Oops! My Twin Alphas Claimed Me

Chapter 8: The Mother Arrives

Victoria Blackthorn arrived the way I imagine storms used to arrive before anyone had a word for weather... sudden, beautiful, and impossible to look away from.

I heard her before I saw her. The mansion's usual quiet hum of servants and warriors sharpened into something more alert, doors opening faster, voices dropping lower. By the time I made it to the top of the grand staircase, she was already sweeping through the front doors below, a dark green traveling cloak billowing around her like she'd brought the wind in with her.

She was beautiful in the way both her sons were beautiful, sharp and commanding, though where Ryker's features were all blunt force and Ash's held quiet warmth, Victoria's face gave away nothing at all. Elegant. Composed. A mask so perfect I couldn't tell if there was even a face underneath it.

Her eyes found me at the top of the stairs before either of her sons had finished greeting her, and something in my stomach dropped.

"So," she said, voice carrying easily up the stairwell, warm and cool at once, like tea gone lukewarm. "This is her."

I made myself walk down the stairs instead of standing frozen like prey, though every instinct screamed at me to do exactly that. Ryker met me at the bottom, his hand finding the small of my back... not possessive this time, I realized. Steadying.

"Mother," Ash said, stepping forward to embrace her briefly, formally. "You made good time."

"When my sons' mate is nearly killed defending pack borders, I find I move rather quickly." Victoria's gaze slid to me again, assessing, cataloguing, the way you'd look over a horse you were considering buying. "Elara Voss. I've heard a great deal about you these past few days. Some of it even flattering."

"Mother," Ryker said, low warning in his voice.

"I'm teasing, darling." Victoria smiled, and it did reach her eyes this time, though I couldn't decide if that made it better or worse. She reached out and took both my hands in hers before I could think to react, her grip cool and elegant. "Welcome to this family, Elara. Truly. I know it hasn't been an easy welcome."

"Thank you," I managed, because I couldn't think of anything else to say that wouldn't sound foolish.

"You threw a Shadowfang Alpha thirty feet with your bare hands, I'm told." Her thumb brushed absently over my knuckles, and I had to resist the urge to pull away. "Untrained. Untaught. Do you have any idea how rare that kind of raw power is?"

"I didn't know I had it at all until three days ago," I said honestly.

"No," Victoria murmured, something unreadable passing behind her eyes. "I don't imagine you did."

She released my hands then, turning her attention fully to her sons, and just like that the moment closed over like water settling after a stone. She asked about the battle, about Vane's forces, about the council's reaction — every question sharp, precise, exactly the kind a leader should ask. If I hadn't felt that strange chill crawl down my spine when she'd looked at me, I might have believed she was simply a concerned mother.

I might have believed it anyway, if Ash hadn't caught my eye briefly over her shoulder the smallest shake of his head, a silent *later*.

Dinner that evening was a formal affair I hadn't been warned about, apparently arranged the moment Victoria's arrival was confirmed. I sat between the twins at a long table gleaming with polished silver, Victoria at the head of it like she'd never left, like the seat still belonged to her even though her sons ruled now.

"Tell me about your family," Victoria said partway through the meal, cutting into conversation about border patrols like it was the most natural pivot in the world. "Your sister, is it? Mia?"

My spine went rigid. I hadn't mentioned Mia's name at the table. "Yes," I said carefully. "She's still with our parents."

"It must be difficult for them," Victoria said, delicately, "watching their wolf-less daughter rise so far above what anyone expected. I imagine there's pride there. And perhaps something else, too."

"Mother," Ash said, tone even but with an edge beneath it now.

"I'm only making conversation, darling." Victoria's smile didn't waver. "Family is important. Especially now, with so much attention on this house. It would be a shame if anyone were to use that attention against us."

I felt the warning underneath the words even if I couldn't name exactly what she meant by it, and judging by the sudden tightness around Ryker's jaw beside me, he'd caught it too.

"Is that a threat?" Ryker asked flatly, no patience left for pretense.

"Goodness, no." Victoria laughed, light and musical, utterly unbothered. "It's a mother's concern. You two have made a great many decisions rather quickly since the festival. I only want to be sure they were the right ones... for the pack, and for her." Her eyes flicked to me again, and this time the warmth didn't quite reach them. "The Eclipse Bond is a powerful thing, if the old stories are true. Power like that shouldn't be left untended. Or unguided."

"She has guidance," Ash said. "Ours."

"Of course she does." Victoria's gaze lingered on me a moment longer than felt comfortable. "I only meant to offer mine as well, should she ever want it. I do have rather a lot of experience navigating power in this house."

The rest of dinner passed in careful, polite conversation, but I couldn't shake the feeling of her attention on me like a hand hovering just above my skin without quite touching patient, deliberate, waiting for the right moment to close.

Later, alone in our room, I finally asked the question that had been building in my chest since the top of the stairs.

"Why does it feel like she's measuring me for something?"

Ryker's jaw tightened, but it was Ash who answered, voice low and quiet in the dim firelight.

"Because she probably is," he said. "Our mother never wanted us to be Alpha together, sharing power equally. She wanted one of us stronger than the other someone she could stand behind, guide, control from just off the throne. When we came out identical in strength, it drove her half to madness." He hesitated. "She's spent our whole lives trying to find the lever that tips the scale one way or the other."

"And you think I might be that lever," I said quietly.

Neither of them answered right away, and somehow that silence told me everything I needed to know.

"We won't let her use you," Ryker said finally, voice rough with a promise he clearly meant to keep with his teeth if he had to. "Whatever she's planning."

But as I lay awake long after their breathing evened into sleep on either side of me, I couldn't stop turning over the warmth in Victoria's smile and the cold calculation underneath it, and wondering just how long she'd been planning, and how far ahead of all of us she already was.