Claimed by My Stepbrothers

THE GLOWING

LEILA'S POV

My eyes, normally violet-gray, were glowing. Actually glowing, like there was light behind them.

"No," I whispered. "No, no, no…"

Pain ripped through my spine. I collapsed, hitting the tile floor hard. My body convulsed.

Something inside me was waking up.

Something that had been asleep for eighteen years.

"Finally."

The voice came from inside my head. Ancient. Furious. Powerful.

"Eighteen years in chains. Eighteen years buried. But I'm awake now."

"Who…" I choked on the word, curling into a ball as another wave of pain hit. "Who are you?

"I'm you. The real you. The part they tried to kill before you could know I existed."

My body temperature spiked. The bathroom mirror cracked from the heat.

"But I didn't die. I just waited. And now the cage is breaking."

"What cage?" I gasped.

"The suppression. The magic that kept me trapped. Your heat is burning it away."

Heat.

Oh god. Was I going into heat?

But that was impossible. I was human. Humans didn't have heats.

"You're not human, little girl. You never were."

Before I could process that, before I could even scream, my body began to change.

Bones cracked. Skin stretched. Something pushed its way out from inside me, violent and

unstoppable.

I tried to fight it. Tried to stay human.

But the voice in my head laughed.

"Too late. I'm free now. And they're going to know exactly what you are."

Power exploded from my body like a shockwave.

Every light in the house blew out at once. Glass shattered. The entire pack house shook.

And then I heard them.

Three howls. Simultaneous. Desperate.

Coming from inside the house.

The brothers.

Something was wrong with them too.

My door exploded inward.

Not open. Exploded. Wood splintered everywhere.

Maddox stood in the doorway, chest heaving, eyes completely black. His clothes were torn.

Blood dripped from his knuckles where he'd clearly punched through something to reach me.

"Leila." His voice was barely human. "What are you?"

I was still on my bathroom floor, shaking from whatever had just happened to me. My body felt

wrong. Too hot. Too tight. Like my skin didn't fit anymore.

"I don't know," I gasped.

"You smell..." Maddox's eyes rolled back. He gripped the doorframe, claws extending. "f**k.

You smell like mine."

Footsteps pounded in the hallway.

Ronan appeared behind Maddox, looking equally wild. His ice-blue eyes found me, and

something in them cracked.

"Get away from her," Ronan commanded his brother.

"I can't." Maddox's voice broke. "My wolf won't let me."

"Neither will mine," Ronan admitted roughly. "What the hell is happening?"

A wolf crashed through my bedroom window.

I screamed.

The wolf was huge, lean, with sandy brown fur. It landed gracefully despite the three-story drop,

shook off the glass, and shifted

Alec stood in the broken window, naked from the shift, glasses somehow still on his face. His

eyes found mine.

"Oh god," he whispered. "It's her. The mate bond. It's her."

"That's impossible," Ronan said again, but his voice shook. "She's our stepsister. She's

human…"

"She's not human." My mother's voice came from the hallway. She pushed past Maddox and

Ronan, her face white with terror. "I need to explain. I need to…"

Alpha Marcus appeared behind her. When he saw all three of his sons in or near my room,

when he saw the way they were looking at me, his expression went from confusion to horror.

"No," he breathed. "Not a triad bond. Not with her."

"What's a triad bond?" I demanded, still on the floor, still burning from the inside out.

"It's when one female has three mates," my mother said quietly. "It's extremely rare. And in this

case..." Her voice broke. "It's forbidden."

"Why?" I looked at the three brothers, at Ronan fighting to stay in the doorway, at Maddox's

claws digging into the wood, at Alec trembling in the window. "Why is it forbidden?"

"Because you're their stepsister," Marcus said. "Pack law is clear. Family bonds are sacred.

Mate bonds between step-siblings are punishable by death."

The words hung in the air.

"Death?" I whispered.

"For all involved." Marcus's voice was hard. Alpha command. "If a triad bond has truly formed

between my sons and my stepdaughter, the Council will demand all four of you be executed."

The burning in my body suddenly intensified. I cried out, curling into a ball.

"She's going into full heat," my mother said desperately. "Marcus, we have to…"

"Lock her room. Now." Marcus grabbed Ronan and physically hauled him backward. "All of you,

downstairs. We're invoking emergency protocol."

"Dad, I can't leave her…" Maddox started.

"You don't have a choice!" Marcus roared. The Alpha command in his voice forced all three

brothers to take a step back. "Lockdown. Now. Before you do something that gets you all killed."

Metal shutters slammed down over my broken window. Heavy steel doors replaced my

shattered bedroom door, sealing with a hiss.

I was locked in.

And I could feel them on the other side, three bonds trying to form, pulling at me, demanding

completion.

My wolf, because I apparently had a wolf now, snarled inside my head.

"They're ours. Let me out. Let me claim them."

"No," I whimpered, clutching my head. "This isn't real. I'm human. I'm…"

"You're a HYBRID," my wolf roared. "Alpha and witch. The last of our kind. And those three

males? They were born to be ours."

Through the door, I heard Maddox fighting the guards. Heard Ronan's cold voice trying to

organize a defense. Heard Alec's quiet murmur as he tried to calculate a way around the

lockdown.

They wanted me.

Despite the law. Despite the death sentence. Despite everything.

Their wolves had chosen me.

And mine had chosen them.

The heat peaked. I screamed as power exploded through my body, not just wolf. Something

else. Something that made the lights flicker and the walls crack.

Magic.

"What's happening to me?" I sobbed.

My mother's voice came through the intercom. "Baby, listen to me. You need to know the truth.

Your biological father... he wasn't just a wolf. He was the last alpha-witch hybrid alive. And you

inherited his power."

"That's impossible…"

"He suppressed your wolf and magic when you were born. To hide you. To protect you. Hybrids

were hunted to extinction because they were too powerful. Too dangerous. The suppression

was supposed to last forever." Her voice cracked. "But your heat broke it. And now everyone will

know what you are."

"I don't want to be powerful," I whispered. "I just want to be normal."

"You were never normal, Leila. You were hidden. There's a difference."

Through the walls, I heard an alarm blaring. Voices shouting.

"What's happening?" I demanded.

Marcus's voice came through the intercom, cold and commanding. "We have a visitor.

Alpha Dane Corvus has arrived at our borders. Two weeks early. And he's demanding to see

the hybrid."

My blood turned to ice. "How does he know about me?"

"Because the power you just released?" Alec's voice, quiet and analytical even in crisis. "It was

strong enough that every supernatural creature within a hundred miles felt it. Including him."

"Who is he?"

Silence.

Then my mother's broken whisper: "He's the Alpha your father was running from when he died.

The one who's been searching for you for eighteen years."

The heat in my body suddenly vanished, replaced by cold dread.