Her Four Alphas

Sunshine

The stream bubbled over smooth river stones, the sound normally soothing, but today it grated on Luna's nerves like fingernails on slate. She sat on the bank, her knees pulled to her chest, watching a dragonfly skim the water's surface in lazy figure eights. The sunlight was warm on her shoulders, dappled through the oak trees overhead, casting shifting patterns on the grass beside her, but she couldn't feel its comfort. Not after Asher's revelation about Talon, not with Knox's fading bond pulsing faint and weak in her chest like a heartbeat growing quieter with every hour.

She pressed her palm flat against her sternum, feeling the flutter of the bond there—Knox's fire, guttering like a candle in the wind. He was getting worse. She could feel it in the way the warmth dimmed each time she checked, the way the connection that had blazed between them on the night of the claiming ceremony now felt like holding a dying ember in her bare hands. And there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing any of them could do, except watch him burn out.

The grass beside her was cool and slightly damp from the morning dew that hadn't yet evaporated. A ladybug crawled across her boot, its red shell vivid against the dark leather, and Luna watched it with a detachment that frightened her. Everything felt distant. Muted. As though the world had been wrapped in gauze and she was watching it through a layer she couldn't peel away.

Asher found her an hour after she'd left the dining hall. She heard his footsteps before she saw him—light, hesitant, nothing like his usual bouncing stride. When he settled beside her on the grass, she didn't look at him. She couldn't. Not when every time she looked at his golden hair, his bright smile, she saw the face of the man who'd helped kill her mother.

The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating. A bird called from somewhere in the canopy above them, its song bright and careless, and Luna hated it—hated that the world kept moving, kept being beautiful, when everything inside her was crumbling to ash.

"I shouldn't have told you about Talon," Asher said, his voice quiet, stripped of its usual playfulness. He picked up a flat stone, skipping it across the water. It bounced three times before sinking with a soft plop that echoed off the rocks. "The elders are going to be furious. They'll probably punish me for breaking the silence."

"I needed to know," Luna said, her voice cold, each word precise and clipped. "Or would you have kept that secret too? Like you kept everything else?"

Asher was quiet for a long moment. The sunlight caught his blond hair, making it glow like a halo, and for a second he looked exactly like what he was—the youngest of the four Alphas, the brightest, the one who smiled the most, the one everyone loved. The pack adored him. Children followed him through the village, laughing at his jokes, tugging at his sleeves. Elders softened when he entered a room. Even the most hardened warriors couldn't help but grin when Asher was around. It was his gift—his curse—this light that poured out of him whether he wanted it to or not.

But when he spoke, his voice was heavy, weighed down by things no one his age should carry.

"I'm not like my father," he said, staring at the water. "I never wanted any part of this. The secrets, the lies, the blood."

"But you're part of it," Luna said, turning to face him. The words came out sharper than she intended, but she didn't soften them. She was too tired for softness. "Your family, Knox's family, Rowan's family—they all conspired to kill my mother. To hide me away like I was some dirty secret."

Asher's hands were shaking. He clasped them in his lap, knuckles white, the tendons standing out beneath his skin. She'd never noticed before how thin his fingers were, how delicate—like the bones of a bird. "I was supposed to die."

Luna froze. The words hung in the air between them, strange and impossible. "What?"

"When I was born," Asher said, his voice hollow, the words coming slowly, as though he was pulling them from somewhere deep and dark. "The elders said I was too weak, too small. My wolf was underdeveloped—they didn't think I'd survive the first year. My father even made arrangements for my funeral. Tiny casket, white roses, the whole thing. My mother told me about it years later, like it was just another piece of family history. Just another thing the Ashford family had planned for and moved past."

"Asher, that's—"

"But I did," he cut her off, tossing another stone into the stream. The splash was loud in the quiet. "I survived. Every illness, every injury, every challenge they threw at me to test my strength. The fevers that should have killed me. The hunting trials I should have failed. The challenges from other pups who sensed my weakness and came for me in the night. I just... didn't die. They started calling me the Sunshine Alpha after that. The one who couldn't be dimmed."

"That's not a secret," Luna said, her voice softening despite herself. The anger was still there, burning low and steady, but something else was creeping in around the edges—something that felt dangerously close to compassion. "That's a miracle."

"No." Asher's eyes met hers, and for the first time, she saw the darkness there, buried under years of smiles. The shadows beneath the sunshine. The night behind the dawn. "It's a symptom. A symptom of the curse, of the Soul Pack magic that's been leaking into our bloodline for centuries. I didn't survive because I was strong. I survived because the magic wouldn't let me die. Not until the Soul Pack was complete."

Luna's chest tightened. The air around them felt suddenly heavier, charged with something ancient and terrible. "What are you talking about?"

Asher took a shaky breath. She watched his shoulders rise and fall, the deliberate control he was exerting over his body, the way he was forcing himself to stay seated when every instinct was probably screaming at him to run. "My father was one of the Alphas who killed your mother."

