Thalia's POV
I woke up to the chill of exposed skin and the terror of stolen panties.
I was scared. Not because of the "Lunar Surge" everyone talks about, or even the four guys in this house who are supposedly part of it.
What really freaked me out was that someone had come into my room, touched me, and stolen my underwear.
And I am supposed to be their Sister?
The thought of not knowing which of them had done this was driving me crazy.
I needed to know who.
But first, I needed to eat. And to eat required descending to the kitchen, required facing them.
I took a couple of shaken breaths, attempting to calm the frantic thud of my heart, and told myself to get dressed in clean clothes.
I would not let them glimpse so much as a glimmer of what I then suspected, or of what had happened.
The house was horribly quiet as I crept down to the ground floor. No voices.
They're all likely to be busy in their secret lair, trying to understand people's body languages and donating millions to charity.
A momentary feeling of relief.
I entered the kitchen, the gleaming surfaces unsettlingly spotless. I needed something simple, something to anchor me.
Eggs.
Toast. Something to fill the hollow thrum in my stomach that wasn't hunger.
I pulled open a cutting board, a knife, and started chopping peppers for an omelet, the thwack-thwack of the knife on the wood a small, comforting familiarity in the midst of the strangest of aliens.
My back to the door, my gaze on the colorful vegetables, when warm, large hands suddenly encircled my waist.
I froze, all my muscles locked.
The scent that enveloped me was earthy, wild, with something keenly mournful.
Rhys.
"Hello, Thalia," his deep voice rumbled, husky and low, by my ear.
His hands around my waist contracted infinitesimally, not hurting, but imprisoning me. "What are you doing in my kitchen?"
My breath stuck. He must not know, be aware of the violation. But how could he not? Should he not? Was this his way of explaining it to me?
"Making breakfast," I struggled to answer, my voice uncertain, chopping another pepper. "What does it look like?"
He smiled gently, his laughter vibrating within me, even as his body didn't move any closer to me. "It looks like you're cooking breakfast. But did nobody tell you that you don't have the authority to prepare anything whatsoever in my kitchen without asking?"
A blinding, crackling jolt of electricity shot through me at his touch, a shivery echo of the dream. My arm burned where his fingers rested.
"I didn't know a kitchen needed a permission slip," I snapped at him, trying sarcasm, trying to keep my voice even.
My hands were still clamped around the knife, but it felt flimsy, insufficient. "And no one told me." I added.
As if in answer, his body shifted, totally closing the gap between us.
He pressed his body fully against my back, shoulder to hip, holding me fast against the counter.
My breath hanged. He smelled of wet earth and something much older, something that thrummed deep within my bones.
His head lowered, jaw against the curve of my ear, and a low, raw growl trembled in the back of his chest. It wasn't threatening, not really, but it was raw, primal, and utterly unnerving.
"Well, now you know," he whispered, his voice a low thrum against my ear. His hands shifted, his fingers digging gently into my sides, then, slowly, slowly, he began to rub against me.
His hard body, unyielding and warm, pressed into my backside, the friction building, impossible to resist.
My breath stuck again.
This was wrong.
So wrong.
All of my instincts were howling to turn and leave, to recoil, to fight. But I couldn't. I was stuck, held pinned by a nauseating mixture of fear and something else, something shameful which coiled deep within my gut at the pressure of his flesh against mine. His scent filled my lungs, making me reeling.
"Ask next time," he whispered, his hips still rotating slowly, tauntingly
"ask."
Finally, after what seemed like forever but was probably just seconds, he withdrew.
I missed his warmth and weight.
Shamefully.
I was cold and shaking in the instant he disappeared. I rocked forward slightly, holding to the counter, the knife still in my hand.
I did not dare turn around. I did not dare glance in his eyes. But I sensed his eyes on my back, heavy and knowing, before I heard his soft, near-silent footsteps recede from the kitchen.
My fingers dropped the knife onto the cutting board with a clatter. My legs were jelly. Was it him?
Could it be him that touched me last night?
After Rhys's terrifying departure from the kitchen, I hurriedly made my food and fled.
My trembling legs carried me once more up the sweeping staircase and straight into my room. The door slammed shut behind me with a deafening thud, one that was more like a lock clicking into place. I stumbled back, falling onto the bed, staring at the ceiling, lost.
My mind flinched back, screaming improper- improper-improper.
I couldn't think of it.
I would not think of it.
It was wrong. All of it.
The missing panties, the sheer disrespect for my boundaries, my consent. And now, the terrible truth of the Lunar Surge, making these already dangerous men something perhaps monstrous.
I hugged my knees to me and held them tight against my chest, trying to shrink, to disappear. I did not want to come out again at least for now.
---
Hours crept into a full throb of isolation. Sunlight outside my window shifted from morning brightness to evening breeze.
My stomach rumbled, but the prospect of going back to them once more, of entering that kitchen, made me sick.
Starving for any release, any relief from the suffocating fear and embarrassment, I clung to my phone.
The blue glow of the screen was a lifeline to the world that I had lost. I scrolled numbly through my social media pages, the comforting ritual of forgetting.
Friends' faces, inane memes, headlines – anything to force the memory from my head.
I stopped.
My thumb numbed its way across the screen.
A picture. A selfie, smiling and lovely. Ryan. And to his side, her head on his shoulder, was Chloe. My friend.
The caption of heart emojis. with the abbreviation “LOML”
What?
No.
