MATED TO FATHER, FATED TO SONS Chapter 3: SHADOW OF FATE

AMARIS STOR

My wolf.

My wolf.

I had a wolf.

I stood in that darkness with my hand pressed to my chest and my heart slamming against my ribs like it was trying to escape and all I could think about was that I had a wolf and she was screaming.

Not whimpering politely like a well-behaved creature announcing herself with grace. No, she was screaming the word into every nerve ending in my body like she had been trapped for twenty three years and soone had finally burst the door open and she was not interested in being subtle about it.

Mate.

My brothers used to call the empty one. Wolfless. An Alpha’s daughter with nothing inside her but air and embarrassnt.

They said it at dinner tables and in training yards and once, morably, in front of the entire pack gathering when I was fifteen and Darius, my eldest brother, announced loudly that I was proof that even wolves had standards. Everyone laughed. My father didn’t stop them. I rember staring at the ground and deciding that if I had no wolf then I would simply beco soone who didn’t need one.

And now here she was awake and loud in an absolutely unhinged way screaming the word mate at two shadows that were walking towards .

Two.

Two shadows. Two sets of eyes lighting up in the dark like sothing dangerous had just been let loss from hell. Two voices that didn’t speak separately but folded into each other in a chorus that rolled through my chest cavity like thunder storm.

Our mate.

Our.

I backed up another step and my heel nearly buckled beneath . The rational part of my brain, the part that had survived my father and my brothers and a lifeti of swallowing things whole, that part was trying very hard to have a useful thought right now and failing spectacularly.

I cannot be mated to two people. That is not a thing. That is not a real thing that happens to real people. I was already sold to one man who made it very clear that my only purpose was to be a biological vessel for his bloodline and now the moon goddess, apparently dissatisfied with how thoroughly my life had already been ruined, decided to also give two mates in a fever dream. In the dark. At the sa ti.

This is a nightmare. This is sleep deprivation. This is grief manifesting as hallucination because I cried until my body gave out and now my brain is just producing content.

But then the sll hit and my brain went very, very quiet.

Apple and fur. Of all the things in the world it could have been, it was apple and fur which was weird because I loved apples and hated furs and now I also hated how much my body responded to it before I could stop it. My wolf surged forward so hard I actually swayed, her pull on violent and every instinct she had screaming move towards them while every instinct I had scread back move away.

I was backing towards the bed now. I hadn’t made the decision consciously, my legs were just moving and the back of my knee hit the mattress and I sat down hard and then I was crawling backwards up towards the headboard because putting distance between myself and whatever this was felt necessary even though so part of was beginning to understand it was completely useless.

Their faces were still half shadow, the sleep still clearing from my eyes too slowly, but I could make out the shape of them now and they were tall, both of them, broad and entirely too present for sothing that was most likely a dream.

They reached the edge of the bed and I pressed my back against the headboard and looked up at them and their eyes were still shifted, wolf gold and wolf red burning in the dark, not human at all.

My wolf laid down inside and rolled over like a dog eting its owner after a long day and I wanted to shake her.

They climbed onto the bed and I knew, I knew with the kind of bone certainty that bypasses logic entirely, that running would accomplish nothing.

One of them reached out first, slow enough that it almost felt like a question, and his fingers brushed along my jaw and up into my hair and I exhaled like sothing had been pulled out of against my will. His touch was intense, unhurried, tracing down the side of my neck like he was reading sothing written there and every single place his fingers moved left heat behind which spreaded faster than the speed of light.

The second one settled beside and his hand found the curve of my waist and I felt the warmth of him through my clothes like he was a second source of gravity pulling at . He pressed his nose to the space below my ear and inhaled slowly and I felt the shiver run the full length of my spine before I could catch it.

I want to stop this, I told myself. I should stop this. I am going to stop this any second now.

My wolf pinned like she had actual weight.

The first one’s hand slid from my hair to my collarbone, tracing the line of it with his thumb and when his red-lit eyes found mine the air in my lungs simply stopped cooperating. He touched my breast through the fabric and the sound that almost left my mouth was embarrassing and my wolf made a noise that was half growl half plea and I felt the heat pool all through my legs.

It felt good, it shouldn’t feel this good.

I had never been touched in my life. Not like this. that it felt both intentional and possessive at the sa ti.

They moved carefully over slowly, like they had no interest in rushing sothing they had apparently been waiting for, hands learning the shape of thoroughly that made it nearly impossible to hold a single thought together. My mind had dissolved into static. My wolf was absolutely no help whatsoever.

Then both of them stopped. At the sa ti.

Their eyes moved to the window together and I followed their gaze and the sky outside was getting bright, the first suggestion of sunrise. I looked back at them and their expressions had shifted into sothing I couldn’t read, the trance broken, whatever had been holding all of us suspended now releasing.

They didn’t speak. They didn’t look at again. They climbed off the bed and walked out of the room like they had simply decided to leave and the door didn’t even make a sound behind them.

I laid there.

Chest heaving in the sheets twisted. Completely unraveled.

I bathed with the water as hot as I could stand it and scrubbed my skin so I could wash the confusion off along with their scent. It didn’t really work. I could still feel the ghost of where they had touched no matter how much I tried to redirect my attention and at so point I stopped trying and just let myself stand under the water and feel it, that strange warm residue of them. Then I shook my head and turned the temperature down until it was cold enough to be useful.

I was pulling on a white sundress with small navy flowers along the hem when Nia appeared in the doorway and I startled badly enough to knock my elbow against the mirror.

"Luna Amaris, I am so sorry," she pressed her hand to her mouth, eyes wide. "The Alpha has requested your presence at breakfast."

My heart skipped a beat or maybe stopped beating, I couldn’t tell which.

I fixed my hair up, at the back of my neck because today I needed every bit of the composure that ca with it. I sprayed perfu generously and hoped to every deity I had ever heard of that it was enough to cover whatever was still clinging to .

Act normal, I told myself as I walked. You are fine. You are absolutely fine. Nothing unusual happened, it was a dream. It wasn’t real. Just your load of trauma finally kicking in.

I stepped into the dining room and my eyes found Alpha Corvin first, standing at the head of the table with the sa immovable authority he had worn yesterday, and then my wolf moved.

"Amaris," the Alpha said, his gaze pulling away from whatever held it before. "Glad you could join us. These are my sons." He gestured beside him without ceremony. "Ryker and Rowan."

My wolf threw herself against my ribs so hard I nearly lost my footing.

Our mate.

I recognized the sll imdiately. Apple and fur.

What kind of cruel nightmare is this?