FATED TO THE ALPHA TRIPLETS

CHAPTER 5: SHATTERED ILLUSIONS

~SELENE~

The curtains opened, and the soft morning light filtered into the room. The outside world felt remote, unreal, as if everything that had occurred the night before had been a bad dream. But as I tossed in the knotted sheets, the ache in my body informed me otherwise.

Darius was still asleep beside me, one arm draped across my waist, his body hot and hard against mine. Lucian was nowhere to be found. I blinked, looking at the silent room, and thought it over.

What had I done?

The night had moved into madness—a riotous, intoxicating tempest of desire and power. It wasn’t just our bodies and the touch we shared that had kept us together; it was the way they’d invaded every corner of me. It was partially the control they had over me, over my mind and my heart. I didn’t know whose fault it was that my body had done this to me, or whose fault that my soul had.

I carefully pulled away from Darius, my muscles aching as I pushed off the bed. The silencein the room was oppressive. I wanted space to be able to think and to be able to breathe. I stood up and softly tiptoed across the floor, looking for my dress; it was still in a pile by the door.

My hands rubbed along the soft material, and a gentle sigh slipped from my lips. I needed clarity. This… whatever this was… had been a temporary loss of reason. I couldn’t let it define me; I couldn’t let them break me down after years of building walls around myself.

It was too late by the time I heard movement behind me. A deep, rumbling growl came from Darius’s chest as he seized my wrist; his grip was strong but not painful.

“And just where do you think you’re going?”

I looked at him, a mixture of guilty and defiant feeling in my chest. “I need to think”

He didn’t let go of my wrist. “No, you have to stay,” he said, his voice heavy and insistent.

“You belong here, with us. And you’re not going to escape this.”

“I’m not running,” I snapped, attempting to tug away from his hold.

“I just need…”

“You need us,” he finished it for me, a sharpness to his voice.

“And you’re not going to get out of this, Selene. No way. Not when we've already just began.”

I frozed, my breath stuck in my throat. His tone was cruel, possessive, and sent shivers of fear down my back.

This was what they were — dangerous, unyielding, and consuming. I didn’t know whether it was fear or something else that had gripped me, but I couldn’t deny the sense of his words. I had gotten too far into their world to go back.

Before I could say anything back, Lucian’s voice came through the door, smooth and collected, but spiced with something deep and dark.

“She ain’t going anywhere, Darius.”

I looked up at him, and there he was leaning lazily against the doorframe, the look he was giving me locking me into place, it was thrilling.

"You'd better be careful… Selene," he said, a note of playfulness in his voice, as well as warning.

“It may not be that simple to flee from us.

I could feel the frustration beginning to churn and I clenched my fists. I didn’t like the way they talked to me — like I was a thing to own, a thing to control. But there was no denying the change they sparked in me, the difference between the way I felt with them and the way I felt before.

“You believe I’m going to step in line?” I fired back, my defiance echoing in my voice.

“Do you think you can control me?”

Lucian’s smile was slow, wolfish. “Why, we don’t have to control you, Selene. We just need to show who you really belong to.”

His words landed like a gut punch. I opened my mouth to argue, but Darius stopped me, his voice deep and compelling.

“Enough.”

There was something in his tone, a coldness, that made me shiver. It was an aspect of him I had never seen before… dangerous, unrelenting. And it scared and exhilarated me at the same time.

“I’ve made it clear that you’re not going anywhere,” Darius said without looking away from me.

“And neither is Lucian. Not until you get your head around what’s at stake here.”

My mind a haze, I swallowed hard. I didn’t know what they wanted from me, but I knew it was not just physical. It wasn’t just the wanting, that simmered between us. There was something darker, something more dangerous… something they were keeping hidden, just beyond my grasp.

Lucian’s slippered foot pushed off from the door as he drew closer, and the effect of his closeness was that of a physical magnetic attraction around which I could not step.

“You’ve already stepped beyond boundaries, Selene,” he whispered.

“You’ve made your decision already.”

“Is that so?”

"f**k you," I spat, my voice quavering a little out of my own intentions.

“And what if I decide I don’t want to play your game anymore?”

A shadow fell over Darius’s eyes as his jaw clenched hard.

“Then you’d be a fool.”

I look him in the eyes, my heart racing in my chest, fear and anticipation running through my veins. But underneath the fear, to me at that time there was a truth I could not ignore: I was already caught in their world, whether I liked it or not.

“You’re already ours, Selene.” Lucian's voice was almost a purr as he stepped close to us, his finger tracing down the outside of my arm.

“And there’s no going back.”

I shut my eyes, his words pressing down on my chest. The decision had been made for me long before, even if I didn’t see it. And try as I might to deny it, I was already in it too far.

And they weren’t going to let me out.

Before I could reply… before I could even draw the strength to breathe past the crackling tension arcing between us—the door burst open.

Caspian.

He made an entrance that was more like a storm. Hair tousled by the wind, eyes that flashed with fury barely held in check, the scent of blood staining his skin.

Lucian stepped back instinctively, while Darius’s jaw locked even tighter. But I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My gaze was pinned to Caspian, and his to mine.

“You left,” he growled, low and dangerous, ignoring the other two Alphas entirely.

“You left without a word.”

“I just needed air,” I said, my voice more steady than I was.

Caspian's gaze shifted to Darius's tight hold on my wrist. In the flick of an eye, he stood on the other side of the room. In the next, his hand flashed out and rammed Darius in the chest hard enough to make him take a step back—no easy task.

“Don’t lay a hand on her like that,” he snapped.

Darius recovered fast, his expression turning to cold steel.

“Don’t push me, Caspian. She’s mine, too.”

“Not if you treat her like a prisoner,” Caspian snarled, stepping between us now, shielding me with his body.

“I won’t let either of you cage her.”

Lucian let out a soft laugh behind him.

“Funny, coming from the one who acted like she was already his the second someone glanced her way.”

Caspian glanced towards him not enough for it be a direct look but just enough for the message it conveyed.

“Don’t test me.”

Their fighting was fire and ice — volatile, inescapable — but I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

“Enough!” I yelled, my voice snapping the tension like a lash.

All three of them froze.

“I’m not a trophy for you to fight over. I’m not some prize to be passed back and forth between Alphas.” My breath heaved, hands clenched.

“I don’t belong to any of you. Not unless I choose to.”

Silence.

Darius’s eyes darkened, inscrutable. Lucian tipped his head, something likened to amusement flashing in his eyes. And Caspian… Caspian turned around, his expression raw and real in a way that almost undid me.

“You did choose,” he said quietly.

“Maybe not with words. But your soul did. The bond’s already started, Selene. You feel it… I know you do.”

I didn’t answer, because he wasn’t wrong.

I felt it like wildfire in my veins, like gravity pulling me closer. To all of them.

And that terrified me more than anything else.

“I need time,” I whispered, more to myself than them.

Lucian took a slow step forward. “We don’t have time. Not with Magnus sniffing around the borders and the Council demanding answers.”

Caspian’s head snapped toward him. “Let her breathe, Lucian.”

Darius’s voice cut in, cold and final. “No more running, Selene. If you walk out that door again, don’t expect us to chase you next time.”

I met his eyes, fire clashing with frost. “Maybe that’s exactly what I want.”

But we both knew I was lying.

Because even as the war brewed outside these walls, the real battle was the one happening inside me.

And I was already losing.