Bound to Four Alphas

"I don't know what you're talking about." My voice comes out calm, even though my heart is racing. I keep my shoulders straight. I don't step back. I refuse to look weak, even though my palms are damp and my pulse won't slow, even though the alarm bell from moments ago still seems to echo somewhere deep in my bones, and half the lecture hall is still staring at the sleeve now covering my wrist. Jodan is still standing at the front of the lecture hall. His eyes don't leave me. Not for a second. It feels like he's peeling layers off my skin without touching me, like he already knows every lie I've ever told, and is simply waiting to see how long I'll keep telling them. Lucien is the first to break the silence. He lets out a soft laugh, smooth and careless, like nothing here matters. "Wow. Straight denial. I like her already." Riven doesn't laugh. His lips curl back slightly, like he's holding in a snarl. His eyes are sharp, focused, and dangerous. "She's lying." "I'm not," I snap,

I wake up gasping, my chest heaving like I've been drowning. Light burns my eyes. White. Too white. The smell of herbs and metal fills my nose. My head throbs, sharp and deep, like something is drilling into my skull. For a moment I can't remember where I am, can't remember anything except the arena, the moon, the pain tearing through my skin, and then it all comes rushing back at once, heavy enough to knock the breath out of me all over again. Voices crash over me before I can even move. "She shouldn't be awake." "You saw the markings!" "This is beyond protocol." I blink hard and turn my head, and every small movement feels like it costs something, like my body is running on borrowed time it hasn't agreed to lend. The infirmary. Mooncrest's medical wing is cold and quiet in a way that feels wrong. Glowing wards line the walls, humming softly, pale blue light pulsing in slow, deliberate rhythm, like the whole room is breathing along with some rule I don't understand. Shelves of

The silence after the roar is the worst part. Four alphas kneel in front of me, in front of the entire hall, and no one moves. No one breathes. It's like the whole world is waiting to see what I do next, and I don't have an answer. My arms still burn where the marks flared. My chest still hums with four heartbeats that aren't mine. Jodan is the first to rise. He doesn't stumble. He doesn't stagger like the others. He plants one hand on the marble, pushes himself upright, and forces his spine straight even though I can see the tremor in his jaw. His eyes find mine, and for the first time since I met him, he doesn't look calculating. He looks afraid. "April," he says, low enough that only I can hear it. "What did you do?" "I don't know," I whisper back. "I didn't do anything. It did this." Riven is next, and he doesn't rise gracefully. He surges up with a snarl, shoving off the floor like the ground insulted him, fists clenched so tight his knuckles have gone white. His eyes are

Four words. That's all it takes to make the whole cell feel smaller. "Choose one, or lose all." I read it twice, like the second time might change what it says. It doesn't. "Give it here." Riven holds out his hand, and I pass him the parchment without arguing. He reads it once, and something in his face goes flat and cold in a way that scares me more than his usual temper. "This isn't a threat. It's an offer." "Same thing, dressed differently," Lucien says, reading over his shoulder. His charm is gone, stripped down to something sharper underneath. "Whoever wrote this wants April to think she has a choice. She doesn't. Not really. Not if Selene and Jax's lives are the price of getting it wrong." "We don't know that's what they mean," Jodan says, but he doesn't sound like he believes it either. Eryx takes the note last, holding it gently, like it might still be warm from whoever wrote it. He goes very still, the way he does when he's reading something with more than his eyes. "T

"Did I," she says again, softer this time, like she's savoring how the words land. "Or did you only watch what they wanted you to see?" My legs won't hold me. I feel Eryx's arm come around my waist before I even realize I'm falling, and even through the bond's constant hum, I can hear my own heartbeat stuttering out of rhythm. "That's not possible," I say, but my voice cracks on the second word. "I was there. I held your hand. I watched them close the casket." "Did you look inside it first?" I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. Because I hadn't. I was twelve. They told me it was better if I remembered her whole, not the way the fever left her at the end, and I believed them, because why wouldn't I. Because grief doesn't ask for proof. Grief just wants somewhere to put itself down. "No," I whisper. "I didn't." The figure lowers her hood. The face underneath is close enough to my mother's that my chest seizes, but wrong in the small places memory usually forgives. The nose is a