Her Four Alphas

Whispers

Luna’s jeans were damp from the rock she’d been sitting on for the last hour, the chill of the evening seeping through the denim to numb her thighs. She didn’t care. The valley below stretched out in a haze of purple shadow, the last streaks of orange sunset bleeding across the sky like a wound, but she couldn’t focus on the beauty of it. Her mind was a loop of Knox’s voice from that morning: *Every bond takes something. Every Alpha pays a price.* The words echoed in her skull, over and over, blending with the frantic beat of her heart.

The wind picked up, carrying the scent of pine resin and damp earth, with a faint undercurrent of woodsmoke from the village behind her. Somewhere in the trees, a crow cawed, harsh and lonely. She hugged her knees tighter to her chest, fingers digging into the fabric of her sweater until her knuckles turned white. Guilt sat like a lead weight in her stomach—guilt that she was the reason Knox was fading, guilt that she’d stumbled into this pack’s life and upended everything, guilt that she was even considering the impossible choice Rowan had hinted at.

“You’re thinking so loud I can taste it,” a voice said softly.

She didn’t startle. She’d felt Rowan’s presence for minutes before he spoke, the gentle hum of his empathy ability brushing against her mind like a warm hand. He settled onto the rock beside her, his shoulder barely an inch from hers, the scent of sandalwood and old paper clinging to him—he’d been in the elders’ archive again, she realized, buried in the Soul Pack Chronicles.

“Can you actually hear my thoughts?” she asked, not looking at him. The wind tossed a strand of hair across her face, and she blew it away impatiently.

“Not words,” Rowan said, his voice low and soothing, the way he always sounded when he was reading her emotions. “More like... impressions. Colors, mostly. Right now, you’re a deep, muddy grey. Guilt, sharp and bitter. Fear, bright and jagged, like a sliver of glass under a fingernail. And under all that, a thread of anger—at yourself, for feeling any of it. For being the one who’s supposed to save us, when you can barely save yourself.”

Luna let out a shaky laugh, resting her chin on her knees. “You’re too good at that.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice.” He smiled, a small, sad quirk of his lips. “The pack comes to me when they’re hurting. I carry their feelings for them, just for a little while, so they don’t have to. But with you... it’s different. With you, the impressions don’t fade. They stay, wrapped around my ribs like ivy.”

She finally turned to look at him. Rowan’s hair was the color of wheat in the fading light, his eyes soft and amber, no trace of the golden glow that marked an active Alpha wolf. He looked tired, she realized—deeply, bone-weary tired, the kind that came from carrying too many secrets for too many years.

“You knew,” she said, the words barely audible over the wind. “All this time, you knew what would happen to Knox. To all of you.”

“We all knew,” Rowan said, looking out over the valley. The shadows were creeping up the slopes now, swallowing the wildflowers that dotted the grass. “The Soul Pack Chronicles are kept in the elders’ archive, locked behind three iron doors and a ward that only the pack historian can break. My mother was the historian before she passed. She made me memorize every page before I was twelve. I’ve known about the curse since I was old enough to read.”

Luna’s stomach dropped. “And you still let me bond with Knox? You still let this happen?”

“We didn’t have a choice,” Rowan said, turning back to her. His hand lifted, hesitated, then brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. His touch was feather-light, reverent, and a tiny spark of heat flared through the faint bond they shared—nothing like the burning connection she had with Knox, but enough to make her breath hitch. “The prophecy says the Soul Pack is the only thing that can save our kind from the wasting sickness that’s been killing our cubs for decades. We’ve been waiting for an omega like you for a thousand years. We couldn’t let you go, even if we wanted to.”

“The wasting sickness?” Luna frowned. She’d heard rumors of cubs born weak, dying before their first shift, but no one had explained it to her.

“It’s a symptom of the curse,” Rowan said, his voice tight. “The same magic that binds the Soul Pack is dying out in our bloodline. Every generation, fewer wolves can shift. Fewer cubs survive. The elders say the only way to break the cycle is the Soul Pack—four Alphas, one omega, all bonded, all whole. But the Chronicles say the last Soul Pack... they didn’t make it.”

Luna’s throat tightened. “Knox said they died.”

“Within a year of bonding,” Rowan said, his eyes distant. “Five of them. Four Alphas, all brothers, and an omega who was a human healer, like you. The bond drained them slowly at first—they lost their strength, their speed, their ability to shift. Then the memories started to go. The oldest Alpha forgot his own name after six months. The omega started seeing ghosts, voices no one else could hear. By the end, they were nothing but shells, wasting away in a cabin in the woods until... until the curse consumed them entirely. They burned from the inside out, Luna. The pack found their ashes a week after they died.”

Luna felt the words like a physical blow. She wrapped her arms tighter around her legs, pressing her forehead to her knees. “That’s going to happen to Knox? To you?”

“The curse doesn’t just weaken. It consumes,” Rowan said, his voice calm, but she felt the grief radiating off him through the bond—a distant, aching echo of loss that made her chest hurt. “But that was a thousand years ago. We have better medicine now. Better understanding of the bond. I’ve spent my whole life studying the Chronicles, looking for a loophole, a way to break the cycle. Maybe this time will be different.”