The words landed like a physical blow. Luna's breath caught, her vision blurring at the edges, the world tilting sideways. She scrambled to her feet, stepping back from him, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, her nails biting into her palms hard enough to leave crescents.

"What did you say?"

"Twenty-two years ago," Asher said, rising slowly, his hands raised in surrender, his face ashen. "The last Soul Pack female gave birth to a daughter. Your mother. She died in childbirth, but you survived. The four Alpha families—my father, Knox's father, Rowan's father, and the man who created Talon—they were afraid. Afraid of what you would become, what you would do to their power, their legacy. You were the heir to the Soul Pack magic, the only one who could break their hold on the pack."

"So they killed her," Luna whispered, tears burning her eyes, her throat so tight she could barely force the words out.

"They killed her," Asher confirmed, his voice breaking. "And they hid you. Erased your history, burned the records, sent you to a human orphanage with strict instructions to the matrons to never tell you who you really were. They made sure you never knew your bloodline, never felt the pull of the pack, until the day we found you."

Luna's whole body was trembling. She could feel the bonds in her chest reacting to her distress—Knox's fire flaring weakly, Rowan's water rippling with concern, even Talon's shadow shifting in the dark. They could feel her pain, even from a distance. They always could. And she hated that. Hated that the very magic that bound her to the sons of her mother's murderers also made it impossible to suffer alone.

"And you knew? This whole time, since I arrived, you knew who I was? What your family did?"

Asher reached for her, then lowered his hand, his face pale. The gesture was so small, so instinctive, and the way he stopped himself—like touching her would burn him—made something inside her chest c***k. "I didn't know at first. None of us did. Our fathers kept the secret, even from us. They told us the Soul Pack was a legend, that the omega was a myth to keep us in line. But when you arrived... when we all felt the pull of the bond... the elders called us into the archive the next day."

"They showed you the records," Luna said, her voice dead, hollowed out.

"Your mother's name was Elara," Asher said, stepping closer, his eyes pleading. "She was a healer, like you. Kind, brave, loved by the whole pack. My father said she was the most powerful omega the pack had ever seen. That's why they were afraid of her. That's why they killed her."

"And you just... went along with it?" Luna demanded, her voice rising, the anger crashing back over her like a wave. "You found out your father was a murderer, that my mother's blood is on his hands, and you still bonded with Knox? Still stayed in this pack? Still smiled every day like nothing was wrong?"

"I tried to fight it!" Asher shouted, then immediately softened, hanging his head, his shoulders curling inward. "I tried to tell the elders I wouldn't be part of it. That I'd help you, that I'd make amends. I told them I'd leave the pack if they'd just let me tell you the truth. But the bond... the bond doesn't care about history, Luna. It doesn't care about what our fathers did. It only cares about *now*. And right now, every one of us would die for you. Even me. Even after everything my family did."

"That's supposed to make it better?" Luna laughed, a harsh, broken sound that echoed off the trees. "You think your willingness to die for me erases the fact that your father killed my mother? That you all lied to me for weeks?"

"No," Asher said, his voice cracking. "It's supposed to make it true. I'm not my father. I didn't choose this bloodline. But I choose you. Every day, I choose you. Even when it kills me to look at you and know what my family took from you. Even when I know you have every right to hate me."

Luna stared at him—the golden boy, the sunshine Alpha, the one who made everything seem easy. And for the first time, she saw the cracks underneath. The guilt that ate at him every time he smiled. The fear that she'd never forgive him. The desperate, clawing hope that somehow, despite the blood on his family's hands, she might still choose him.

A leaf drifted down from the oak above, landing on the water's surface and spinning slowly in the current before disappearing downstream. The world kept moving. The stream kept flowing. And Luna kept standing there, caught between the weight of the past and the pull of the bonds she couldn't break.

"I need to be alone," she said, turning away.

Asher nodded. He didn't try to stop her, didn't reach for her again. But as she walked away, his voice followed her, carried on the breeze:

"I'm sorry, Luna. For what my family did. For what I didn't stop. For every smile I gave you that was hiding this secret." He paused, his voice breaking entirely. "And for what I'm still going to do—because I can't walk away from you. Even if I should. Even if you hate me for it."

Luna didn't turn back. She kept walking, her feet crunching on the gravel path, the sound of the stream fading behind her. The path curved through a grove of birch trees, their white bark glowing in the afternoon light, and she walked until her legs ached and her lungs burned and the tears she'd been holding back finally fell, hot and silent, streaking down her cheeks.

But she felt the truth of his words settle into her chest, heavy and inescapable.

They were all trapped in this together. The Alphas, bound by the sins of their fathers. Luna, bound by the blood of her mother. Talon, bound by a curse a thousand years old.

And there was no way out that didn't end in blood.

Her blood, or theirs.

She just didn't know which yet.