LOGINBRIELLE’S POV
FLASHBACK: HER EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY The main party had wound down and most people had already gone. While the staff still cleaned in the other rooms, but in the private lounge it was just me, Tristan, Axel, Hunter and Darius. And all night the three of them had been acting different. Axel kept refilling my drink. “Your glass is empty again. Can’t have the birthday girl thirsty.” Hunter actually pulled me into the conversation. “No, seriously, what do you think? Don’t just let Tristan talk over you.” Darius sat closer than usual. “That dress looks good on you, but turning eighteen looks better on you.” I kept telling myself it was just the occasion of the night. Maybe birthday politeness. Still, every time one of them looked at me like that my stomach flipped and I let myself enjoy it. Tristan’s phone rang. He checked it and stood to leave. “I’ve gotta take this. Enjoy yourself Bri, don't let these idiots bore the life out of you.” He smirked and left. The second the door shut the mood changed. Darius leaned forward first. “We should go somewhere quieter, the staff keeps walking through here.” I nodded. Then we ended up in one of the guest rooms upstairs, Axel locked the door behind me, while Hunter switched the lights to dim. I stood near the bed not sure what to do with my hands. Axel walked over first and stopped right in front of me. “You really grew up, Brielle.” Hunter came up on my other side. “We’ve been taking note.” Darius stayed a step back but his eyes didn’t leave me. I tried to laugh it off. “You’re all acting strange tonight.” Axel’s mouth tipped up. “Maybe we got tired of pretending we don’t see you.” Darius moved closer and kissed me. It started slowly, then I kissed him back harder and it wasn’t slow anymore. Axel’s hands settled on my waist. “Fuck, finally.” Hunter’s fingers brushed my neck. “About time.” One of them unzipped my dress and it slipped down. My bra and underwear followed suit. Axel’s mouth closed over one breast. “These have been driving me crazy all night.” Hunter took the other side. “Soft as hell, look at how hard her nipples are already.” I held onto Darius’s shoulders. Darius dropped to his knees, pulled my legs apart and dragged his tongue between them. I jerked in pleasure. “Shit, she’s already wet,” Darius said against me. Axel’s voice was rough. “Keep going. I want to hear her.” Darius licked my clit slower, then settled in and ate me out steady. “Fuck, you taste good.” Hunter pinched my nipple. “She’s shaking already.” I came standing up, with my hands in Darius’s hair, and my legs shaking like jelly. Darius looked up. “That’s one. But we’re not done.” They moved me to the bed, and I landed on my back. Darius kissed me so I could taste myself. Hunter settled between my legs. “My turn.” He licked deeper, and slid two fingers inside me, moving them in and out of me steadily. “So fucking tight.” Axel knelt near my head, and pulled his cock out. “Open up for me, birthday girl.” I opened up and took him into my mouth. He groaned. “Yeah, just like that. Take it deeper into your mouth.” Hunter’s fingers curled deeper inside my pussy. “Cum on my tongue again. Do it.” I came harder and the sound muffled around Axel. Axel pulled out of my mouth with a wet sound. “She’s ready.” He lay back and pulled me on top of him. “Sit on it slowly, I want you to feel every inch of me.” I sank down on his cock and he gripped my hips, groaning loudly. “Fuck yes. Take it all, look at you stretching around me.” I braced on his chest and moved. Hunter moved behind me, placing his hands on my breasts. “Ride him harder. I want to watch these boobs bounce.” Darius knelt closer. “Stroke me while you fuck him.” I wrapped my hand around Darius cock and then took him into my mouth again. I was moaning hard around his cock as he filled my throat up. Axel thrust up into me harder. “That’s it, use me. You’re so fucking wet it’s running down my balls.” Hunter pinched my nipples. “She loves this. Listen to those little sounds she’s making.” Darius’s hand settled in my hair. “Suck harder. Such a good girl.” Axel’s rhythm got rougher, he flipped us without pulling out. “On your back. I want to fuck you properly.” He drove in deeper. “Take it. Every fucking inch.” Hunter took his place at my mouth. “Open. I want those lips around me while he ruins you.” Darius moved lower and licked my clit. “She’s clenching so hard, she’s gonna come again.” Axel fucked me harder. “Come on his tongue, do it. Squeeze my fucking cock.” I came so strong my vision started getting blurry. Hunter pulled out of my mouth. “My turn inside her.” He went behind me and pushed into my pussy. He went in slower at first. “Fuck, you're so warm.” I wrapped my legs around him. He groaned. “Yeah, pull me deeper. You want it so bad, don’t you?” Axel’s mouth was on my breast. “Tell him. Tell him how bad you want it.” I could barely speak. “Harder.” And Hunter gave it to me. “Like that? Fuck, you’re dripping.” When he fucked me tilk he came, Darius took his place. Darius pushed my knee up. “Look at this. Look how open you are for us.” He sank in deep, wasting no time. “Perfect. Fucking perfect.” Axel stroked my hair. “Take him. You’ve been so good tonight.” Hunter’s hand slid between us and rubbed my clit. “One more time baby, cum on his cock.” Darius fucked me steadily.. “I can feel you getting close. Let go, I want to feel it.” I came again, with a loud cry, my entire body was shuddering. Darius came inside me afterwards with a deep groan, buried all the way inside. After that everything slowed. One of them cleaned me up and then I felt the bed covers pull over us. I ended up in the middle, Axel on one side, Hunter on the other, Darius along my back with an arm over my waist. My body felt sore and used and satisfied. I lay there listening to their breathing even out, smiling against Axel's shoulder. This is real, I thought as my eyes closed. They want me and after all this time they finally chose me back. I fell