brothers

CROSSING THE LINE

SUMMER

Finn reached out to touch my hair again, toying through them with his fingers. His gaze lowered from my face down to my chest. The air is growing thick around me and I almost can’t breathe.

“Finn, please,” I tried to push him back. “Don’t do this,”

Finn didn’t move an inch. He was too strong. He only smiled smugly as he towered over me, exerting his dominance.

“How dare you pushed me away?” He glared, sending shivers down my spine.

“A wolfless nobody like you, you should be so grateful that I’m still considering you my property!” His other hand then gripped my waist, his knee moving up to spread my thighs behind my dress.

“So just be a good girl and take it, alright?!”

Something snapped into focus inside me — not a wolf, I had no wolf, but something older and simpler and entirely mine, some bedrock thing my father had left me along with all the other small inheritances.

When someone makes themselves big to scare you, make yourself inconvenient.

I brought my knee up hard and fast.

The sound Finn made was not dignified. He doubled forward, hands going to his midsection, and in the half-second it took him to process what had happened, I was already moving — past him, toward the exit at the end of the hall, not the gymnasium, not back toward the music and the people who wouldn't help anyway.

The door at the end of the hallway opened onto the parking lot.

The parking lot opened onto the field.

The field ended at the tree line.

I ran like I never ran before. But no matter how far or how fast I went, I could still hear the sound of his footsteps behind me.

“Come back here, you b***h!”

Finn came out of the building behind me and he was fast — faster than me, because he was a wolf and I was not and that gap had always been the realest wall between us. I heard him hit the grass, heard the ground change under his footsteps as he found his stride, and I pushed harder even knowing I couldn't outrun him, even knowing my legs were already burning and the tree line was still fifty yards away.

But somehow, by some miracle, I made the trees.

The dark swallowed me and I kept running, branches whipping at my arms, the white skirt catching on everything it could reach. My father's voice: When you're scared, slow down. Fear makes you sloppy. But fear was all I had — no shift, no claws, no speed beyond two legs and desperation.

“Stop running, b***h!”

I knew I couldn’t outrun him much longer, if I wanted to get away, I needed to think creatively. I saw some dead roots on the ground, and I instinctively pulled them up before I kept running. Sure enough, Finn was too focused on chasing me, he didn’t see them. He tripped and fell with a loud grunt and it bought me some time to keep running.

My small victory didn’t mean much in the end. Finn got even angrier and he got up, catching up with me in no time.

And finally, he caught me between the trees.

His hand closed around my wrist and yanked, and I spun and went down hard on my knees in the dirt.

"I said —" He was breathing hard, flushed and furious, looming over me in the dark. "Stop. Running!"

I scrambled to get up. He grabbed the back of my dress.

I lurched forward against his grip and heard it — the sharp, awful tear of fabric, the white bodice splitting along the shoulder seam as I wrenched myself forward, the skirt catching and shredding at the hem.

I stumbled onto my hands in the dirt.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

I was shaking. I could feel the cold air on my shoulder where the seam had given way, the fabric hanging loose. My palms were scraped raw. My knees ached.

"Summer, Summer, Summer." Finn chuckled as he watched me. "If you had just obeyed me, things didn’t have to be like this.”

“Please, Finn… leave me alone,” I begged as I moved away as much as I could.

“Leave you alone?” He scoffed. “That’s the thing. You always wanted to be alone, but that’s not how it works around here. You live in our land, you play by our rules. You’re a property of ours, you understand?”

He grabbed a fistful of my hair and forced me to look up at him.

Property…?

“Yes, you’re my property and I will do with you however I please.” He reiterated, bending down so his face was only inches away from mine. “And you’re gonna learn that tonight.”

My mouth fell open in terror as I watched the smug look on his face. His other hand grabbed the bulge on his pants before he moved to undo his zipper.

This is it. This is the end for me. This is what I get for trying to fit in. Trying to belong somewhere.

Finn grabbed the back of my head tighter and I could only freeze there like a statue.

Who was I kidding? I’m a nobody and I don’t belong anywhere.

But as I was about to close my eyes and accept my fate, I heard a faint growling sound.

Low. Resonant. Three distinct rumbles that I felt in my sternum before I fully heard them with my ears, like the sound was coming up through the ground itself.

I looked up—and I saw them.

They stood between the trees about twenty feet ahead — three wolves so large they barely seemed real. The one in the center was black as ink, so dark he seemed to pull the moonlight into himself rather than reflect it. To his left, a gray wolf, lean and sharp-edged, built like a blade. To his right, a white wolf with eyes pale as winter ice.

All three were staring past me.

At Finn.

“Who’s there?!” Finn noticed their presence too and turned around.

The drunk, uncertain anger had drained entirely out of his face. His eyes had gone wide and his jaw was tight and he was reading the wolves the way wolves read each other — rank, power, intent — and whatever he was reading had stolen every word out of him.

“How dare you interrupt me?! Don’t you know who I am?! I’m Alpha Hale’s son of Crescent Ridge!” Finn was barking and slurring, and it didn’t faze the three wolves one bit.

The black wolf simply stepped forward. Just one step. Slow. Deliberate.

Finn stepped back immediately. He looked at me and at the three wolves.

“This girl’s my property!” He announced to the wolves, but instead of backing down, the gray wolf stepped around to block Finn from the right. The white one then followed, blocking Finn from the right.

He’s pretty much surrounded with no way out, except back to where he came from.

"This… This isn't over!" he said — to me or to them or to the dark in general — and his voice came out wrong, too thin, nothing like the boy who'd cornered me in a dark hallway sixty seconds ago. He looked at me once more, something unreadable moving across his face.

Then he crashed back through the underbrush toward Crescent Ridge. I watched as he ran like a little puppy, disappearing into the night.

And the forest went quiet.

I was still on my hands in the dirt. I sat back slowly, pressed the torn fabric of the dress against my shoulder, and looked at the three wolves who had not moved, who were now watching me instead of the place where Finn had been.

I reached up with a trembling hand and drew the chain from beneath the ruined neckline, holding the emerald pendant out so it caught the thin thread of moonlight filtering through the canopy.

The white wolf made a sound — not a growl. Something softer. Almost questioning.

The black wolf moved. He closed half the distance between us with that same slow deliberateness, dropped his great head, and brought his nose within an inch of the pendant. I held perfectly still, barely breathing, close enough to see the way the moonlight caught the texture of his dark fur, the careful intelligence in his black eyes.

For a split second, my mind went through all possible scenarios. I had just crossed territory line. These wolves had every right to punish me or to make me go back to where I came from, but I didn’t sense any of that. They didn’t feel foreign or threatening.

The black wolf lifted his head and looked at my face.

I looked back.

Then he turned toward the deeper woods and glanced back at me over his shoulder.

I understood. He wanted me to come with them.

“I… I don’t know if I can do that,” I told him. I was going to be branded a traitor if I do that.

I looked behind me at the border of Crescent Ridge. At the torn fabric hanging from my shoulder. At the dirt on my palms.

But if I go back, what would be there waiting for me? More of Cara and Finn’s torments? Is that any better than being branded a traitor?

The grey wolf now stepped closer. He eyed my face and the emerald necklace and I followed his gaze. I clutched the emerald, still warm in my hand despite everything.

Would Hearthstone be a better place for me? Would they be kinder to a stranger like me?

As if to answer me, the white one stepped closer. So close that he was literally right in front of me. His icy blue eyes shot me a look and I got it.

"Okay," I whispered, pulling myself up the ground. "I’ll come."

- - - To be continued - - -