Her Four Alphas

The Truth

Luna didn't sleep that night. She lay in her bed, the rough wool blanket pulled up to her chin, staring at the ceiling beams until the moon dipped below the horizon and the first gray light of dawn crept through the window like an uninvited guest. The room was too quiet—the kind of quiet that fills your ears with the sound of your own heartbeat, the rustle of sheets, the creak of old timber settling. Asher's words played on a loop in her mind: *My father was one of the Alphas who killed your mother.* Over and over, blending with the faint, flickering pulse of Knox's bond in her chest, the way his wolf was fading, day by day, hour by hour, like a fire running out of fuel.

She rolled over, punching the pillow, twisting it into shapes that might finally be comfortable, but sleep wouldn't come. The bonds hummed in her chest—four threads, distinct and bright: Knox's fire, hot and flickering; Rowan's water, cool and steady; Asher's light, warm and trembling; Talon's shadow, cold and sharp. Even now, angry as she was, the bonds wouldn't let her hate them. She could feel their guilt, thick and suffocating, their desperate love for her, the way they'd do anything to make amends. She could feel Knox's wolf struggling against the fade, pushing back against the darkness that was swallowing it piece by piece. She could feel Rowan lying awake too, his empathy making him a receiver for every emotion in the pack, drowning in a sea of feelings that weren't his own.

It made her sick. It made her want to scream. And it made her want to cry, because no matter what their fathers had done, she cared about them. The bond saw to that. The bond wouldn't let her feel anything less than the full weight of their suffering, their remorse, their aching need for her forgiveness.

At dawn, she pulled on her boots and headed for the elders' archive. The village was quiet, the only sounds the crunch of gravel under her feet and the distant call of a morning dove perched somewhere on a rooftop. Smoke curled from a few chimneys—early risers starting their fires, beginning their days as though the world hadn't shifted on its axis. The morning air was cold and sharp in her lungs, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and damp earth. Dew clung to the grass along the path, soaking the hem of her pants, and she didn't care. She needed to move, needed to do something, needed to find the truth even if the truth was the last thing she wanted to hear.

The archive was a small, stone building at the edge of the village, its windows barred with iron grates dark with rust, its door reinforced with bands of metal that had been hammered into place decades ago. It looked more like a prison than a library. Two guards stood out front, wolves with silver fur and hard eyes—but they stepped aside the moment they saw her face. The bond with the pack gave her free rein of every building, every secret, every locked door. It was a privilege she hadn't asked for and didn't want.

Inside, the air was thick with dust and the smell of old paper, so dry it made her nose itch and her throat tickle. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, crammed with leather-bound books and scrolls that crumbled at the edges when she brushed past them. Cobwebs draped from the upper shelves like curtains, swaying gently in the draft from the door she'd left ajar. The floorboards groaned under her weight, each step kicking up tiny clouds of dust that caught the thin light filtering through the barred windows and hung in the air like frozen rain.

She moved through the rows blindly, her hands trailing over the spines, searching for something she couldn't name. A sign. A clue. The truth about her mother, about the curse, about why she'd been left alone in the world for twenty-two years while an entire pack knew who she was and chose to say nothing.

She found it in a locked cabinet at the very back of the archive, tucked behind a stack of Chronicles so old the ink had faded to gray and the pages had fused together with age. The cabinet was iron, rusted shut, the lock corroded into a solid mass of orange and brown. But the journal inside called to her—a pull she couldn't resist, a warmth that radiated through the metal like a heartbeat, like something alive was waiting inside for her to find it. The leather cover was cracked, the edges frayed and soft with handling, and when she brushed the dust off the front, her breath caught.

*Selene.*

Her mother's name.

The lock was rusted solid, but Luna twisted her wrist, a surge of strength she didn't know she had snapping the metal in half. The c***k echoed through the archive, loud as a gunshot, and she flinched at the sound. The journal fell open in her hands, the pages yellowed, the handwriting looping and familiar, like an echo of her own. The same slope of the letters, the same way the tails of her g's curled, the same habit of pressing too hard on the downstrokes. As though the pen had been guided by the same hand, separated by a generation.

She began to read.

---

*Entry 1: The Awakening*

*I felt the change today. The fever hit at midnight, burning through my veins like molten metal, the pressure in my chest so heavy I thought my ribs would c***k and splinter. I screamed until my throat was raw, and the healers could do nothing but hold me down and wait for it to pass. Then the shift came—bones popping, muscles tearing, fur sprouting along my arms. But something was wrong. When I opened my eyes, I wasn't alone in my own head.*

*I have two wolves—not one. A white wolf, pure as snow, with eyes like the sun. And a black wolf, dark as midnight, with eyes like dead stars. They war inside me, fighting for control, tearing my mind apart. The white wolf wants to heal, to save, to love. The black wolf wants to destroy, to consume, to burn.*

*The elders say it's the Soul Pack bloodline. They say I'm the one—the female who will change everything. But they look at me with fear in their eyes. And I don't know if they're afraid for me, or of me.*