My breath hitched, caught in my throat. My vision grew fuzzy, but the image remained, gruesomely clear.
Chloe that bitch!
He left me—
He left me for my best friend?
My heart literally shattered.
Blazes PovMy heart was a hammer against my ribs. My brothers stood around me. I could feel how tense we all felt."Can you please come sit, Thalia?"“Alright,” she said, throwing her hands in the air to surrender.But then,She didn't go to the couch.She took a slow, but fluid step towards me. One after another. Her hips swayed with a silent, graceful power. The loose robe moved with her. My wolf howled inside my head, a mixture of fear and something hot and desperate.She got to me, looked at me for a while and then, sat down.Not on the couch. I mean.On my lap.A gasp went through the room from Milo. “What the fuck,” I heard him mutter under his breath.My own breath caught in my throat. My body went rigid. What the fuck is wrong with Thalia?I felt the heat of her skin and the surprising weight of her on me.She smelled of wild spice and something new, something that made my wolf go crazy. My hands, which were onthe both sides of the couch, clenched into fists. I could feel the
Blaze’s POVThe silence amongst us after we left the room was heavy. Hours had passed and we all waited for her.We didn't know how long it would take, but something inside us just insisted that we waited.I sat on the couch, staring at the floor, replaying the last time this happened. The horror that came with it and the decisions I had to make.Jax was at the other end of the couch, sitting still like a stone.Milo and Rhys too.Then all of a sudden, Milo somehow shouted, pulling me from the deep thoughts."Shit," he whispered, his eyes wide, and his voice full of pure terror. "She's awake."I was on my feet in a second. We all were. Jax, Milo, Rhys. We stood like soldiers, who were tense and ready.Thalia stood there.She wasn't screaming. She wasn't holding her head or even crying. She just looked at us, with her eyes calm and a little confused. Her robe hung loosely around her. She looked… normal. Too normal for the kind of chaos I was expecting.Or should I say we all were expec
Thalia's POVI was in a wide and empty space. I was curled up on the ground. The despair was so real, and even now in this place, I felt my pain, sadness, and regrets. But all these emotions quickly changed into a hot, flaring anger.I didn't want this from the beginning.I didn't want to be a werewolf.I don't want to stay with men who were troubled and loved their life struggling with unknown humans when they could just mind their business.I didn't want to dwell in the midst of men with fucking lunar surges determining their actions.I certainly didn't want to be attracted to my fucking stepbrothers or even stepsister—if that even makes sense.I wanted my old life back.I wanted to just leave this damn place and face breakups and betrayals and rejections.Then, a person appeared in front of me. They weren't a stranger. Their face was kind, but also serious. And a little bit filled with sadness. Their voice was calm and gentle. It wasn't loud, but it filled the whole space."Stop yo
Milo’s POVMy heart was pounding. I had just watched Rhys wake up. He looked at Thalia on the floor and—he knew. He looked at me, and he also knew I gave her the absolver. And he knew what that meant.A heavy silence filled the room. No one yelled. Not anymore, and no one moved. Jax was no longer red-faced and angry. He just stared at Thalia. His eyes looked empty. Blaze was still standing over her, grim and quiet. Rhys leaned against the doorframe. He looked tired. And scared. But his eyes were sharp, as they took everything in.The silence in the room was worse than the yelling. It was the kind of quietness when there’s a shared nightmare. The same thing had happened before. With another human. And it ended badly. Like—really badly.My stomach twisted when I realized what I had done. Blaze had asked for anything. Plus, she was screaming. Her power was going crazy. I didn't know what to do, and I certainly didn't know how to go about it with the “anything to calm her down” instructio
Rhys's POVMy head hurt and my body ached all over. It felt like I'd just fought a big battle. But I was back to being me, Rhys. And not Reena. That was the first thing I checked. That wild, hungry feeling that came with her was gone.I was lying on a couch in the living room. I blinked thrice as I tried to clear my head.Reena. She was always dramatic. Every time she showed up, she always made a mess. But I always had to let her out to balance the equation. She was a trail of trouble. Just hope she hadn't done much this time.Then, a cold shiver ran down my back. A memory hit me, it was sharp and clear. Before I took over the seat from Reena in the dark room, she had whispered to me: “I had Thalia and she was everything.” with a wink.My eyes snapped open instantly.Thalia? No.My heart pounded. A sick and sinking feeling hit me. Reena "having" someone was never good. It always meant she'd taken too much. Left disaster behind.Then I heard it. Voices. Not just voices but loud voices.
Jax's POVAs I stared at Thalia, my jaw felt locked. My eyes were glued to her. She was on the floor. Naked. Shaking. Her face was soaked with tears. A strange growl had ripped from her throat. It wasn't human. And I knew—no, we all knew what it was. Then her arm shot out. It moved so fast and so strong. It hit Milo hard in the chest. Milo, who was bigger than her, stumbled back. He almost fell.That was it for us.A proof. Right there. In front of us, telling us that she wasn't the Thalia we had known a few hours ago. And confirming our fears. She wasn't just exposed to the surge. She had taken it in. Deep inside her.Blaze moved first. He was always the calm one when things went crazy like this.He stepped past Milo. His eyes were focused on Thalia. His voice was low and calm. Although he had intended for it to be steady. But I could hear the tight edge in it. The worry that was fully clothing the sound of his voice."Easy, Thalia," Blaze said, as he raised his hands. Like he was tal