MATED TO TWO RIVALS ALPHAS

SHERRY

I make it four steps toward the side corridor before Viktor's hand closes around my elbow.

"Don't," he says, low enough that only I hear it. "Father already asked where you went."

I stopped. The corridor was a little cooler and quieter here, and I could already taste the relief of it. Behind us the hall was loud with a kind of celebration one usually hears at the end of the border conflict when the other side retreats.

"I was only going to get air."

"You were going to disappear for the rest of the night." He doesn't let go yet. His grip is firm but not hard. "Come back to the table. Eat something. Let people see you."

People already see me. They just look past me just as fast.

As I turn, my companion turns too. The huge hall is packed enough that the air is almost tangible. Training-clad warriors are relaxing against the stone walls. Someone has roughly pushed the long tables together to enclose the space with food at the center. A young wolf on the northern frontier is narrating a tale using both hands, but the listeners keep interjecting to correct the details. A dish of roasted meat is placed halfway, almost empty, near the table. The odor of it blends with the aroma of spilled wine and the scent of wolves who have been running.

My paperback is still tucked under my arm. I never put it down at these things.

Viktor steers me back toward the pillar I had claimed earlier. "Mia is looking for you."

"Mia wants to dance."

"And you don't."

"I don't."

He sighs, but there is no real frustration in it. Just the familiar mix of protectiveness and mild exasperation he has carried since I was twelve and too quiet for the training yards.

"You're twenty," he says. "Not twelve. You can talk to someone without the world ending."

"I talk to you."

"I don't count."

A plate clatters somewhere to my left. Hazel, one of the stronger female warriors, is arguing with two of the younger males about whose patrol route was cleaner. Her laugh is bright and sharp. She moves through these rooms like she has never once doubted she belongs in the center of them.

I look down at the book again. The cover is soft because of years of being held and carried. I have already read a few pages. But if I stay looking at the pages with my eyes fixed, fewer people come up to me just to say something. Next I hear the double doors at the end of the corridor opening with such force that the hinges complain. The sound doesn't stop all at once, but changes. Conversations lean towards the entrance.

Someone near the front of the line shouts Eric's name as if they had been waiting for him exactly at this moment. He steps in, still covered with the dirt of the patrolling, one arm with a thin line of dried blood that has already begun to heal. His black shirt is creased.

The strands of hair that usually hang over his forehead have not been brushed up yet because he couldn't take the time. Without even asking him, the closest warrior hands him a cup. He gulps down almost half the contents at once while the rest of the guys, gathered around him, take turns talking to him.

Hazel is already moving toward him.

I have watched this exact entrance more times than I can count. Eric never arrives quietly. He arrives, and the room rearranges itself around him without anyone needing to say the order out loud. Warriors straighten. Younger females adjust their posture. Even the ones who claim not to care still glance over.

Viktor makes a low sound in his throat. "Late again."

"He's always late."

"And somehow still the one everyone waits for." Viktor squeezes my shoulder once, briefly and warmly. "Stay visible. I'll go make sure he doesn't start a drinking contest before the meat is gone."

He walks into the crowd. I stay by the pillar.

The book is open in my hands, but I am not reading. I am watching the way Eric leans into the group of warriors, the easy way he shoulders one of them, the way Hazel's smile widens when he finally looks at her. He says something that makes two of the males laugh loud enough to turn heads. He looks completely at home in the noise.

I have never told anyone that I notice these things. It would sound foolish. Eric is my brother's Beta. He is loud, reckless, and completely sure of his place. I am the quiet sister who spent years in city schools because my father decided the pack house was too rough for me. We have spoken maybe a dozen times in the last two years, and most of those conversations ended with him already looking past me toward someone more interesting.

A young wolf near the tables raises his cup and starts a toast that no one can hear over the noise. Someone laughs too hard. Another plate hits the floor, and no one bothers to pick it up. The air smells of roasted meat and spilled wine and the restless energy of a pack that won today and wants to prove it.

Then something under my ribs pulls tight.

It is not pain exactly. It is more like the sudden knowledge that the air has changed temperature. My fingers tighten on the paperback. The words on the page blur.