“You don’t believe that,” she said, lifting her head to look at him.

“No,” he admitted, his smile fading entirely. “But I have to hope. Because if I don’t, there’s nothing left to fight for.”

Luna turned to face him fully, her knees dropping to the side. “Then why? Why would you want to bond to me? If you know it might kill you, why would you volunteer for this?”

Rowan reached out, his hand covering hers. His skin was warm, calloused from years of turning the brittle pages of ancient books. “Because some things are worth dying for,” he said, his eyes searching hers, raw and unguarded. “I’ve spent my whole life feeling other people’s emotions. Their joy when a cub is born, their pain when a mate dies, their fear when the winter comes and the food runs low. I’ve been a vessel for their feelings since I was five years old, Luna. I’ve never had anyone feel *mine*. Not once. Not until you.”

“I don’t feel your emotions,” she said, her voice small. “Not like you feel mine.”

“You will,” Rowan said, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. “When the bond deepens, it goes both ways. The Chronicles say the omega becomes the heart of the pack—she feels every Alpha, every wolf, every leaf on every tree. And they feel her. You’ll know my every thought, every heartbeat, every secret I’ve ever kept in the dark. You’ll carry my grief the way I carry yours.”

“I don’t want your secrets,” Luna said, pulling her hand back slightly. “I don’t want to carry anyone else’s pain. I can barely handle my own.”

“You don’t get to choose,” Rowan said, his smile sad again. “The bond takes everything. That’s the price. You give up your privacy, your solitude, your right to keep parts of yourself hidden. The Soul Pack is one entity, Luna. Not five separate people. The curse takes that too—it tries to tear you apart, to make you forget who you are outside the pack. That’s how the last omega died. She forgot her own name, forgot she was a healer, forgot how to love the Alphas she’d bonded to.”

Luna looked away, her eyes stinging. The valley below was almost entirely dark now, the last of the light clinging to the peaks of the mountains across the way. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled—long, mournful, alone. The sound vibrated in her chest, a match to the hollow feeling in her gut.

“Knox is already changing,” she said quietly, her voice breaking. “I can feel it through the bond. His wolf is... quieter. Like it’s retreating into the back of his mind. He doesn’t laugh anymore. He barely eats. Last night he forgot how to tie his boots.”

Rowan’s hand found hers again, his grip firm. “I know. I’ve been monitoring him through the bond network. The decline is faster than we expected—we thought we’d have months, at least. But Knox’s wolf is burning through his life force three times faster than the Chronicles said it would.”

“How fast?” Luna asked, turning back to him, her heart hammering.

Rowan hesitated, his jaw tightening. “Weeks. Maybe less. If the bond doesn’t stabilize soon, he’ll be gone before the next full moon.”

Luna’s breath caught in her throat. “No. That’s not possible. We just bonded a month ago.”

“The curse doesn’t care about time,” Rowan said softly. “It only cares about balance. Right now, Knox is the only one connected to you. The bond is... unbalanced. All the weight of the soul connection is resting on his shoulders alone. If we add more connections—distribute the weight across all four Alphas—it might ease the strain on him. Give him time. Give us time to find a cure.”

Luna stared at him, her mind reeling. “You want me to bond with the others? With Caius, and Darius, and... and you?”

“I want you to do what feels right,” Rowan said, his eyes holding hers, steady and honest. “But know this: the longer you wait, the worse Knox gets. Every day you delay, the bond drains more of him. And if he dies before the Soul Pack is complete... if the bond is broken by death...”

“What happens?” Luna whispered.

“Then the curse falls on you,” Rowan said, his voice barely a whisper, carried away by the wind. “The bond is a two-way tether. If Knox dies, his life force doesn’t just disappear—it transfers to you. You’ll carry the weight of his death, the full force of the curse, alone. And it will break you. The last omega went mad when her first Alpha died. You’re stronger than she was, Luna, but no one is strong enough to carry that much magic alone.”

Luna’s throat tightened until she could barely breathe. She felt the truth of his words in her bones, a cold, heavy certainty that settled in her chest like a stone. The bond was already connecting her to Knox’s fate, his life woven into hers in ways she couldn’t undo, no matter how much she wanted to.

“I need time,” she said, her voice shaking. “I can’t just... bond with three more people. I barely know you. I barely know Knox, really. This is forever, Rowan. Soul bonds don’t break.”

“You don’t have time,” Rowan said, standing up and brushing the dirt and pine needles off his trousers. The shadows were almost up to the rock now, the last of the light fading from the sky. “Knox is running out of it. But I’ll give you whatever I can. A day? Two? But no more than that, Luna. Please.”

He turned and walked back toward the village, his figure blending into the shadows until she couldn’t see him anymore. Luna stayed on the rock long after he was gone, the cold seeping deeper into her bones, the wolf howl still echoing in her ears.

Bond and kill them slowly, one by one, as the curse drains them all.

Or don’t bond and watch Knox die in weeks, then let the curse destroy her.

Either way, someone was going to die.

And she was starting to realize—it might be her.