Alliance of Shadows, Book 3: HUNTER

Chaotic Cacophony

My thoughts, though I found myself lost in them, were interrupted by one of my brothers. How? Well, let me put it to you this way—he said something that made all eight of us do a double take at the girl fated to be with me.

“Guys, is it just me, or does that chick seem a little too familiar?” Justin said suddenly.

His words sent a jolt through me, and I followed his gaze to my Mate. She was wearing an open-back shirt with spaghetti strap ties knotted at her neck and just below the bottom of her breasts. I blinked hard as the small marks—one on top of the other—between her shoulder blades caught my eye.

They weren’t random. They weren’t ordinary.

Something about them nagged at the edges of my mind, pulling memories I had long buried to the surface. The placement, the shape, the way they rested against her skin—it sent a chill through me, even though I didn’t fully understand why.

Yet.

“Hey, Hunter, are you okay?” Paul walked over, concern flickering in his expression. I grasped the opportunity the second I saw it.

“I was just wondering about the marks on that girl over there,” I said carefully, keeping my voice even.

He frowned, turning to follow my gaze. His eyes widened slightly before settling into something unreadable. “Maria's self-conscious over her birthmarks, so it's best not to say anything about them.”

“If they’re birthmarks, I’m a Human,” Justin scoffed. His tone was dismissive, but we both knew what those marks meant. We had all been there the day her old body obtained those punctures—witnesses to a tragedy none of us had ever forgotten.

Paul, however, was unwavering. “No, she really was born with them,” he insisted, his voice carrying a certainty that made me hesitate.

Micah turned, watching me closely. His gaze was sharp, cutting through any doubt I had left. “She was reborn.”

“It would seem so,” I replied. The words he spoke struck deep, forcing me to reconcile what I had been avoiding. I thought about them, let them sink in, and nodded.

Someone nudged my arm, and I looked down at one of the other girls. She grinned up at me with her dark eyes, amusement flickering across her expression. “Hey cutie. What’s your name?”

Her voice was light, teasing—confident enough that she clearly wasn’t afraid of a little rejection.

“Wynter, so help me, I’m going to beat you senseless,” Maria growled out, her irritation sharp as she grabbed the girl’s arm and dragged her back to the window. Her grip was firm, possessive, as if the very act of pulling Wynter away was more than just annoyance—it was a warning.

“She wasn't born with any sense, Maria. You’d just be wasting your time,” Jake laughed from the couch, barely looking up from his game as he took down a few zombies. His tone was casual, dismissive, as if he had seen this exchange play out dozens of times before.

Wynter scowled but refused to let the moment get the better of her. “Jake, go take a long walk off a short pier and let me know how the water feels.”

The sharpness in her voice was edged with amusement, a challenge rather than true hostility. It was clear that whatever history she had with Jake was full of these kinds of exchanges—playful combat disguised as irritation. Though it was clear to anyone that they were siblings. Four of them shared subtle features, their eyes ranging from deep to hazel blue with bits of brown flecked throughout like golden confetti.

Maria growled slightly, making Wynter gawk at the exotic beauty that was my destined Mate. "Come on, Maria, give me a break!"

"Don’t test me. I don't want you or the twins causing problems," Maria seethed, her frustration simmering beneath the surface. Her grip tightened slightly, a silent warning that she wasn’t in the mood for Wynter’s antics. But when she looked again, Wynter and the twin boys were gone.

"Are you freaking kidding me," she snarled, scanning the room with sharp intensity. "Logan, Triple Trouble’s on the move."

My cousin chuckled, amused rather than concerned. He knew his younger friends were safe from harm, and the others—though still skeptical of us—had slowly begun warming up. Those who had spent time around us were far brassier than those who had just met us.

Then again, if those three were as bad as Kaden and the others had led me to believe, I almost hoped they would gang up on my prankster brother. The Gods knew Stanley needed someone to bring him down a notch. Or several, if need be.

"What sort of trouble could they possibly cause?" I asked.