Cedar. Rain. Clean and sharp, the kind of scent that belongs to the woods after a storm has passed through.

It should not be able to cut through the rest of the hall this clearly. It does.

My wolf, who has been silent for months, lifts her head inside me.

The book slips. It hits the stone with a soft sound that should not be audible under all the noise, but somehow I hear it.

My feet move before I decide to move them.

Eric is still talking to Hazel. He has not turned. He has not looked in my direction. But the pull in my chest is already rewriting the distance between us, turning it into something that feels wrong to ignore.

Mate.

The word arrives fully formed, heavy and absolute. It does not feel like a thought. It feels like a door swinging open behind my ribs.

I step out from the pillar. The room narrows. The laughter and the arguments and the song someone has started near the back wall all fade to the edges. The only clear thing is the line of Eric's shoulders under the black shirt and the way his head is tilted while he listens to whatever Hazel is saying.

"Eric."

My voice is quiet. In a hall full of wolves it is still enough.

Heads turn. The song breaks off. Hazel's smile freezes mid-sentence. A few of the younger warriors look from me to him and back again, sudden curiosity sharp on their faces.

Eric goes still.

His back is to me. I watch the easy set of his shoulders harden. He turns slowly, the cup still loose in his fingers. The smile he was wearing is gone. His eyes find mine across the open space, and for one thin second I see the same shock that is currently rearranging everything inside my chest.

Then the shock cools into something else.

I take another step. Hope rises so fast it almost hurts. The bond is a live current under my skin, urging me closer, promising that if I just reach him, the rest of the room will stop mattering.

"Eric," I say again, clearer. "It's you."

He does not move toward me.

Around us the silence has weight. Someone near the tables whispers my name like they are not sure they heard correctly. Hazel's expression has shifted into something tight and displeased.

Eric's mouth flattens. He looks at me the way a person looks at a mistake that has just walked into the light.

"Don't," he says.

The single word lands harder than any shout.

I stop. The hope does not vanish. It simply freezes, waiting for the next breath that will tell it what to do.

Viktor is already cutting through the crowd, his face set with the beginning of a question. Eric's eyes never leave mine. The warmth that should have been there is absent. In its place is something closer to refusal, already decided and already cold.

My hands are empty. The book lies on the floor behind me. I cannot seem to remember how to pick it up.

Eric's voice, when it comes again, is quiet, but the shape of his mouth makes every nearby wolf understand the meaning.

"Not you."

SHERRY.

Eric's eyes stay on mine. The room has gone so quiet I can hear someone shift their weight near the tables.

I still wait for him to take it back. To laugh. To say the bond shocked him the same way it shocked me. Maybe he needs a second. Maybe the words came out wrong.

He does none of those things.

"Eric," I say, and my voice sounds thinner than I want it to. "You feel it. I know you do."

He looks at me the way someone looks at a problem that will not leave on its own. The cup is still loose in his fingers. He sets it down on the nearest table without glancing away from me.

"I feel it," he says. "That doesn't mean I want it."

The hope that had been holding me upright starts to thin. I take one more step because the bond is still pulling, still insisting that if I just get closer, everything will settle into place.

"We're mates."

"I know what we are." His tone is flat. "I also know what you're not."

Viktor reaches us first. He positions himself slightly between us, one hand out like he can still stop whatever is about to happen. "Eric. Think before you open your mouth again."

Eric doesn't look at him. He keeps his attention on me. "I have thought about it. I've been thinking about it since the second the bond hit."

A few people near the front lean closer. Someone whispers my name. Hazel stands a little behind Eric's shoulder, her expression carefully blank, but her eyes are bright with something that is not sympathy.

I try again. "We can figure this out. We don't have to decide everything tonight."

"There's nothing to figure out." Eric's voice stays even, almost patient, like he is explaining something simple to a child. "A Beta needs a mate who can stand next to him. Someone who can handle the border runs, the fights, the decisions that come with the rank. Look at you, Sherry. You spent half the night hiding behind a pillar with a book. You flinch when people laugh too loud. You have never once stepped onto a training field without someone watching to make sure you don't get hurt."

The words land one after another. Each one finds the exact place that already knows they are true.

"That's not fair," I say.

