Bullied By My Alpha Triplets

Chapter 15

Ivy's POV

The room was quiet, but the silence wasn’t comforting. It felt thick, like a woolen blanket suffocating the air, making it hard to breathe. I stood just a few feet in, arms still tucked around my body as if I could physically hold myself together. My wrists ached from where I’d hit the table earlier, but I ignored it. The pain in my chest far outweighed anything my body could feel.

Ronan leaned against the edge of the desk, arms crossed, his eyes unreadable as they rested on me. Elias sat in one of the leather chairs beside the bookshelf, his fingertips pressed together in thought, elbows resting on the arms of the chair like he was a king weighing judgment. And Kiernan—he stood near the window, the dim afternoon light casting half his face in shadow. He hadn’t looked at me yet, not fully. He stared out like the world beyond the glass was somehow more tolerable than being in this room with me.

The door had closed behind me, sealing me in. It wasn’t locked, not physically, but we all knew I wasn’t leaving unless they allowed it.

"You almost died today," Ronan said finally, his voice slicing through the silence with surgical precision.

I flinched. His words were simple, but the weight behind them pressed deep into my chest. My voice came out quiet, strained. “I know.”

Kiernan turned then, his gaze cutting straight into me. His lip curled slightly as he pushed off the wall and took a step forward. “Do you? Do you really?” he asked, his tone edged with something I couldn’t name—frustration, maybe. Disappointment. “Because if you did, I think you would’ve fought harder. You stood there, shaking, crying, begging people to believe you while she told the whole room you tried to kill her. Seriously Ivy…have you no spine?”

“I didn’t know what to do,” I snapped, more forcefully than I intended. “I was scared. I was cornered. What else could I have done?”

“You could’ve defended yourself, that was the very least you could've done.” he said coldly, taking another step toward me. “You could’ve stopped her lies before they even started. You could’ve looked someone—anyone—in the eyes and demanded they see the truth.”

I laughed bitterly, the sound sharp and humorless. “Oh, sure. That always works so well for people like me. You think they’d listen? To me?” I looked between them, my voice trembling. “No one has ever believed me. Ever. You think just because I say something with a little more conviction, it’s going to change how they look at me? How they treat me?”

Kiernan’s jaw clenched. I could see the muscle ticking beneath his skin.

Elias finally moved, rubbing a hand over his face like he was tired—tired of the conversation, tired of me, tired of it all. “That’s the problem, Ivy,” he muttered. “You let people walk all over you. You let them write your story, and you just stand there while they do it.”

I felt the sting behind his words, sharper than any slap. Not because it was cruel, but because it was true.

My throat tightened as I tried to speak. “Do you think I like being this way? Do you think I want to feel helpless?” I turned away from them, breathing hard, my fists trembling at my sides. “You think I haven’t tried to be stronger? You think I haven’t screamed into pillows, cried in the dark, begged the Moon Goddess to make me someone else—someone they couldn’t hurt?”

Silence again. Not the kind that judged me. The kind that listened.

“I didn’t grow up like the rest of you,” I said, quieter now. “I didn’t have training or power or a family that looked at me like I mattered. I grew up being told to stay small, to stay quiet. To survive. So maybe I didn’t fight hard enough in that room, but I survived it, didn’t I? I’m still standing.”

“For how long?” Kiernan asked, voice low, almost a whisper.

That question sat between us, ugly and honest.

Ronan pushed off the desk and came closer. “No one is asking you to be fearless, Ivy. But we are asking you to stop giving your power away so easily.”

I blinked, stunned by the way he said it—like it was something I had a choice in. “Power?” I repeated, almost laughing again. “I don’t have any power. You three—you walk into a room and people part like the sea. They bow. They listen. Me? I get spat on. Accused. Thrown around like garbage.”

“You have more power than you think,” Ronan said, and for once, his voice wasn’t cold. It wasn’t soft either, but it held a kind of weight that felt… honest. “You just don’t know how to use it.”

“I shouldn’t have to,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have to prove I’m not a murderer just because someone decided to hate me.”

“And yet, here we are,” Elias said, voice dry, tired. “That’s the world we live in. People lie. People hurt others. You don’t get to pretend you’re above it just because you’re angry about it.”

“I’m not pretending,” I said, looking at him now. “I’m surviving.”

Kiernan let out a quiet exhale and paced to the far end of the room, dragging a hand through his hair like he couldn’t stand still any longer. “You want to survive, Ivy? Fine. But next time something like that happens, you better not freeze. You better not just stand there with tears in your eyes hoping someone saves you.”

I looked down at my hands. The faint tremble in them hadn’t gone away. “I didn’t ask anyone to save me.”

“No,” Ronan said. “But someone did. And that’s the only reason you’re not being dragged out in chains right now.”

That truth felt like a slap. I swallowed hard. “I didn’t deserve any of it,” I whispered.

“No,” Elias agreed. “You didn’t. But that doesn’t change the fact that it happened. And it’s going to keep happening unless something changes.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have anything left to say. I was too tired. Too raw.

They looked at me, and for once, I didn’t feel hated. Just… studied. Watched. Judged, yes—but not with cruelty. It was something colder, sharper. Like they were deciding what to do with me next.

Ronan turned his back on me, facing the desk again. His hands rested flat on the wood as he stared down at the scattered papers.

Then, without looking at me, he said the words that made me almost fall to my knees in tears.

“Learn to stand up for yourself Ivy, stop being a wuss. The moon goddess won't always be on your side. There won't always be someone in the crowd to save you every single time. As much as you're surrounded by people, you're practically on your own.”