My Two Alpha Mates

Chapter 3

Now I was "Lyr Corvus." A distant, disinherited cousin from our mother’s minor bloodline. A name Zayd had registered in the Citadel’s system years ago as a 'level-seven contingency.'

My long, pale-gold hair was now a ragged, uneven shock that barely brushed my collar, hacked off with Zayd's vibra-blade in the shuttle's tiny refresher. My hand automatically went to my neck, feeling the cold, unfamiliar draft. The heavy, silver-lace gown was a memory, replaced by stiff, black fatigues. Underneath, the elasticated compression vest was a cage, painfully tight, crushing my ribs with every breath.

Things got terrifyingly real as the shuttle docked with a thud in a cavernous, subterranean hangar. Zayd and Cassian slung their gear bags over their shoulders. I followed, my own pack feeling impossibly heavy.

We didn't walk to the Citadel. We walked into it.

It wasn't a castle. It was a scar. A geometric wound carved directly into the black-granite heart of the mountain. The architecture was all brutalist angles and radar-absorbent plating, designed to be invisible, imposing, and final. I shivered, gulping in the thin, high-altitude air.

"It’s… hard to breathe here," I murmured, my voice lost in the echoing clang of our boots on the metal gantry.

"You'll warm up," Zayd assured me, not breaking his stride. His voice was the only warm thing in the cold, ozone-scented air. "Besides, see that ridge?" he said, and I looked where he pointed, through a massive chromeglass viewport, at a line of steam rising from the snow-dusted rock. "Geothermal vents. If you get hypothermic, we’ll just toss you in."

I moved to elbow him in the stomach for the suggestion, but he shifted his weight, and I just bounced harmlessly off his pack. He laughed, a low, quiet sound.

Anxiety, cold and sharp, twisted in my gut. It was one thing to have a plan in the safety of a shuttle. It was another to be here. Can I really do this?

"Stop processing hypotheticals," Zayd murmured, leaning close and bumping his shoulder against mine, a familiar, comforting gesture. "You're trying to solve challenges you haven't even encountered. Stand down, recruit. One step at a time."

"Classic Zayd advice," Cassian muttering, shooting him a glare as we approached a massive, steel-reinforced door flanked by two silent, armored guards. "Which doesn't make any sense, because we have very real problems to solve. Like the fact that 'Lyr Corvus' has no biometric record? And is also in possession of—you know—non-standard biology? And is built like a sensor-wire, not a soldier, and is about to get his ass snapped in half by a hundred apex-predator Alphas?"

"Hey!" I protested, giving Cassian a shove that… well, it proved his point. He didn't budge an inch. "I can hold my own! Don't doubt me now!"

"Are you serious, Lyra?" he asked, stopping dead, his shoulders slumping. He’d used my real name, and it hit me like a physical blow. He turned, his face a mask of desperation. "Seriously, think about this. About everything. Are you just running away from that high-lineage bastard Kaelen? Or do you actually want this? Do you want to train at the Aegis Citadel?"

My face fell. His question was a good one. A real one. For the last three hours, I’d been running on pure, unadulterated adrenaline and terror.

I took a second. I tilted my head back, looking up at the oppressive, blast-proof ceiling. And as I thought about it… my mind flashed to all the things I wanted to do but was told I couldn't. The advanced strategy sims I was locked out of. The data-splicing deep-dives that were "too sensitive for a diplomatic asset." The long, late-night arguments with my father and his generals, where my tactical suggestions were dismissed as "clever" but "unladylike."

A data-nun. Kaelen's voice.

"Her intellect is a liability." Magnus Drogan's.

It was all "men's work." A thousand tiny, polite, locked doors. A constant reminder that I had to learn a completely different, softer set of skills.

Because I’m a girl.

Because I’m… a Princess.

But I can't be a Princess right now. I have to hide, at least until this all blows over and my father can salvage the treaty without selling his daughter. That’s going to take months. Maybe a year.

And quite suddenly, without the crushing weight of my title for the first time since I was a child… I felt utterly, terrifyingly free. I could do… whatever I wanted.

And I knew, instinctually, deep in my strategic, data-driven heart, precisely what I wanted. The mind Kaelen wanted to "nullify" was suddenly singing, processing at a speed I'd never felt before.

Tell them, my own logic urged me. This is the only move.

So, I brought my gaze back to my brother and my protector. "I want to do this," I said, my voice quiet, but carrying the ring of finality. "If it had ever been an option for me, Cassian, this is what I would have chosen. And now that it is?" I nodded, settling my pack more firmly on my shoulders. "I want it. I want to be here."

The doors to the barracks hissed open. Zayd had handled the check-in, his credentials and the "Contingency Corvus" file overriding the guards' biometric scanners with a flicker of classified data.

I finished rolling up the wrists and ankles of my new fatigues, my hair tucked discreetly up under my cap, and I couldn't help but stare.

The barracks was one massive, cavernous room. Utilitarian, metallic, and loud. Bunks were stacked three high, and it was full.

I mean, it's not that I haven't been around men before. But the sight of man after man, flooding the space, shouting, shoving, stripping off gear… I mean… it was overwhelming.

I’ve flirted. A little. Kaelen had kissed me, mostly chaste, sterile pecks for the media cameras. In general… well, I’m a Valerius.

It makes sense that I’ve lived a sheltered life, right? Any man who wanted to 'court' me had to pass a security, genetic, and political screening by my father and his entire security council. Not many were willing to do that.

I felt a flush creep up my neck as I looked around. Because they were all so fit. So... large. Like they’d all spent the last year in intensive training just to qualify. And now, they were here, hitting the ground running.

And I have to admit… it was kind of a... sensory overload.

A few recruits in particular drew my eye. There was a tall, golden-haired one who had claimed a bunk diagonal from us. His profile was so precise, so classical, he looked like one of the Old-World statues in my father's archive. And nobody could miss Ronan Varrus, the 'Void Bear.' He was at the center of the room, but he wasn’t signing autographs. He was stripped to the waist, methodically wrapping his knuckles, his tattooed torso a roadmap of scars. Gods, he was even more terrifying in person.

And then… then there was a slim, quiet recruit with dark hair that fell into his eyes. He was leaning against a far bulkhead, already absorbed in a data-slate, ignoring the chaos around him. He looked moody, intense, and… focused. I never thought that was my type before, but now? I had to admit, I found my eyes drawn to him.

Cassian slung his own supplies onto the middle bunk next to Zayd's and then smacked my arm, hard. I yelped. He pointed to the bunk above his. "Up," he commanded, interrupting my reconnaissance.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"You're up here," he said, patting the upper-most bunk, giving me a big, fake grin that let me know it was not a request. "Where I can watch you. All the time." He leaned in, his voice dropping to a low growl. "And smack you when you stare too openly at all of the guys who are now your comrades, Lyr. Not your... data-set."