CHAPTER 3: MATE?

CELINE

I stood at the top of the stairs and stared at the empty corridor where the cold-eyed man had just been.

The warmth I remembered from this morning was completely gone. Stripped away as if it had never existed. Those familiar features, same dark hair, same jaw, same mouth — had looked at me like I was an inconvenience he hadn't budgeted for.

“Are you blind, or something?”

Maybe he was having a terrible morning. Maybe Alphas were simply moody, temperamental creatures who apologised to injured strangers one hour and dismissed them the next.

I gripped the railing and started carefully down the stairs.

I just wanted to thank him, and leave. I had a father to locate and a life to rebuild. I had not fled one disaster to get tangled up in another.

I reached the bottom, and stopped walking entirely. There I saw Alpha Zithan was sitting on one of the large couches, phone in hand, typing with calm focused attention.

I stared at him., then I looked back up the stairs, then back at him. My brain performed a slow, grinding halt.

If Alpha Zithan was sitting on that couch, relaxed, unbothered, clearly having been there for some time — then who had just spoken to me upstairs?

Who had looked at me with those ice cold blue eyes and asked if I was blind?

Same face, but different eyes.

A chill ran straight down my spine. I took one cautious step toward the couch then stopped myself. The memory of that ice blue contempt was still fresh enough to sting. The last thing I needed was to walk up to him and get the same look twice.

I turned to head for the door instead.

"Well. Who do we have here?"

The voice stopped me mid-step. Low, warm and dripping with amusement.

I turned slowly, and my jaw came completely unhinged.

Standing before me again was Alpha Zithan, but as I looked into his eyes, there wasn't silver or icy blue.

But his eyes were light green — bright and mischievous, catching the light like something alive, and the smile spreading across his face was the most unrepentantly flirtatious thing I had ever seen on a human being.

His gaze started at the top of my head and made a slow deliberate journey all the way down to my feet, taking its sweet time and making absolutely no secret of what it was doing.

My face heated immediately.

"A pretty girl like you wouldn't go unnoticed around here," he said, and began walking towards me. "How have I not seen you before?"

Wait! Was he joking? Like we met a few hours ago and he wasn’t acting like this.

He winked. Like actually winking with total confidence and zero shame.

Goddess. What was wrong with this man?

"I came to thank you for sending the doctor for my ankle," I said quickly, already stepping away. “I appreciate it. I'm leaving now."

He moved faster. One moment he was several feet away, the next he was directly in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my chin up to look at him. He gazed down at me with those bright green eyes, his lower lip caught lightly between his teeth in a way that was almost certainly calculated.

He was handsome, infuriating, unreasonably handsome. Same bone structure as the silver-eyed man who had made me feel safe, but where that one had been still and quiet, this one crackled. Like standing next to something about to catch fire.

Same three faces, but three sets of eyes. Three completely different men wearing the same impossible face.

What was happening?

"Why are you looking at me like you've seen a ghost?" he asked, the smile sharpening with interest.

"You—" I pointed a slightly unsteady finger at him. "You were just insulting me. Upstairs."

His brows climbed. "Insulted you?"

"Yes. Just now!"

Something shifted in his expression, recognition, quickly swallowed by amusement.

"Darling," he said, voice dropping slightly, "I have never insulted a pretty woman in my life. This is the first time I'm seeing you."

"That is an outright lie." I scoffed, rolling my eyes. Strangely comfortable around this man.

"Is it?" He didn't look remotely bothered.

"You looked at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of your shoe."

"I would never." He pressed a hand to his chest with theatrical sincerity. "These eyes have never looked at a woman with anything less than complete appreciation."

He was either the most convincing liar I had ever encountered, or—

"You think I'm someone else," he said, and this time the smile was genuine. Real amusement, warm at the edges.

"Don't laugh at me."

"I'm not laughing." He was absolutely laughing. Silently, which was somehow worse.

I had no time for this. My father was somewhere in this city, my phone needed charging, and I was having a circular argument with a man who had three faces and zero shame.

I turned to leave.

His hand caught my wrist, gently, and I stumbled, ending up with my free hand braced against his chest. Up this close his scent hit me properly for the first time. Different from Zithan's. Where Zithan smelled like dark wood and rain, this one smelled like cedarwood.

The pull in my chest tugged sharply, and I stepped back immediately.

"How about you come with me to the Mating Festival tonight?" he said, completely unbothered.

"No." I shook my head. "I need to find—"

"Wonderful!"

I blinked. "I said no."

"You didn't say it fast enough." He was already moving, scooping me up, one arm under my knees, the other around my back, and starting up the stairs before I could process what was happening.

"Put me down!" I smacked his chest. "I want to leave! I have somewhere to be!"

Completely unaffected by both the hitting and the screaming, he took the stairs with the casual ease of a man on a leisurely Sunday stroll.

"You'll love it," he said cheerfully. "Best Mating Festival in the territory. I'll have a dress sent to you."

He dropped me onto a bed in a large room with tall windows, and pointed at me with that infuriating grin, and disappeared before I could form another protest.

Not again. I flopped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.

I pulled out my phone and powered it on. The notifications arrived like a flood, thirty missed calls from Muize, and ten messages. Five missed calls from my father, and seven messages.

I opened Muize's texts first, bracing myself.

"Bitch. What have you done to my best friend?"

"Pray to the Moon Goddess Doland survives this. Prepare to rot in jail."

My throat tightened. I clicked the next one.

"Where the FUCK are you???"

I put the phone face down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I hadn't wanted to seriously hurt Doland. I had wanted him to understand what it meant to respect a boundary. But he had come into my room. He had locked the door. He had touched me.

I picked the phone back up to open my father's messages —The screen went black. Battery dead.

"You have got to be kidding me." My jaws dropped. “How will I call my Father now?”

*

I stood outside the entrance to the great hall, holding the skirt of the deep green gown the maids had wrestled me into, trying to remember what I was doing here.

The hall was enormous — warm light spilling from everywhere, music threading through the air, the whole room humming with an energy that was part celebration. Pairs moved together, bodies pressed close, the atmosphere thick with wants and desires.

A Mating Festival. An actual real Mating Festival.

Muize's voice drifted through my memory uninvited. “Unattractive. No wolf. No mate.”

“You are not here for a mate,” I reminded myself. “One hour. Music, one drink. Then go out and find your father.”

I found the bar and drank two shots before the bartender could blink.

"Do you have something bigger and stronger?" I asked, setting the empty glass down.

He laughed like I had said something funny. "I do. But you won't make it home in one piece."

"Bring it anyway."

He set a full bottle on the bar. I opened it and drank straight from the neck.

Then it hit me.

A sharp sudden pull directly in the centre of my chest — so forceful my knees nearly buckled. I grabbed the bar's edge, pressing my free hand flat against my sternum.

“Does too much alcohol cause chest burn?” I asked.

The bartender had gone completely still, staring past me at the entrance with an expression I had never seen on a bartender before.

Fear was clearly visible in his eyes. "The Blackthorne triplets," he breathed.

I slowly turned and followed his eyes, there I saw Three men standing at the entrance. Three identical faces, Same height, Same dark hair, Same broad shoulders filling the doorway like they owned not just the room but the air inside it.

One pair of eyes is silver, One ice blue, One light green.

The pull struck again, fierce and bone deep. It was coming from all three directions at once.

And then, in perfect unison, all three of them spoke the same single word.

"Mate!"