CLAIMED BY THE FOUR ALPHA BROTHERS
"I am the reason your bloodline exists at all. I am what the first bearer bonded with, three hundred years ago, before your kind decided the arrangement was too dangerous to keep teaching your children about."
"Then you can tell me what I actually am." The words came out raw, three years of confusion and one very long night finally cracking something open in my chest. "Everyone keeps circling the word like it's too big to say directly. Bearer. Fine. Bearer of what."
She was quiet for a long moment, water rippling softly under her fingers.
"Of me," she said finally. "Or something like me. A bond that doesn't end with one mate, one Alpha, one tidy line of inheritance. A bond that reaches, when