asleep tangled between the three of them, completely certain that tomorrow everything would be different.BRIELLE'S POV"There's a compound in his blood that shouldn't be there."Maren said it the moment the door clicked shut behind us. She didn't soften it. She didn't lead up to it. She just held the envelope against her chest and let the words land in the corridor.I heard them. I didn't understand them."A what?" Tristan's voice came out rough."The human lab found traces of it on the first pass. They couldn't identify it." Her jaw tightened. "They couldn't identify it because it wasn't made for humans. It's built to work on a wolf's body. On a wolf's healing."The floor went soft under my feet. Tristan's hand shot out and caught my elbow."Poison," I breathed."I don't like that word until I know more." Maren pulled out a sheet of paper covered in columns I couldn't read. "But yes. It's layered. Small amounts, given over time, each one sitting on top of the last. Someone has been dosing your father for weeks.""Three weeks," Tristan rasped."Three weeks." She nodded. "It explains ever
TRISTAN'S POV"He knew you were outside."Elena yanked the passenger door shut behind her and sat there with both hands pressed flat on her knees to stop them shaking."What?""Zane." Her voice cracked on the name. "I never told him you came with me. I never said a word about you. He walked me to the door and told me to get back to the car before you came looking."I was out of the car before she'd finished.The street was ordinary. A man walking a terrier. Two women laughing outside a café. A delivery bike weaving through traffic. I turned in a slow circle and looked up at the Carrow, at twelve floors of dark mirrored glass, and every single window stared back at me blank.Any one of them could have been his.I got back in and started the engine."Tell me everything," I ordered. "From the second he opened the door."She told me. The drink he'd poured her. The card with nothing written in it. The petition he'd admitted to without blinking, and the question he'd asked like he was askin
ELENA'S POV"Give it to me."Tristan stopped on the hall steps with the folder held against his chest like he could keep the thing inside it from getting out."Elena—""You're standing there working out how to say it gently." I held my hand out flat. "Don't. Give it to me."He gave it to me.One page. A petition timestamped two minutes past four in the morning, and my brother's signature sitting at the bottom of it in that looping, confident hand our father drilled into us both before we were ten.The wind came up the steps and pushed my hair across my face. I didn't move to fix it."I'm sorry," I whispered."Don't do that.""He's my brother.""You've said six words to him in nine years, and four of them were in an elevator." Tristan took the folder back out of my hands. "You don't get to carry this."Except I did carry it, all the way down the steps and into the car, sitting in my lap like a stone.We got three streets before it turned into a fight."How much do you actually know abo
TRISTAN'S POV"You can't go in there, sir."The clerk planted himself in front of the chamber doors with a tablet clutched against his chest like a shield. He was maybe twenty-five. His hands were shaking."Move," I ordered."An heir holds no seat, Mr. Prescott. No seat, no voice, no entry while a session is sitting." He swallowed hard. "Those are the rules.""My father is in a hospital bed.""I'm very sorry, sir. The rules don't—""Article nine, subsection four." Elena stepped up beside me, and her voice cut through his like a blade through paper. "A named heir carries the proxy of a seated Alpha who cannot attend. It was written in eighty-one, and it has never been repealed. Would you like me to recite the rest of it, or would you like to open the door?"The clerk's mouth opened. Nothing came out of it.Elena reached over and pressed my father's council pin into my palm. She'd had it in her coat since we left the hospital, and she'd said nothing about it the whole drive."Go on," sh
DARIUS'S POV"Ninety seconds."Brielle stopped in the middle of the corridor and looked at me like I'd spoken in another language. "What?""That's all I want." I kept my hands at my sides where she could see them. "Ninety seconds, then I'll get out of your way and you can go home to the girls."She was grey with exhaustion. Her sleeve still had her father's blood dried stiff on the cuff, the same as mine."Darius, I can't do this now.""I know you can't." My throat was tight around every word. "That's why I'm not asking you to do anything."She let out a long breath. Then she leaned her shoulder against the wall, which was as close to permission as I was going to get.I'd had two weeks to work out how to say this. I still didn't have it right."I've been standing at the edge of your life since the day you came back," I began. "Your father called it hovering. He wasn't wrong.""Darius—""Let me finish, or I'll lose my nerve." My heart was slamming. "I don't know how a man apologises fo
BRIELLE'S POV"Dad. Dad, look at me."I was on the floor before I knew I'd moved, both hands flat on my father's chest, shaking him hard enough that his head rolled on the rug."Brielle. Brielle, stop."Darius caught my wrists and pulled them away. "You'll hurt him. Let me."I let him. I hated that I let him.He put his ear close to my father's mouth, counted under his breath, then pressed two fingers beneath his jaw. His shoulders dropped half an inch."He's breathing. It's fast, but it's there.""Maren." My voice came out in shreds. "We need Maren, she's—""Number." Hunter was already crouched beside us with his phone out, thumb hovering. "Tristan, give me the number."My brother didn't answer. He stood over us with his hands open at his sides, staring down at our father like a man watching a building come down."Tristan."He blinked. Then he rattled off a number, and Hunter was on his feet and talking before he'd finished."Car's at the door." Axel came back through the study door







