6 ~ The Young Alphas Disabled Thoughts

“All servants are dismissed with immediate effect,” Alpha Lucien declared at the dining table, his bandaged shoulder a stark reminder of the attack. “Until we identify who’s working with the insurgents, no one outside the royal families enters this palace.”


Astarian exchanged glances with Rhydian and Tavian. The palace without servants? They would have to cook, clean, and manage their own quarters. The inconvenience was staggering.


“This is a security matter,” Alpha Soren added, his tone brooking no argument. “The attack on Alpha Lucien proves we have traitors among us. Trust no one.”


“But Dad—”


As Rhydian started speaking, Alpha Kael shut him up with a deadly glare. He knew better to keep quiet than to continue.

~~~~~

Later after dinner, Astarian sat at his desk, staring at the economics assignment spread before him. He had read the same paragraph four times and retained nothing.


He gave up, leaning back in his chair.


Aurelian.


Even the name felt delicate in his mind. Those violet eyes had haunted him all evening—the way they had flashed with barely controlled rage when Rhydian grabbed him, the quiet dignity Aurelian maintained despite being wolfless in a world that worshipped strength.


Astarian felt heat creep up his neck. He was blushing. Over a boy. A wolfless boy who had been assaulted by his own friend at the academy’s gate.


“Get yourself together,” he muttered, but the image persisted.


There was something magnetic about Aurelian. Most wolves without their wolf would’ve fled the academy the same day they arrived, broken by the constant harassment. But Aurelian stayed. Endured. That took a different kind of strength.


Astarian caught himself smiling. He hoped Aurelian would eventually find his backbone and stand up to Rhydian properly. Tell him off. Maybe even throw a punch, though that would end badly.


The thought of Aurelian fighting back made Astarian’s pulse quicken in a way he didn’t want to examine too closely.


“Looks like you like that wolf,” Kim, his wolf, said.


“I don’t. I’m just wondering how he will survive.”


He forced his attention back to the assignment. Forced himself to stop thinking about delicate features and eyes like amethyst.


But, It didn’t work.


And he really hoped to see Aurelian the next day.

~~~~~

Rhydian’s room was dark except for the single lamp on his nightstand. He sat on the edge of his bed holding his phone, staring at Dylan’s contact.


*Call Failed.*


Fourth time.


“Where the hell are you?” Rhydian growled at the screen.


Dylan always answered. Always. Even when Rhydian called at stupid hours just to complain about his father or the curse or the unbearable weight of being heir to a throne he would lose if he didn’t find his mate when he turned twenty.


His father’s words from earlier at dinner echoed in his skull: “You’re running out of time, boys. Perhaps if you spent less time terrorizing weaklings and more time searching for your mate, we wouldn’t be in this position.”


Terrorizing weaklings.


Aurelian’s face flashed in his mind suddenly.


Rhydian scowled, but his body betrayed him with a flicker of heat low in his belly. Aurelian was attractive, in an infuriating, untouchable sort of way. Those violet eyes, the way his body had felt when he grabbed his collar—


“No.” Rhydian stood abruptly. “Absolutely not.”


Aurelian was wolfless. Weak. Beneath him in every way that mattered. Finding him attractive was one thing—a purely physical response to pretty features—but anything beyond that was impossible.


His mate would be powerful. Strong. Worthy of standing beside an alpha king.


Not some fragile creature who couldn’t even shift.


Rhydian tried Dylan’s number again.


*Call Failed.*


Worry gnawed at him now. Dylan had never gone radio silent like this in the past few weeks he knew him.


He tossed the phone onto his bed and headed for the shower, trying to wash away thoughts of Aurelian. And that was when his Wolf, Vale, finally spoke up.


“I want him.”


“What?—” Rhudian gasped.

~~~~~

Tavian sank into the cool bathwater with a sigh.


The party felt like days ago instead of hours. Everything after the attack on Alpha Lucien had been chaos—security meetings, interrogations, his father’s barely contained fury.


But his mind kept circling back to one moment.


Dylan’s disappearance.


Tavian made a mental note to check on him the next day.


His thoughts shifted, as they had been doing all evening, to that moment.


Rhydian grabbing Aurelian aggressively towards the academy’s gate. The wolfless student’s shocked expression. The way his body had gone rigid with fear and fury.


Tavian’s jaw clenched.


He had wanted to intervene. Had almost stepped forward. But getting between Rhydian and his targets never ended well, and Tavian had learned to pick his battles.


He remembered turning back to look at Aurelian one last time before he followed Rhydian into the academy. That look Aurelian gave him was one of a kind. And it only stared a level of interest in him.


Slowly, his hand trailed down his chest and stoped right on his navel.


He imagined his hand wrapped cautiously around Aurelian’s throat. His body pinning him to the wall. Those violet eyes wide and startled, his lips parted in surprise.


“Hmmm,” his wolf, Rain, finally decided to make an entrance after a quiet retreat due to his father’s earlier rage. “Your hands are moving downward.”


“Not like you care.” He flared back.


“All these for a wolfless student?” Rain asked. “I don’t feel anything. In fact, I don’t like him.”


“Me neither.” Tavian agreed. “But there’s something attractive about him.”


“His scent.” Rain said, immediately. “Very strong. Sweet. Pulling. I felt that too.”


“How I really wish—”


Tavian’s mind cut off again, his mind reeling him kissing Aurelian. Deep and possessive, swallowing whatever protest he might have made.


Heat flooded Tavian’s body. His hand moved automatically toward his arousal beneath the water.


He stopped himself.


“Fuck.” The word echoed off bathroom tiles.


This was wrong.


‘He is a wolfless wolf,” he reminded himself.


“Glad you know.” Rain added.


“Leave me.”


Tavian drained the tub and grabbed a towel, his body still humming with unwanted desire.


Sleep. He needed sleep. Maybe unconsciousness would give him a break from thoughts of a wolfless student he had no business wanting.


And just like that, in three separate rooms of Gravefang Palace, three heirs to three thrones lay awake in the dark.


All thinking about the same person.


All for different reasons.


But still, none of them knew the danger that was coming to them.