---

*Entry 47: The Bonds*

*All four Alphas have marked me. Knox, Rowan, Talon, Asher—their teeth at my throat, their magic in my blood. The connection is... overwhelming. I feel them constantly—Knox's fire, hot and bright; Rowan's water, cool and deep; Talon's shadow, cold and sharp; Asher's light, warm and golden. They're inside me now, part of me, and I can't tell where I end and they begin.*

*But the curse is already showing. Knox's wolf is fading, his fire dimming day by day. Rowan's empathy is becoming a burden, drowning him in a sea of other people's emotions until he can't hear his own thoughts. Talon is changing—becoming something not quite human, not quite wolf, his humanity slipping away like sand through fingers. And Asher... Asher's light is dimming, his smile fading, the life draining out of him one day at a time.*

*We're dying. All of us. And I don't know how to stop it.*

---

*Entry 89: The Choice*

*I understand now. The two wolves inside me—they're not just a bloodline. They're a choice. The white wolf is salvation. If I embrace her, I can save the pack, heal the curse, make the bonds whole. But there's a cost. The white wolf consumes the host. She'll erase everything that makes me *me*—my memories, my feelings, my love for the Alphas. I'll be a shell, a vessel for the magic, nothing more.*

*And if I choose the black wolf... I destroy everything. The bonds will snap, the pack will burn, the curse will consume the world. Everyone I love will die. Everyone.*

*There's no winning. Only different ways to lose.*

---

*Entry 103: The Child*

*I'm pregnant. The healer confirmed it this morning—a girl, with the same bloodline, the same curse, the same choice waiting for her like a shadow at the end of her life. I can't let her inherit this. I can't let her suffer the way I have, torn between two wolves, two destinies, two deaths.*

*The Alphas agree. We'll hide her, erase her history, give her a chance at a normal life. No pack, no bonds, no curse. Even if it means... even if it means killing me to protect her.*

*The black wolf is growing stronger. I can feel her, clawing at my mind, desperate to live, desperate to survive even if it means consuming everything I am. If I let her, she'll pass to my daughter. So I'm choosing the only path that saves her.*

*I'm letting the Alphas kill me.*

---

The final entry was dated the day before Luna's birth, the ink smeared, like Selene had been crying when she wrote it. The paper was wrinkled and warped, as though tears had fallen onto the page and dried there, leaving their ghost in the fibers.

*I've made my decision. The black wolf is too strong—I can feel her growing, consuming me, her hunger like a black hole in the center of my chest. If I let her live, she'll pass to my daughter. So I'm choosing the only path that saves her.*

*I'm letting the Alphas kill me.*

*Not because I want to die. But because my death breaks the cycle. Without me, the black wolf has no host. My daughter will inherit only the white wolf—only the salvation.*

*She'll have a choice I never had.*

*Her name is Luna. May she be lucky. May she be free. May she never have to choose between losing herself and destroying the world.*

---

Luna closed the journal, her hands shaking so hard the pages rattled. Tears streamed down her face, hot and fast, dripping onto the yellowed paper, blurring the ink. She pressed the book against her chest, holding it like she was holding her mother, like she was holding the woman she'd never known, the woman who'd loved her enough to die for her before she'd even drawn her first breath.

Her mother hadn't been murdered. She'd chosen to die—to sacrifice herself to break the curse, to save Luna from the black wolf, from the same impossible choice. The Alphas hadn't killed her out of fear, or greed, or power. They'd killed her out of love, because it's what Selene asked them to do. Because she'd begged them to end her life so that her daughter could live.

*But they still hid the truth,* Luna thought, her chest aching, the tears still coming, hot and relentless. *Still erased my history. Still let me grow up alone and afraid, not knowing who I was, not knowing my mother loved me enough to die for me.*

She understood now. The fever she'd had as a child, the two wolves that fought in her dreams, the pressure in her chest that never went away—the thing she'd always dismissed as anxiety, as imagination, as the overactive mind of a lonely orphan. She was her mother's daughter—and she carried the same curse, the same choice, the same two wolves warring inside her skull.

*White wolf or black wolf. Salvation or destruction.*

But there was one difference. Her mother had only one child. Luna had four bonds—four Alphas whose lives were tied to hers, whose wolves were being consumed by the connection. Whose blood was on her hands, just as her mother's was on the Alphas' hands.

If she chose the white wolf, she saved them. But she lost herself. The white wolf would erase her memories, her feelings, her very identity, leaving nothing but a vessel for the pack's magic—an empty shell that smiled and healed and served but wasn't Luna anymore.

If she chose the black wolf, she destroyed everything. The bonds would snap, the Alphas would burn, the curse would consume the world, just as it had a thousand years ago.

And if she did nothing...

They all died anyway. Knox in weeks, the others soon after, and Luna left to carry the curse alone, until the black wolf finally consumed her too.

Luna left the archive with the journal pressed against her chest, the dawn sun warm on her face, the air smelling of pine and new beginnings and the faint sweet scent of wildflowers that grew along the path. She had answers now. She knew the truth about her mother, about the curse, about the choice she had to make.

But she still had no idea what to do with them.

The bonds hummed in her chest, four threads of fire, water, light, and shadow. Somewhere in the village, Knox was fading, his wolf retreating, his time running out like sand through an hourglass.

She had to choose. And soon.

Before the choice was made for her.