"It's accurate." He crosses his arms. "I need someone who won't become a liability the first time things get hard. You're my best friend's little sister. I've watched you for years. You're quiet. You're careful. You're soft. That might work for someone else. It does not work for me."

Viktor's voice drops into a growl. "Watch how you speak to her."

Eric finally glances at him. "You want me to lie? Pretend the bond is enough? It's not. I won't spend the rest of my life protecting someone who can't protect herself. That's not what a Beta does."

The silence around us has weight now. A few older wolves look away. A younger female near the tables covers her mouth with her hand. Hazel's mouth curves, just slightly, like she has been waiting for this exact outcome.

I hear myself say, "The Moon Goddess chose us."

Eric lets out a short, humorless breath. "Then the Moon Goddess made a mistake."

The formal words come next, clear and deliberate, loud enough for every wolf in the hall to hear.

"I, Eric, Beta of the Blood Moon Pack, reject you, Sherry of the Blood Moon Pack, as my fated mate."

The bond does not break cleanly.

It tears.

Pain shoots through the very center of my chest, a sharp, profound pain that feels like a vital part has been yanked out. My lungs get so startled that they stop breathing. The whole room starts swaying, and I can barely hear my own gasp; it sounds so foreign. My knees touch the ground, and I have no idea about falling over. Two of my fingers are still on top of my sternum as if trying to protect whatever I have left.

My wolf makes a single broken sound and then goes quiet, smaller than she has ever been.

The hall noise returns in pieces. Someone gasps. A chair scrapes. Viktor is already kneeling beside me, one arm solid around my shoulders, trying to keep me upright.

"Sherry. Breathe. Look at me."

I cannot look at him. I cannot look at anything except the floor. The stone is cold under my palms. My vision keeps narrowing and widening in waves.

Eric's voice continues above us, calm and final. "The rejection is done. I stand by it."

He turns away. Hazel steps in close to him, her hand finding his arm like she is the one who needs steadying. He does not push her off. He does not look back.

Viktor starts to rise, fury visible in the set of his shoulders, but another voice cuts across the space before he can speak.

"Get her out of here."

My mother steps out of the crowd. Camilla's face is composed, almost elegant, the same expression she wears when she is dealing with pack politics she finds distasteful. She does not look at the way I am still on the floor. She looks at the people watching us.

"Mother," Viktor says, sharp.

"She has made enough of a spectacle." Camilla's tone is quiet but carries. "Begging in front of the entire pack. Crying on the floor for a Beta who has already made his choice. This is the Alpha's family. We do not behave this way."

I lift my head. For one second I wait for her to come closer, to put a hand on my shoulder, to say anything that sounds like she sees what just happened to me.

She does not move toward me.

"You have always been too soft," she continues, still speaking more to the room than to me. "I told your father years ago that keeping you shielded would only make this worse. Now look. A public rejection. An embarrassment. Get her somewhere private before she makes it worse."

Viktor's arm tightens around me. "She is in pain. The bond just broke."

"Then remove her from the hall so the rest of us can finish the celebration without this display."

The words settle into the same place Eric's did. I push against Viktor's hold. He tries to keep me there, but I get my feet under me somehow. My legs feel unreliable. The pain in my chest is still spreading, a dull, heavy pressure that makes every breath shallow.

I do not look at Eric again. I do not look at my mother. I push through the nearest gap in the crowd. Bodies shift out of my way. Someone says my name. I do not answer.

Viktor calls after me once. I keep moving.

The double doors give under my hands. The night air outside is humid and thick, the way Florida nights always are, and it hits my face like a different kind of weight. I do not stop at the steps. I cross the open ground past the training yards, past the last of the pack houses, and keep going until the trees close in around me.

Only then do my legs give out.

I slide down against the base of a wide oak, the bark rough through the thin fabric of my dress. Dirt presses into my palms and the backs of my legs. The full moon filters through the canopy in broken pieces. Somewhere nearby a night insect starts up and stops again.

I press both hands over my face and let the sound out. It is not quiet. It scrapes my throat raw. The words Eric used keep turning over in my head, exact and clear.

Too small. Too fragile. A liability. Below his standards.

