HALFS OF A ONE

ALEX

A dagger whistles past my face.

I barely duck in time as it slams into the wall behind me with a violent thunk, the hilt still vibrating from the impact.

“The fuck?” I breathe out, heart slamming against my ribs.

My entire body is quivering from shock. 

I spin around, back hitting the wall, scanning the hallway. It is still as empty as it had been a minute ago. And an hour again, and the entire time I’ve been roaming like a stray. 

But this time I hear giggling.

Girlish giggles. 

It’s the third time today. These weird-ass noises down the halls, flickering lights, that gut-deep feeling like someone’s watching me. I’m starting to lose my damn mind in here.

Seventy-two hours.

I’ve counted. 

Three fucking days. 

That’s how long I’ve been in this overdecorated, haunted-ass mansion with zero sign of my so-called “mate.”

Am I Reid’s guest? His prisoner? A Luna? I don’t know, and nobody else seems to either. The maids won’t look me in the eye when they attend to me and they don’t know what to call me. 

I told them to stick with “Alex.” 

That whole Luna bullshit was not going to fly.

Now I’m stalking down the hallway, trying to act like I know where I’m going. 

Truth is, I’m lost. 

Again. 

The giggles come louder this time. 

I whip around the corner, jaw clenched, already pissed.

And that’s when I see them.

Two almost identical girls. 

They look like they’re in their late teens, maybe fifteen or sixteen. 

Both have long, dark waves that fall like curtains over their shoulders. The only difference is in their eyes. One has piercing blue eyes, and the other has heterochromia with one eye gray and the other ocean blue like her sister’s.

One of them twirls a second dagger between her fingers like it’s a toy. 

The other leans against the wall like she’s been waiting for me to find them.

“Well, well,” the dagger-twirler says, blue eyes glimmering. “Reid’s little mystery finally crawls out of her room. Didn’t think you were real.”

“She’s definitely real. Look at her fists,” the heterochrome-eyed one snickers, stepping closer, “She’s tense.”

I don’t move but my blood’s already boiling hot and my eye’s narrowed. 

“Did one of you throw that?” I jerk my chin toward the dagger still quivering in the wall behind me.

Both of them glance at it, then back at me.

“Yeah,” blue-eyes shrugs. “We missed.”

“Barely,” I snap.

“That’s the point,” heterochrome grins. “If we wanted to hit you, you’d be bleeding.”

“Charming,” I mutter.

They move like they’re the same person. Same stride, same tilt of their heads. I’m suddenly reminded of Reid’s annoying smirk and how much it has always chilled and terrified me to the bones. 

But these girls don’t scare me, they barely do, which might be a mistake for me to underestimate them if they are truly the Maddox family. 

Just to be sure….

“You his sisters or something?” I ask, stepping back once.

“We’re twins,” blue-eyes says.

“Obviously,” I bite.

They both laugh, like I’m the most fun they’ve had all week.

“But I haven’t seen anything like you on these walls,” I add, glancing around. “Just Reid everywhere. Reid with a fucking trophy, Reid with a wolf, Reid shirtless with blood down his chest. It’s like living inside the mind of an obsessed narcissist.”

“Tell me about it,” heterochrome mutters. “He has an oil painting of himself in every room..”

“Oh my God,” I mutter.

Blue-eyes steps closer, squinting at me, eyes narrowing like she’s trying to see past my skin. “You’re not human.”

“Nope.”

“But you’re not a wolf either,” her twin says, sniffing me once. “You don’t smell like it. Not all the way.”

I shift on my feet, feeling uneasy under their scrutinizing eyes. “Do you guys always start conversations by throwing knives and sniffing strangers?”

They both grin.

“What are you then?” blue-eyes presses, circling me.

“Why don’t you tell me what you are first?” I shoot back.

“Bitchy,” one says.

“Deadly,” the other winks.

I raise a brow. “Not what I meant.”

“We’re half,” blue-eyes says, finally stopping. “Wolf and witch.”

“And you?” Her sister asks. 

I pause.

They wait, they both have the same expressions on their faces. 

“I don’t know what the hell I am,” I admit. “Does that answer your question?”

They blink, then beam like I’ve just told them I can turn water into vodka.

“Oh my God,” blue-eyes says. “She’s broken.”

“I love broken things,” her twin says dreamily.

“Same.”

They talk over each other again, completely ignoring me now.

“She can stay in our wing.”

“No. Mine.”

“Only if Reid allows it.”

“He will.”

“Won’t know until we ask first.”

“Will you ask?”

“No, you do the asking.”

“Why don’t you?”

I lift a hand. “Hello? Still right here.”

They both turn to me at the same time.

“You got a name?” one asks.

“Alexandra…” I don’t add my Father’s name.  

They both nod slowly, like they’re trying it out in their mouths.

“I’m Layla,” says blue-eyes.

“And I’m Liyah,” says the heterochrome one. “You’ll—” 

“Where’s Reid?”

I ask before she can complete her sentence. 

In the three days I’ve been inside the Paxon pack, I’ve been pretending not to care that Reid hasn’t shown up once. 

But it stings. It makes me feel like some kind of trophy, won and then forgotten, left to gather dust on a shelf. I chose him. He says I’m his mate. So why is he staying away?

“I need to have a word with him,” I quickly add when the girls pause longer than I can endure. “Just tell me which room he’s in.”

They share a glance that feels private, like I just walked into the middle of a conversation I was never meant to hear.

I clear my throat awkwardly. 

When they look back at me, they look far less smug, and more serious now. 

“Are you really his mate?” Layla asks, she sounds almost… cautious. 

My brows puckers. 

That’s odd. 

Then Liyah speaks again, and this time her words hit different. “You’re the one from Ragriz pack?”

It’s a simple question, but something about the way she says it turns my blood cold. My back straightens. The one. The. Like maybe there’s another. Or maybe there was supposed to be. Something about her tone makes it sound like I’m not the first Ragriz girl to show up here. 

I blink at her, heart hammering so loud I’m scared they can hear it. They’re still looking at me like I’ve got something stuck to my face. 

Like I don’t belong here. 

Then Layla tugs on her sister’s wrist. “Come on,” she mutters under her breath, not bothering to whisper. “We’re not getting in trouble with Reid for this.”

Liyah doesn’t argue. 

They both turn, walking away down the hall, their long black hair bouncing in unison like they rehearsed it. I stare after them, confused and rattled, and suddenly so small in this massive fucking house. 

Their last words haunt me. 

Not getting in trouble with Reid.

For what? Talking to me?

Or saying too much?

And why the hell did she say the one from the Ragriz pack like there was ever more than one?