The Triplet Alphas' Regret

"And you decided to leave the pack here to look for me?" I asked, almost in disbelief. "Jessie, are you crazy? You could have died!"

I didn’t think Jessie and I were such close friends that she would be willing to go this far for my sake. It was one thing to sneak me food when I was starving while imprisoned in the pack, but to willingly leave the pack on what might be a dangerous wild goose chase was another matter entirely.

Even if Jessie did succeed in helping me flee, she would be punished heavily the moment she returned. There was no good ending for her in any scenario.

Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed with emotion, blinking back tears that formed in my eyes.

Jessie cleared her throat and shrugged awkwardly. "What are friends for, right? If I didn’t come and look for you, no one else would... and that just didn’t sit right with me. Come on, let’s hurry and go. If they catch us, it’ll all be for nothing!"

I nodded, and we hurried down the corridor as quickly as we could, while trying to make as little noise as possible. This place was sparsely guarded, but I wasn’t going to risk a curious guard looking over just because we were stomping around.

"Do you know where we’re headed?" I asked, trying my best to keep my voice down.

"Sort of," Jessie replied with a shrug. She barely turned back to look at me, keeping her attention solely focused on the path ahead of us. "I... I found a map of the place a little while ago. Unfortunately, I can’t take it, since it was in Alpha Rowan’s office, but I did take a glance."

I wrinkled my nose. A glance didn’t sound too hopeful.

"A glance?" I asked. This didn’t feel like a good start for our escape.

"It was enough," Jessie said confidently. "This place isn’t too big. It’s only meant to house one prisoner―"

She stopped short and turned back to look at me, her expression apologetic.

Right. That one prisoner was just me.

Maybe I should feel honored. After all, that was a lot more attention and a lot more thought placed on little old me than anything I had experienced ever since my return to Shadowclaw. How ironic that the only time they would be so attentive would be when they were trying to lock me away.

Especially when they were supposed to be my fated mates. The Moon Goddess really knew how to crack a good joke.

Suddenly, I heard voices echoing from the other end of the long corridor.

It was the triplets! My eyes widened in panic, and Jessie let out a gasp that I hastily stifled in my hand.

Desperate for a hiding place, I quickly dragged Jessie into the nearest bend in the corridor, hoping that the triplets would turn around.

"I can’t believe Lucien was still alive all these years. To think he’d have the nerve to appear before us again," Soren’s voice was grim. Even so, I could hear the hatred embedded in his words.

My fists clenched tightly at his words. Lucien didn’t want to appear before them― in fact, if the triplets had not forcefully brought me back, I was pretty sure Lucien would be happy to make a life with me living among rogues.

"We should’ve guessed," Rowan said. "Especially since he appeared in Briar’s room that night and left his necklace."

"He definitely did it on purpose!" Cassian yelled. "Knowing him, he did it just to mock us."

"We won’t know for sure," Soren said, shrugging. "He could’ve really just left it there accidentally."

"Yeah, right," Cassian said sarcastically with a scoff. "I smelled something funny the first time Briar tried to escape. I should’ve guessed then that it would be him."

Jessie turned to look at me, but I didn’t pay her any mind. If Cassian hadn’t found me that night in the forest, Lucien would’ve probably already whisked me away. If that had happened, the rogues would’ve never attacked Shadowclaw, and all those people wouldn’t have died for nothing.

I gritted my teeth, upset.

"That white-haired vermin is just too stubborn to fucking die," Cassian continued. "That person― urgh, calling him our brother feels like an insult to us. Other than killing our mother, what else could he do?! The Moon Goddess had already forsaken him, yet he still dared to take Briar. Dad was too kind to raise him alongside us for so long. If I were him, I would have smothered him in the crib and claimed he stopped breathing by himself."

"Infanticide is not looked on well among werewolves," Rowan pointed out with a sigh. "Dad could hardly rule the pack on any moral high ground if he suffocated his own newborn son. The Elders did urge him to leave Lucien for the winter to claim once he was a year old, but Dad didn’t want to look like he had forsaken his fourth son."

Cassian scoffed. I could already imagine him rolling his eyes. "There’s no need to purposely forsake Lucien, especially with his incompetence and weakness. We kicked him around so often, and he could never beat us then. Do you still remember how boldly he declared he would find Briar? Look how that turned out."

Jessie and I exchanged shocked expressions.

My head was spinning. This was all information I hadn’t expected. I could barely remember a single thing about my life before I returned to Shadowclaw.

To think that Lucien had known about me even then, and we might’ve even met before everything went south made my heart squeeze. We could’ve had a proper life together if I hadn’t disappeared.

But why wasn’t he there when I returned to Shadowclaw? I would have remembered seeing a fourth brother, especially one who wanted to treat me well.

"He dug that hole for himself; we had nothing to do with it for a change," Soren said in agreement. "It was as though the Moon Goddess herself was pulling strings. He failed at bringing Briar back. It was the perfect chance for Dad to kick him out."

"And he deserved it. Remember all the big words he spewed about being the one to find Briar? He called all of us cowards and worse," Cassian said with annoyance. "Can you imagine if he still stuck around? A fourth Hadeon brother? We don’t need an extra mouth to feed!"

The three Alphas turned silent. So did Jessie and I.

The Shadowclaw Pack was already governed by three different Alphas. Each one of them had their own role to play, but even then, everyone could tell that they struggled to keep the balance of power between them.

It worked fine for years, but if any of them could have it their way, Rowan, Soren, and Cassian would’ve loved the opportunity to lead the pack themselves, rather than to share with their two brothers.

Currently, Rowan had the most power. As the eldest, his word was law. During the early days of their leadership, many rumors went around about how Soren and Cassian were more of Rowan’s Beta and Gamma, rather than Alphas in their own right.

Even when I had returned, there were still similar rumors that spread in the omegas’ quarters. Only, no one dared to openly tell that to the Alphas’ faces. Everyone with eyes could tell how much such talk rankled Soren’s and Cassian’s egos.

Years of partnership helped to sand the rough edges. But judging by the silence that hung between them, I knew that this was still a thorn in their sides.

If Lucien were around, their power would’ve been spread four ways instead of three. Or maybe they would have banded together to kick him out. Without Lucien’s existence to unite the three of them against him, it was no wonder that they couldn’t get along in the beginning.

Now, everything made perfect sense.

Lucien looked so much like the triplets because he was their brother― they were quadruplets. That was how he, like them, was my fated mate. He wasn’t just an ordinary relative, but a possible heir to the throne of Shadowclaw.

And he was kicked out and denied his birthright. An alpha’s son was forced to live a life on the run, as though he was nothing more than an omega.

I felt sick to my stomach. Just the thought of Lucien having to fight for his life all those years among rogues had my skull pounding. My heart raced with anger at the injustice Lucien was forced to suffer, all for the sake of trying to do the right thing, when everyone else sat back and twiddled their metaphorical thumbs.

I was only a mere child when I went missing. How old could Lucien possibly be when he went looking for me? He wasn’t that much older than I was― he would’ve been a child himself too.

Yet, his family left him for dead.

Maybe that was why the Moon Goddess paired us together. I let out a small, silent laugh.

We were both in the same boat― abandoned by our families. I had never understood the significance of fated mates until this very moment. Now, I wanted nothing more than to look for Lucien.

"He will come for her again," Rowan said. He was the first to break the silence.

"Unfortunately," Cassian said with a huff. "I doubt he died. He has proven to be impossibly hard to kill―"

He suddenly stopped short, stiffening.

"Wait," he said. "Do you smell that?"