The Alpha's blind Luna: Desired by Rival Alphas

Wrong morning

Diego's POV

A sharp exhale forced it's way out of my lips, as I stood up from the bath, my back already aching. I didn't even sit to get my my eyes accustomed to the ray of the sun, I just dragged my feet to the bathroom. I needed to wash off the exhaustion that clung on me.

The bath did nothing.

I ran it cold. Stood there until my skin stopped feeling like it belonged to me, until the thing sitting behind my ribs settled into something more silent. Then I dressed, didn't look at myself too long, and went downstairs.

Mandy was already at the table. She was dressed in a silk robe, her hair pinned and both hands wrapped around her tea like she'd been waiting there for hours and found it perfectly reasonable. She looked up when I walked in.

"Morning," she greeted warmly, like I hadn't sent her out and dismissed her intentions. Anyway, she was paid well to attend to my needs, and she knew well that whatever she felt that night was inconsequential.

"Morning." I pulled out my chair and sat.

She watched me pour my coffee. I could feel it, her sharp eyes running around me, trying to decipher if I was in the mood for a casual discussion.

I wasn't.

She read the silence. One thing I did admire about Mandy was how she always read my face and pick out whatever emotion I buried. She was smart, I give her that.

The rest of my dolls would have started a discussion without thinking.

I reached for the paper at the corner of the table.

That was when Lyra came in.

She had the coffee pot in one hand, her other hand trailing lightly along the back of the chairs as she moved around the table. She found her footing near Mandy's side and leaned to refill her cup.

I don't know what shifted. Her footing, the angle of the pot, something.

The coffee went across Mandy's robe in a wide, dark arc.

The room stopped.

Lyra straightened immediately. "I'm so sorry — I—"

The slap came before she could finish the sentence.

The sound of it cracked through the dining room like something breaking. Lyra's head snapped to the side. She didn't make a sound.

Something moved through my chest so fast and so violent I had to press my back teeth together to keep it contained. My hands went flat on the table. Under my skin, my wolf surged upright. My wolf didn't stir, it didn't nudge, I felt a full-bodied lurch — and the sound it made inside me was not quiet.

I said nothing.

I picked up my coffee.

"Are you out of your mind?" Mandy was on her feet, her voice climbing. "Do you have any idea what this cost? Do you even — look at me when I'm talking to you."

Lyra had turned her face back. There was a red mark already rising along her cheekbone. Her hands were at her sides.

"I'm sorry," she said again. Her voice too steady.

"Sorry." Mandy laughed, the sound short and ugly. "Useless, clumsy, half—"

I set my cup down.

My jaw was doing something I had no control over — a slow, rhythmic tightening, like a vice turning one click at a time. My wolf paced the length of me. Hot. Furious. Pressing against the inside of my ribs like it wanted out.

I kept my eyes on the table.

Mandy grabbed Lyra by the wrist and pulled her toward the kitchen. Lyra stumbled once, found her footing, went without fighting. The kitchen door swung shut behind them.

I heard the tap run.

Then I heard Lyra's sharp intake of breath — not a cry, just that one involuntary sound a person makes when pain arrives faster than they can prepare for it — and something in my spine went completely rigid.

My wolf stopped pacing.

“Save her,”

It went very, very still.

That was worse.

I was looking at the paper. I had not read a single word on it. My hand around the coffee cup was too tight and I made myself loosen it, finger by finger, and I took a breath through my nose and I sat there and I did not move.

The kitchen door opened again. Mandy walked back in, robe stained, chin up.

"She needs to be replaced," she said, pulling her chair out. "I've been patient, Alpha Diego, but that girl is a liability."

I said nothing.

She sat. Reached for her tea. "Are you listening to me?"

"I heard you."

The front door opened.

Klaus came through it with a folder tucked under his arm and his eyes already moving across the room — reading it the way he always did, quickly, quietly. His gaze went to the kitchen door. Then to me. Then back to the kitchen door.

He dropped the folder on the sideboard and walked into the kitchen.

A beat of silence.

Then Mandy's voice — "Excuse me, that's not—"

Klaus came back out with Lyra beside him. His hand was at her elbow, not gripping, just guiding. She had her burned hand pulled close to her chest. Her face was still.

"Sit down," Klaus said to her, pulling out one of the side chairs.

"She is not sitting at that—" Mandy started.

"Then she'll sit here." Klaus positioned the chair and Lyra sat without a word, without reaching for anything, her posture perfectly upright. The mark on her cheek had deepened.

Mandy looked at Klaus. "You don't run this house."

"No." Klaus set the folder down and looked at her the way you look at something you've already categorized. "But let's be honest about what you are here." He tilted his head slightly. "You're a warm body he calls when he's bored. That's it. That's the whole thing. Don't confuse access for authority."

Mandy's mouth opened.

"You're a convenience," Klaus said. "A very replaceable one. So sit down, shut up, or get out. Those are your options."

The color drained from her face.

Her eyes went straight to me.

I was eating. The fork hitting the plate in a a slow unhurried motion. Like the conversation happening three feet from me was background noise, like she was background noise, like she had always been exactly that and we were only now saying it out loud.

"Diego." Her voice cracked slightly on my name. "You're going to let him say that to me."

I turned a page of the paper.

The silence that followed was long and absolute.

Mandy's chair scraped back hard. She snatched her tea off the table, yanked her robe tight at the waist, and walked out. Her footsteps hit the stairs fast and sharp, and then the bedroom door closed above us with a sound that was almost — but not quite — a slam.

Klaus poured himself coffee like nothing had happened.

"Border report," he said. "Crest territory moved two miles east overnight."

"I see it."

He poured himself coffee. Across the table, Lyra sat with her burned hand in her lap, not speaking, not asking for anything.

My wolf watched her.

I read the report.