MATED TO TWO RIVAL ALPHAS

CHAPTER ONE. SHERRY I make it four steps toward the side corridor before Viktor’s hand closes around my elbow. “Don’t,” he says, low enough that only I hear it. “Father already asked where you went.” I stopped. The corridor was a little cooler and quieter here, and I could already taste the relief of it. Behind us the hall was loud with a kind of celebration one usually hears at the end of the border conflict when the other side retreats. “I was only going to get air.” “You were going to disappear for the rest of the night.” He doesn’t let go yet. His grip is firm but not hard. “Come back to the table. Eat something. Let people see you.” People already see me. They just look past me just as fast. As I turn, my companion turns too. The huge hall is packed enough that the air is almost tangible. Training-clad warriors are relaxing against the stone walls. Someone has roughly pushed the long tables together to enclose the space with food at the center. A young wolf on the northern frontier is narrating a tale using both hands, but the listeners keep interjecting to correct the details. A dish of roasted meat is placed halfway, almost empty, near the table. The odor of it blends with the aroma of spilled wine and the scent of wolves who have been running. My paperback is still tucked under my arm. I never put it down at these things. Viktor steers me back toward the pillar I had claimed earlier. “Mia is looking for you.” “Mia wants to dance.” “And you don’t.” “I don’t.” He sighs, but there is no real frustration in it. Just the familiar mix of protectiveness and mild exasperation he has carried since I was twelve and too quiet for the training yards. “You’re twenty,” he says. “Not twelve. You can talk to someone without the world ending.” “I talk to you.” “I don’t count.” A plate clatters somewhere to my left. Hazel, one of the stronger female warriors, is arguing with two of the younger males about whose patrol route was cleaner. Her laugh is bright and sharp. She moves through these rooms like she has never once doubted she belongs in the center of them. I look down at the book again. The cover is soft because of years of being held and carried. I have already read a few pages. But if I stay looking at the pages with my eyes fixed, fewer people come up to me just to say something. Next I hear the double doors at the end of the corridor opening with such force that the hinges complain. The sound doesn't stop all at once, but changes. Conversations lean towards the entrance. Someone near the front of the line shouts Eric's name as if they had been waiting for him exactly at this moment. He steps in, still covered with the dirt of the patrolling, one arm with a thin line of dried blood that has already begun to heal. His black shirt is creased. The strands of hair that usually hang over his forehead have not been brushed up yet because he couldn't take the time. Without even asking him, the closest warrior hands him a cup. He gulps down almost half the contents at once while the rest of the guys, gathered around him, take turns talking to him. Hazel is already moving toward him. I have watched this exact entrance more times than I can count. Eric never arrives quietly. He arrives, and the room rearranges itself around him without anyone needing to say the order out loud. Warriors straighten. Younger females adjust their posture. Even the ones who claim not to care still glance over. Viktor makes a low sound in his throat. “Late again.” “He’s always late.” “And somehow still the one everyone waits for.” Viktor squeezes my shoulder once, briefly and warmly. “Stay visible. I’ll go make sure he doesn’t start a drinking contest before the meat is gone.” He walks into the crowd. I stay by the pillar. The book is open in my hands, but I am not reading. I am watching the way Eric leans into the group of warriors, the easy way he shoulders one of them, the way Hazel’s smile widens when he finally looks at her. He says something that makes two of the males laugh loud enough to turn heads. He looks completely at home in the noise. I have never told anyone that I notice these things. It would sound foolish. Eric is my brother’s Beta. He is loud, reckless, and completely sure of his place. I am the quiet sister who spent years in city schools because my father decided the pack house was too rough for me. We have spoken maybe a dozen times in the last two years, and most of those conversations ended with him already looking past me toward someone more interesting. A young wolf near the tables raises his cup and starts a toast that no one can hear over the noise. Someone laughs too hard. Another plate hits the floor, and no one bothers to pick it up. The air smells of roasted meat and spilled wine and the restless energy of a pack that won today and wants to prove it. Then something under my ribs pulls tight. It is not pain exactly. It is more like the sudden knowledge that the air has changed temperature. My fingers tighten on the paperback. The words on the page blur. Cedar. Rain. Clean and sharp, the kind of scent that belongs to the woods after a storm has passed through. It should not be able to cut through the rest of the hall this clearly. It does. My wolf, who has been silent for months, lifts her head inside me. The book slips. It hits the stone with a soft sound that should not be audible under all the noise, but somehow I hear it. My feet move before I decide to move them. Eric is still talking to Hazel. He has not turned. He has not looked in my direction. But the pull in my chest is already rewriting the distance between us, turning it into something that feels wrong to ignore. Mate. The word arrives fully formed, heavy and absolute. It does not feel like a thought. It feels like a door swinging open behind my ribs. I step out from the pillar. The room narrows. The laughter and the arguments and the song someone has started near the back wall all fade to the edges. The only clear thing is the line of Eric’s shoulders under the black shirt and the way his head is tilted while he listens to whatever Hazel is saying. “Eric.” My voice is quiet. In a hall full of wolves it is still enough. Heads turn. The song breaks off. Hazel’s smile freezes mid-sentence. A few of the younger warriors look from me to him and back again, sudden curiosity sharp on their faces. Eric goes still. His back is to me. I watch the easy set of his shoulders harden. He turns slowly, the cup still loose in his fingers. The smile he was wearing is gone. His eyes find mine across the open space, and for one thin second I see the same shock that is currently rearranging everything inside my chest. Then the shock cools into something else. I take another step. Hope rises so fast it almost hurts. The bond is a live current under my skin, urging me closer, promising that if I just reach him, the rest of the room will stop mattering. “Eric,” I say again, clearer. “It’s you.” He does not move toward me. Around us the silence has weight. Someone near the tables whispers my name like they are not sure they heard correctly. Hazel’s expression has shifted into something tight and displeased. Eric’s mouth flattens. He looks at me the way a person looks at a mistake that has just walked into the light. “Don’t,” he says. The single word lands harder than any shout. I stop. The hope does not vanish. It simply freezes, waiting for the next breath that will tell it what to do. Viktor is already cutting through the crowd, his face set with the beginning of a question. Eric’s eyes never leave mine. The warmth that should have been there is absent. In its place is something closer to refusal, already decided and already cold. My hands are empty. The book lies on the floor behind me. I cannot seem to remember how to pick it up. Eric’s voice, when it comes again, is quiet, but the shape of his mouth makes every nearby wolf understand the meaning. “Not you.”