Fated To Two Alphas Under One Roof

I didn't stop to look.

I just ran.

Head down, arms locked around the crushed box, sneakers slipping on the wet grass. Behind me, the crowd had gone silent. I didn't care why. I only wanted distance. A bathroom stall. A locked door. Anywhere their phones couldn't follow.

"Wren, wait!" someone shouted. It might have been Talia. I didn't turn.

Three steps. Four.

Then I slammed into a wall.

Not a wall. A chest. Broad and hard, like running face-first into a door that didn't open. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs. My forehead bounced off solid muscle, and the box jammed between us with a sad little crunch.

Two hands caught my upper arms before I could fall backward.

"Watch it."

The voice was low and flat. I knew that voice. I'd heard it say *no* through a refrigerator door. I'd heard it say *then save him some*.

I jerked my head up.

Kael.

My stepbrother stood over me, close enough that I could see the tiny scar cutting through his left eyebrow. I'd never noticed it before. I'd never been near enough to notice anything. Gray eyes, darker than I remembered. A jaw so tight it looked carved. His fingers pressed into my arms through my sleeves.

"Kael?" I whispered. "What are you—"

I never finished.

Something tore open inside me.

It started low, under my ribs, and exploded upward. Heat. Pressure. A force so huge it felt like my whole soul had been grabbed by the collar and thrown against him. My wolf didn't just wake up. She lunged. She slammed against the inside of my chest, howling one word over and over.

*Mate.*

*Mate.*

*MATE.*

My knees buckled. Kael's grip tightened, holding me upright.

No.

No, no, no. That wasn't possible.

I already had a mate. I'd felt it three months ago outside the gym. I still felt it now. The thread to Jax hadn't snapped. It was right there, aching, tugging back toward the bleachers where he stood with Sienna under his arm.

And now there was a second one.

Thicker. Hotter. Wrapped around my heart like a fist.

"Wren." Kael's voice had changed. Rougher. "Look at me."

I was looking at him. That was the problem.

The two pulls hit each other inside my head like two radio stations playing on the same channel. One dragged me back toward the boy who'd just humiliated me. The other dragged me forward, into the chest of the boy who'd spent three months pretending I didn't exist. They didn't blend. They fought. Every nerve in my body felt stretched between them, pulled so tight it hummed.

I made a sound. Not a word. Just a small, wounded noise.

"Holy crap," someone breathed behind me. "Is that Draven?"

"Why is he touching her?"

"Dude, shut up. Look at his eyes."

I didn't need to look. I could feel his Alpha power rolling off him in waves, the same heavy pressure that had silenced the whole field. But up close, it wasn't just pressure. It was pulling at me. Calling me.

My wolf answered.

Tears spilled over before I could stop them. Not pretty tears. Ugly ones, fast and hot, dripping off my chin onto the torn blue ribbon.

"Don't," Kael said quietly.

"Don't what?" My voice shook so hard the words barely held together. "Don't cry? Don't touch you? You'd hate that, right? Sorry. I'll move. I'll—"

I tried to step back. My feet didn't obey. My body leaned toward him instead, just an inch, like a plant tipping toward a window.

He went very still.

His thumb shifted against my arm. Just once. Then it stopped, like he'd caught himself doing something wrong.

"You're shaking," he said.

"I'm fine."

"You're not."

"Since when do you care?"

It came out sharper than I meant. Kael's nostrils flared. For one second, something cracked behind that cold face. Then it sealed over again.

"Wren!" Jax's voice cut across the field. Lazy. Amused. "Running to big brother? That's cute."

A few people laughed. Not many. Most of them were too busy staring at Kael.

The thread to Jax yanked hard at the sound of his voice. My chest burned. At the same moment, the new bond surged, hot and furious, and I swear I felt Kael's anger flood through it. Not mine. His.

I gasped and pressed my free hand flat against my sternum. "Stop. Stop, it hurts."

"What hurts?" Kael demanded.

"Everything." I laughed. Again. That same awful, broken laugh from the bleachers. "Isn't that funny? I thought this morning was the worst day of my life. And now—"

I couldn't finish. The words jammed in my throat.

He stared down at me. Gray eyes narrowing. Searching my face like he was reading something written there. Then they flicked, quick as a blink, to the place where his hands held me.

And I saw it.

A ring of gold bleeding into the gray of his irises. Bright. Wild. A wolf rising to the surface.

My stomach dropped.

"Kael." I swallowed. "Your eyes."

"I know."

Two words. That was all. But his voice wasn't flat anymore. It was strained, like he was holding a door shut against something that wanted out.

"Do you—" I stopped. Tried again. "Do you feel—"

"Phones down," he snapped over my head. Not to me. To the crowd.

The order cracked across the field like thunder. Behind me, I heard the rustle of a dozen phones being lowered. Somebody's dropped into the grass.

He hadn't answered my question.

He didn't need to.

The gold in his eyes said everything.

My heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears. Two bonds. Two mates. One who had just traded me for a cheerleader in front of the whole school. And one who had made it painfully clear, every single day since I moved in, that he wanted nothing to do with me.

How was this fate? How was this anything but a joke?

"Let me go," I whispered.

He didn't.

"Kael, please. People are watching."

"I know."

"Then why are you still holding me?"

His jaw worked. A muscle jumped beneath his ear. He lowered his head until his mouth was close to my ear, close enough that his breath stirred my hair, and the second bond flared so bright I nearly cried out.

"Because if I let go right now," he said, voice dropping to something only I could hear, "I don't think I'll be able to stop my wolf from going after him."

My blood turned to ice.

Over his shoulder, past the goal posts, I saw Jax pull his arm off Sienna's waist. His smirk was gone. He was staring at us.

At me.

And the bond between us pulled tight as wire.