MY HUSBAND'S SECRET SIDE CHICK

THE SHADOWS OF THE BED

The absolute darkness of the underground bunker was a living thing. It was three o'clock in the morning and the heavy amber night-lights that usually illuminated the luxury concrete vault had completely died. A massive, violent autumn storm was raging on the surface city streets above and a catastrophic lightning strike had blown the main power grid of the old financial district. The him of the ventilation system had vanished, leaving behind a thick, suffocating silence that made the skin on my arms prickle with immediate heat.

I sat upright in the center of the massive king-sized bed, my fingers frantically clutching the dark silk sheets. My breathing became shallow, fast and panicked. I had always hated the dark. Ever since I was a little girl, ever since the night of that horrific, manufactured house fire fifteen years ago that I couldn't fully remember, the total absence of light triggered a wild, primal claustrophobia in my chest. My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird. The numbness in my fingers grew cold and a breathless gasp tore straight out from my throat into the quiet room.

"Laura."

The voice cut through the darkness instantly. It wasn't a question, it was a rough gravelly rumble of pure, protective instinct. Before I could even answer, a heavy rustle of blankets echoed from the far corner of the bunker near the weapon racks. Heavy, rapid footsteps slapped against the polished concrete floor, moving toward the bed with the terrifying speed of a predator tracking a cry of distress.

A second later, the dark silk mattress dipped violently under a massive, familiar weight. A pair of large, warm and heavily muscled arms wrapped around my waist from behind, pulling my trembling body backward into the hard, solid expanse of Ethan's bare chest. He didn't care about the strict rules I had set hours ago with a gun in my hand. He didn't care about the boundary of the mattress. The absolute second he heard my breath hitch in the dark, the Alpha in him had completely overridden his submission. "I'm here, Laura. I've got you," Ethan growled out, his raspy whisper breaking against the sensitive skin of my neck as he tightened his embrace. "Breathe, baby. Just listen to my heartbeat. I'm right here. Nothing is touching you in the dark."

I instinctively leaned back toward him, my hands flying up to wrap around his large, bruised wrists on my waist. The familiar, intoxicating scent of him flooded my senses, instantly acting like a drug to quiet the rising panic in my lungs. My heart began to slow, matching the heavy, steady rhythm of his chest vibrating against my spine.

"Ethan... you broke the rule," I whispered into the pitch-black room, though I didn't push his arms away. The vulnerability of the dark made my anger feel distant, replaced by a deep, aching longing for the husband who had spent years guarding my life. "You can shoot me when the lights come back on, Laura," Ethan murmured fiercely, his lips pressing a hard, desperate kiss against my bare shoulder blade beneath my satin robe. "But I'm not sleeping across a room while you are shaking in the dark. I don't care if you hate me for the rest of your life. I'm your husband and I protect what's mine."

The raw, possessive intensity in his voice sent a shiver down my spine. I squeezed his hands, letting my head fall back against his shoulder. The heavy angst between us was still there, but in the total blackness of our tomb, the heat of our bond was entirely alive.

"He's right about one thing, little brother." The velvet baritone cut through the darkness from the opposite side of the bed. My breath caught sharply in my throat. I hadn't even heard him move. But the mattress on my left side dipped under another massive, heavy weight. The air in the room grew thick instantly, hot and suffocating as the primal, magnetic presence of the forbidden Alpha entered our space.

Damien Blackwood was sitting on the edge of the dark silk sheets, inches away from my face. Even in the absolute darkness, I could feel the heat radiating from his bare, sculpted chest like a furnace. And then, through the dark, I saw them. Two glowing, molten amber spheres burning in the shadows, looking onto my with a terrifyingly dominant intensity. The fated-mate blood bond beneath my skin violently flared to life at his proximity, making my blood rush hot through my veins.

"Get out of the bed, Damien!" Ethan roared softly, his muscles instantly hardening into blocks of stone against my back as he tightened his arms around my waist, his grip turning lethal. "I swear to God, if you touch her..."

"I don't need to touch her to make her heart scream, Ethan," Damien purred into the dark, his voice a smooth, poisonous velvet that brushed against my lips. He leaned closer, the scent of winter frost and dark cedarwood invading my lungs, overriding Ethan's scent. "Look at her eyes. Even in the dark, her wolf can see mine. She isn't shaking because of the blackout, little brother. She is shaking because the northern blood contract demands to be satisfied."

"Stop it, Damien!" I gasped out, my hand clutching Ethan's arm tightly as the overwhelming, scandalous tension between the two brothers threatened to choke me. I looked into Damien's glowing amber eyes, my voice a desperate whisper. "Go back to the terminal. Don't do this tonight."

"I'm an Alpha, Laura and an Alpha doesn't leave his mate in a dark cage with a lesser man," Damien growled softly, his hand moving through the dark. He didn't break my rule, he didn't lay a finger on my skin. Instead, he simply rested his large, warm hand flat against the silk sheet exactly one millimeter away from my knee. The proximity alone was an electric brand, sending a jolt of pure, unadulterated lightning straight through the mattress into my thighs.

Ethan let out a feral, animalistic snarl from the back of his throat. He raised his handgun in the dark, the sharp, metallic click of the slide echoing loudly through the room as he aimed it across my body toward the amber eyes. "One more syllable, Damien. Give me one reason to paint these silk sheets with your blood."

"Try it, little brother," Damien taunted, his teeth flashing white in the dark as his dark smile widened. "But remember... if you fire that weapon in this enclosed space, you'll deafen the queen you claim to protect."

I sat completely paralyzed between them. The heavy, suffocating weight of their shared jealousy was a physical pressure crushing my chest. My husband held me with a desperate, heartbreaking love from behind, while his forbidden brother pinned me with a primal, magnetic hunger from the front. The boundaries I had fought so hard to build in the bathroom were completely destroyed by the darkness of the storm. Suddenly, a loud, high-pitched electronic chime shattered the dangerous silence of the room. It was the intercom. It was the emergency backup generator in the auxiliary closet finally kicking into life. A low, heavy mechanical him vibrated through the concrete floors and a second later, the glowing red perimeter monitors along the far wall flashed to life, casting a bloody, crimson light across the bed.

The light exposed the raw, terrifying reality of our triad. Ethan was pinning me to his chest, his gun aimed directly at his brother's face, his eyes wide with a possessive madness. Damien was leaning over us, his amber eyes glowing, his large hand resting on the sheet, looking completely unbothered by the weapon. But what made all three of us freeze wasn't each other.

On the main security monitor by the door, a bright red alert text was flashing rapidly over a live external camera feed of the old subway tracks outside our vault: PERIMETER SECURITY BREACH. ANONYMOUS PROXIMITY SIGNAL DETECTED.

I looked at the live camera feed through the crimson light and my heart stopped entirely. Standing in the dark subway tunnel directly outside our reinforced iron bunker doors, flanked by six heavily armed men dressed in black tactical suits, was my adoptive father, Thomas Sterling. He held a massive, military-grade thermal breaching charge in his hands, his face twisted into a desperate, psychotic smirk as he looked directly into the security lens.

He had tracked our digital signatures. The cornered beast had found our sanctuary and the hour of planning was officially over. The war had just come straight to our doorstep.