Maria leveled me with a glare, sharp enough to make me regret the question. Arousal pierced through me before I shot it down. Mate bond be damned, I thought. My morals were far too strong for me to destroy any chances I had with that feisty, gorgeous girl. Acting on it now would not end well for me.

"Let me put it to you this way, they'd make your brother look like minced meat in the prank department," Paul replied, his tone dry but knowing.

Logan smirked at Jake, who stood up with a sly grin stretching across his face. Clapping his hands, Logan announced, “New game, guys. Track and contain Triple Trouble. Jake, take charge of the hunt. Good luck, and don’t let them catch you.”

Stanley jumped to his feet, practically vibrating with enthusiasm. “That sounds like fun.”

“Are we splitting up?” Peter asked, excitement flickering in his dark eyes. He was a born tracker—this challenge was exactly what he thrived on.

“Here’s a tip for you,” Jake said with a grimace, glancing around as if preparing for battle. “Never ever go one-on-one against them. They don’t fight fair, and they will gang up on you.”

Paul shrugged and looked away. "Wynter is one of my two little sisters. Sometimes, I just want to wring her neck until her face turns a nice shade of blue."

Jake cackled with laughter, clearly entertained by the thought.

Their other sister—her resemblance to Paul, Jake, and Wynter making the connection obvious—looked at Paul with a horrified expression. "Don't say things like that, Paulie."

"Give it a rest, Heaven," he replied, rolling his eyes. "Just because I dream about it doesn’t mean I’m actually going to do it." He leveled a look at her, challenge flickering in his tone. "Besides, can you honestly say you've never thought of killing Jake and me once in a while?"

"Maybe I have, and maybe I haven’t," she teased, her lips curling into a slow smirk. "You’ll never know."

Their sense of humor was infectious, an effortless rhythm of banter that blended sharp wit with an underlying, undeniable bond.

I watched Jake disappear with my brothers and realized that the three troublemakers of the crew felt safe enough to wander around unfettered. If that was the case, then they obviously didn’t feel threatened while on unfamiliar territory.

"They don't have an issue wrecking havoc here?" Micah laughed.

Paul shook his head. "No, and this is one time that Jake gets to torment the living Hades out of our sister. You would have thought that the seventh child would have been the troublemaker of the family, but no. It was the sixth child. Wyn is such a brat that Mom and Dad tell Logan and me that she's our problem now."

Harold paled as we heard Stanley scream from another level of the manor. "Oh, that doesn't sound good."

"Sounds like they got their target," Ember muttered, her tone amused but unsurprised.

Jerome lost his composure, breaking into laughter. "Do you mean to say that they purposely went and cornered Stanley?"

"They asked me if any of you liked pranks," the tiny dark-skinned girl replied, flicking a strand of hair out of her face. "I said Stanley and gave them a description. I guess you could say that it's my fault he's getting a dose of Triple Trouble."

Micah's eyes danced with humor. "What did he do to you that you had to turn on him like that?"

"He threatened to cut my hair, but he made a fatal mistake. He picked on a Howler, and we bite back," Ember said, sitting calmly on the couch beside Peter as he handed her a controller.

“What are we playing?” she asked, eyeing the screen with mild curiosity.

Peter picked out some revamped version of an eighties fighting game—Mortal Kombat, I believe—before leaning back with a grin. “Ready to lose?”

“Tsk, as if,” she giggled, fingers tightening around the controller in anticipation.

Micah looked her over, as if trying to make sense of the situation. “Aren’t you going to join the others?”

“Hm? Oh, no, not me. I don’t join in on the Trio’s systematic takedown of their targets. It would end badly—not for me, but for them,” Ember replied, her voice carrying an edge of certainty.

Smoothing her clothes, Maria moved to sit beside Ember, her quiet presence a warning to those who might dare target one of Logan’s Omegas. “Any more dreams lately?”

“Nothing that would have us on alert,” Ember commented without missing a beat.

A distant yelp echoed through the manor, followed by a loud crash and the unmistakable sound of a male’s sobbing laughter. Micah and I exchanged glances with Harold, Justin, and Jerome, each of us silently acknowledging the chaos unfolding somewhere in the house.