Semua Bab Stepbrother’s Obsession: Claimed By The Triplet Alphas: Bab 151 - Bab 160

The shimmer collapsed like a punctured lung.One blink, and the air went from liquid to knife-edged cold again. One breath, and the thing was there — solid, casting a shadow that bent the wrong way across the snow.I’d been ready for something.I hadn’t been ready for this.It wasn’t the shape — shapes could be disguised, changed. It was the weight. The way the world shifted around it, like even the ground didn’t want to be under its feet.Isabella’s knuckles were white around the bone. Asher’s hand was on his knife — laughable, but at least he hadn’t dropped it.The being tilted its head, all wrong angles, no curve anywhere. “So small,” it said. Not to the bone. Not even to Isabella. Just… to the air.I stepped forward before Isabella could answer. “And yet, you’re the one who needed the door opened.”Its eyes — if you could call them that — fixed on me. “Not needed. Chose.”That word landed like a stone in my gut. Chose meant it hadn’t been trapped. Not exactly.Isabella’s voice was

The silence after the howl stretched too long. Too sharp. The three of us stayed still like the boards beneath our boots had turned brittle, like one wrong shift would shatter them. The kid on the floor moaned once, soft enough I almost mistook it for wind. Their lips were cracked white, and when they moved again, it was like their body had forgotten how to be human. “Water,” Isabella said. It wasn’t a question or a request. She just demanded it the way she demanded everything — like the world should bend before she broke it. Asher didn’t move. His eyes were still on the shutters, his jaw a hard line of stone. I grabbed the flask from my belt and set it by the stranger’s mouth. They drank like every drop was fire. Some dribbled down their chin, turning the crust of frost into wet streaks. “Don’t give them too much,” Asher said. “Shock’ll hit faster.” I tilted the flask back. “You suddenly a healer now?” “No,” he said. His eyes cut sharp to mine. “I’m someone who doesn’t like

The silence after battle never feels like peace.It feels like the world is holding its breath, waiting to see if you’ll collapse or crawl forward.I pressed my back against the tree, every inhale tearing like glass through my lungs. My arm throbbed where the shadow’s claws had raked me. Blood soaked into my sleeve, warm against the freezing night. I couldn’t tell if the sting or the cold was worse.The kid sagged against me again, half-asleep, half-dead. Their heads lolled forward until their breath steamed against my chest.Kaia wiped her blade clean against the snow like it was nothing, like the black smoke wasn’t still curling up from the corpses—or what was left of them. Her shoulders rose and fell in steady rhythm, but her eyes stayed sharp, scanning the trees like the fight hadn’t ended.Asher was the only one who looked human at that moment. Bent over, hands braced on his knees, chest heaving. His breath puffed white, his jaw clenched hard enough to crack. The club he carried

The kid’s whisper—run—burned through me worse than the gash on my arm.They thought I could drop everything, leave them behind, sprint uphill like nothing was eating us alive. But my feet refused. My chest locked around the sound of their voice, so faint it almost vanished in the chaos.I gripped the dagger harder, frost biting into my knuckles. “Not happening,” I muttered, more to myself than to them.The ridge shook with the clash of steel on shadow. Kaia was a blur of movement, her blade carving arcs of silver that cut the half-formed things apart, their screams like wind through broken glass. Asher fought more brutally, every swing of his broken club sending shocks through his arms, his teeth bared in a snarl.And me? I was pressed to the rock, one arm cradling the kid, the other slashing clumsy arcs with my dagger. Each strike felt too slow, too shallow. The smoke-forms scattered, then swarmed again, filling the ridge until I could barely see my own breath.The whispers rose, lou

The cave pressed in like a coffin.Not the safe kind either—the kind where you could pretend stone walls meant shelter. No, this was the kind where every shallow breath rattled back at you, every flicker of snowlight painted your exhaustion in sharper relief, and every heartbeat reminded you how close you’d come to cracking open on that ridge.Hell, maybe I already had.I shifted against the wall, every rib screaming in protest. The bandage Isabella had torn from her coat squeezed my chest tight enough to burn, but it was the only thing keeping my bones from grinding apart every time I coughed. Which was often. Too damn often.The laugh I’d forced earlier still tasted like blood in my throat. Idiot move. Isabella had been right to snap at me, though I’d never admit it. Ignoring pain was easier than watching her eyes when she realized how bad things were.Her eyes already carried too much.I glanced across the cave. She was curled around the kid, her back braced against the wall, her f