I remember the way he used to nod at me in the hallways when we were younger, polite and distant. I remember thinking those small acknowledgments meant something kinder than they did. I remember watching him from the edges of rooms and telling myself it was only curiosity.

It was never only curiosity.

My chest pain refuses to go away. It transforms into an ugly, dull pain that doesn't fade. My wolf is silent, so hidden that I almost forget she exists. Time goes by; I don't know if it was just a few minutes or more. Tears come out less and less since there is no more pain to express.

My breath attains a rhythm that is close to normal. I use the back of my hand to clean my tears and gaze at the moonlight filtered through the leaves. I do not want to be that girl who just cried silently on the floor of the pack house while everyone was watching.

I do not want to be the kind of person that others think of as too weak to be taken seriously anymore. The notion is tiny and trembling and almost scary because it is so well felt. I have no clue what the future holds. Still, one thing is clear to me is that I cannot remain the same person anymore.

The leaves rustle softly, and something is coming from my left. I freeze. Blood Moon territory scents diminish, and new strange, heavier, and wilder ones come. There is a pressure connected to these unfamiliar smells that none of the wolves I have ever seen was able to exert. It hangs over the small clearing like a held breath.

I slowly turn my head. Two red eyes are staring at me from the thick darkness between the trees. They don't come any closer.

They just stay there, calm and unblinking, as if they have long been waiting for me to see them.

SHERRY

The eyes do not blink.

I press myself tight against the oak tree, my fingers bent enough to cause a painful bite through the bark. I still feel that pain from breaking the bond in my chest that makes me so tired all the time, but now it is not so strong, and I am beginning not only to notice but also to feel other sensations again. For instance, the wet ground on my legs, the humid night air, and also the fact that whatever creature it was that noticed me is still at the same distance from me.

I should be more afraid than I am.

"Who's there?"

My voice comes out thinner than I want. The trees give nothing back at first. Then the undergrowth shifts and the eyes move forward into the broken moonlight.

It is a man, not a wolf.

He stops a few more paces away, leaving enough room for me to run, should my legs cooperate, which they are not really doing. He is tall enough that the moonlight touches merely the lower half of his face. His dark hair lies messy across his forehead with no intention of being straight. The collar of a dark shirt is partially open to reveal one side of the scar, which travels along the shoulder and is covered up by a cloth after a while. He carries a posture with the ground being his, as if he has agreed with the surface.

He draws in a slow breath through his nose. His head tips a fraction, as if sorting through scents.

"You're bleeding," he says.

The voice is low and rough, the kind that does not need volume to carry.

"I'm fine." I push myself up using the tree. My legs protest, but they hold. I wipe the back of my wrist across my face and feel the grit of dirt and dried tears. "You're on Blood Moon territory. My brother is the Alpha. Leave before the patrols find you."

He makes a quiet sound that might be amusement. "Your patrols are still celebrating. They won't notice a single scent this far out for another hour at least."

He takes one step closer. Not threatening. Just closer. The air around him carries a scent I do not recognize, something dry and sharp, like sun-heated stone and distant rain. It sits differently in my lungs than anything from my own pack.

"I felt the snap from the border," he says. "Rejection. Fresh."

Heat climbs my neck. The humiliation is immediate and ugly. "That is none of your business."

"No," he agrees. "It isn't."

He studies my face the way someone studies a map they did not expect to need. There is no pity in it. No soft concern. Only a steady, almost clinical interest that makes my skin feel too tight.

"You stood up," he says after a moment.

"Most don't, the first hour."

I do not know what to do with that observation. My wolf, still quiet and small after the bond broke, lifts her head a fraction at the sound of his voice. The reaction confuses me more than it should.

"I told you to leave."

"You did." He glances once toward the direction of the pack house, then back to me. "Sherry."

The use of my name stops whatever I was about to say next. I have never seen this man before. He should not know it.

"How do you--"

Footsteps crash through the undergrowth behind me. Viktor's voice carries through the trees, sharp with worry.

"Sherry!"

The stranger's attention shifts toward the sound. Something cool and assessing crosses his expression. When he looks at me again, the corner of his mouth moves, not quite a smile.

"Another time," he says.

