Oops! My Twin Alphas Claimed Me

Chapter 7: Aftermath

The healer released me two days later with strict orders to rest and a look on her face that said she didn't expect me to listen.

She was right not to.

By the time I made it back to the mansion, the whole pack seemed to have decided I was either a miracle or a disaster, and nobody could agree on which. I felt it the moment I stepped through the front doors the way conversations died mid-sentence, the way eyes tracked me across every room like I might combust at any moment.

"They're not staring because they hate you," a voice said from behind a half-open study door as I passed. "Well. Most of them aren't."

I stopped, startled, and found a young woman leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, dark hair pulled back in a messy braid. She had the kind of steady, unbothered expression that made me think she'd been waiting for me to walk by.

"You're Lila," I said. I recognized her… one of the few pack members who'd never looked at me like I was something to scrape off a boot, even before any of this.

"And you're the omega who threw a full-grown Alpha thirty feet without touching him." She smiled, easy and unimpressed by the theatrics of it all. "Figured someone should say congratulations instead of gasping."

Despite everything, the exhaustion, the ache still living behind my ribs, the ceaseless hum under my skin…. I laughed. It came out rusty, like I'd forgotten how.

"Please," I said. "Gasp all you want. I'm still deciding if I believe it happened."

Lila pushed off the doorframe and fell into step beside me like it was the most natural thing in the world, and for the first time since the festival, I didn't feel like I was being escorted, guarded, or claimed. I just felt like I was walking with a friend.

"I've hated watching them treat you like furniture," she said quietly, once we'd put some distance between us and the nearest wandering warriors. "The whole pack, I mean. Not just the elders. You've been here… what, five years since your family moved into the lower quarters? And people acted like you were invisible the entire time."

"I was invisible," I said. "That was sort of the point. Easier for everyone if the wolf-less girl doesn't take up space."

Something flickered across her face.. not pity, which I'd have hated, but something closer to quiet fury on my behalf. "Well. You're taking up plenty of space now."

We ended up in a small sitting room near the east wing, away from the main halls where I could still feel curious eyes trying to catch a glimpse of me through doorways. Lila poured two cups of something warm and herbal from a pot that had clearly been sitting there a while, and didn't ask me a single question about the twins, the bond, or the battlefield. She asked about Mia instead… how she was handling all the attention on our family, whether she was doing all right in school, whether she still snuck out to the orchard behind our old house like she used to when we were girls.

It was such a small, ordinary conversation that I nearly cried.

"I miss being ordinary," I admitted, wrapping both hands around my cup. "Is that terrible? Two days ago I discovered I might be some kind of prophecy. And all I can think about is how much I'd like one afternoon where nobody looks at me at all."

"It's not terrible." Lila's voice was soft but certain. "It's honest. I think most people would trade being special for being safe, if you gave them the choice. Nobody ever asks the ones the prophecy actually happens to."

I looked at her for a long moment. "How do you know so much about how this feels?"

She hesitated, just briefly, something guarded passing behind her eyes before she shrugged it off. "I don't. I just pay attention. It's a good habit to have around here." A small, wry smile. "Especially now, with everyone in this house pretending they don't have opinions about you while having very loud opinions about you."

I appreciated that she didn't push further, and I didn't press her on whatever had flickered behind her eyes either. Some things you learn to let sit until someone's ready to hand them to you on their own.

By the time I made it to my room.. our room, the one connected to the twins' by a set of heavy doors, the sun had started sinking, gold light spilling across the crimson and gold sheets. I sat on the edge of the bed and finally let myself feel the day. The stares. The whispers. The strange, unfamiliar comfort of having made a friend who wanted nothing from me except my company.

Ryker found me there sometime later, shirt sleeves pushed up, a fading bruise still yellow along his jaw from the battle. He didn't say anything at first just crossed the room and settled beside me, close enough that his warmth bled into my side.

"You disappeared on us," he said, low. Not accusing. Just tired.

"I made a friend," I said, and something in my voice must have carried more weight than the words themselves, because his hand found mine without me asking for it.

"Good," he said simply. "You need people who aren't us."

I looked up at him, surprised. "I didn't expect you to say that."

His mouth curved, faint and a little rueful. "I'm not made entirely out of jealousy, little omega. Just mostly." A beat. "You looked lighter, walking back with her. I liked seeing it."

Ash appeared in the connecting doorway a moment later, damp-haired from washing off the last of the battlefield, and something eased in my chest at the sight of both of them, no growling, no competing for space between us, just two men who'd clearly agreed, somewhere in the last two days, to let me breathe.

"The council wants to see you tomorrow," Ash said, apology already in his voice before he'd finished the sentence. "Not to test you again. Just — questions. About what happened at the border."

"And mother," Ryker added, and something shifted subtly in his jaw when he said it, "is coming back early. She heard about the attack."

I felt the mood in the room change instantly, though I couldn't have said exactly why. Ash's expression didn't move much, but his shoulders had gone a fraction stiffer, like a man bracing for weather he could smell coming but couldn't yet see.

"Should I be worried?" I asked.

"No," Ash said, too quickly.

"Yes," Ryker said, at the same time.

They looked at each other, and for once, neither one argued with the other's answer.