Then he is gone. One step backward into the darker trees and the pressure in the air lifts as if it had never been there. The foreign scent fades almost at once.

Viktor breaks through the brush a few seconds later, chest rising hard. Mia is right behind him, hair wild, eyes wide. She reaches me first and pulls me into a hug that is almost too tight.

"I'm so sorry," she says against my shoulder. "I was inside. I didn't see until people started talking. I would have--"

"I know." My voice sounds scraped. I let her hold on a moment longer because the alternative is standing alone again.

Viktor's nostrils flare. He scans the trees, jaw tight. "Someone else was here. The scent is still fresh. Strong."

I keep my face turned toward Mia. "A rogue. He ran when he heard you."

Viktor studies me for a second longer than is comfortable. I meet his eyes and do not look away. Whatever he sees there makes him decide not to push. He sets a hand on my shoulder, careful.

"Father's waiting at the cabin. We're going there. Not the main house."

I nod once. It is the only answer I have left.

The private cabin is located on the verge of the land, very compact, and unobtrusive. When we open the door, I see with pleasure the fire that is already being lit in the hearth. At the sight of me, Albert gets up right away from his leather chair. His eye lines appear even more pronounced since he was at home. Without asking any questions, he approaches me and holds me in an embrace.

He is still wearing the same old-fashioned soap that I have known him to use. For three seconds, I just enjoy its pleasant effect on me, and I let it fill me. The second I feel the tears coming, I move away again because I do not think about crying anymore that night.

"I'm all right," I say.

"You are not." His voice is quiet. He notices the dirt on my dress and the scrapes on my palms, but he does not comment on them. "Sit. Please."

I sit on the edge of the couch. Mia stays close. Viktor remains near the door, still listening to the night outside.

Camilla comes in from the small kitchen carrying a teacup she does not offer to anyone. Her expression is the one she wears for council meetings, composed, already calculating.

"The entire pack saw it," she says. "By morning the neighboring packs will have heard. An Alpha's daughter rejected by her own Beta in front of everyone. They will question the strength of this bloodline."

Albert's head turns toward her. "Camilla."

"We need to move quickly. A solid match from a strong pack. An Alpha's son, or at least a high-ranking Beta. Something that erases the image of weakness before it settles."

I look at her. The rejection pain is still a dull weight under my ribs, but something sharper sits on top of it now.

"I am not a stain," I say.

The room goes still. Camilla's mouth opens, then closes.

"I am not a stain," I repeat, quieter but clearer. "And I am not going to be handed to the first male who agrees to take the damaged goods."

Viktor shifts near the door. Mia's hand finds mine and stays there.

Camilla recovers first. "You will not speak to me that way. You have no idea what this means for the pack's standing."

"I know what it means for me." I turn to my father. "You sent me to the city schools to keep me safe. I want to go back. Not for classes. I want to train. Away from here. Away from him. Away from all of them watching to see if I break again."

Albert's face changes. He studies me the way he used to when I was small and trying to convince him I was fine after a fall. Whatever he finds this time is different.

"The rejection trauma--" Viktor begins.

"Will stay with me whether I am here or not," I finish. "If I stay, I will see Eric every day. I will hear the same whispers. I will keep being the girl who knelt on the floor while everyone watched. I need to leave. Tomorrow."

Albert is quiet for a long time. The fire pops once in the hearth. Finally, he nods, slow and deliberate.

"The private estate in the city," he says. "I will arrange retired trainers. The best we have. You will have a year. On your twentieth birthday, you come home. That is the only condition."

"I promise."

Camilla starts to speak again. Albert's look cuts her off.

I sleep in the small second bedroom that night, the door closed, the sheets smelling of cedar and old soap. Sleep comes in short pieces. Every time I surface, I hear Eric's voice again, calm and final, and then the stranger's voice under it, quieter, saying my name like he already knew the sound of it.

In the morning Viktor drives me to the edge of the territory himself. The sky is still pale. The bag in the back seat is light. I did not pack much.

As the car pulls away from the last of the Blood Moon markers, I look once more at the tree line we left behind. The stranger is not there. The air carries only ordinary morning scents.

I still cannot explain why he knew my name.

Or why the sound of it in his mouth has stayed with me longer than it should.