It was shock after shock tonight for these people. For a second, there wasn’t even a single reaction. Not a mouth held agape, no wide eyes, no gasps or sharp exhalations.

Nothing.

Then, almost as one, it started.

The questions as they surged forward and instantly began fawning.

The people who had looked at her like she was less for her unusual coloring, were suddenly all up in her face, wanting to know more, needing to know because of Eli’s declaration.

“Pricks.”

“Agreed,” I muttered back to Austin, and we both received a little snicker of amusement from Sabina, telling us she was on the same page.

Wholeheartedly.

Eli growled when Brandon approached, and his eyes flashed in surprise. “Alpha?”

“I’d back off, buddy,” I warned easily. “You know what it’s like when you’ve just found your mate.” I bared my teeth. “You don’t like other men around her.”

My words caused several frowns.

“But Austin brought her in,” was a frequent and repeated whisper.

“Two points for you,” he retorted smugly.

Conrad, for all he still had a wet patch on the front of his pants, was the first to work it out. “She has more than one mate?”

“Three points!” I retorted.

“Bullseye,” Austin tacked on.

“Enough,” Eli growled. “Mother’s sacrifice was not in vain. We have been granted an omega, my mate is here, at my side, and a pack with a mated alpha is a blessed one.” He sucked in air through his nose like he was finding it hard to stay calm. I empathized. Newly mated males always found it hard to have potential enemies around their females.

Weak enemies or not, they were bound to agitate him. They’d have done the same for me and Austin, but we were used to being agitated by these bastards. Exposure therapy worked sometimes, it seemed.

It didn’t come as any surprise to me that Sabina cuddled into him, pressing her head to his shoulder, and the delicate touch, the tenderness, had Eli sighing, his shoulders drooping like the aggression he was feeling didn’t need to exist anymore because she was there, capable of making everything better.

Her power over him interested me. Everyone knew how strong he was, what he was capable of. Even though he’d made very few new rulings on his own, without his mother’s input for fear of contradicting his father and hurting her, his wolf was beyond strong. To the point where it was a relief for most of the pack that they saw him so infrequently.

Eli had that kind of presence where, in the middle of a crowded room, he could pop up from out of nowhere and instantly, everyone would know where he was without having to turn their heads. Their wolves would sense it, and they’d whine at his presence.

I was impressed, as I’d always been by that. Never scared, never cowered, because I was strong too, but he had something I didn’t—diplomacy.

He was meant to be a leader.

I wasn’t.

I was meant for more than enforcing though. I’d known that for a long time, but with the status quo after Paul’s death not changing that much, I’d been happy to have Eli’s ear period. Now? I was going to be in a position to help both Eli and the pack, and that pleased me.

“The enforcer is the omega’s mate as well?” Larissa, Conrad’s wife, asked.

“As is Ethan.” Eli didn’t say the new beta, but Brandon flushed like he had.

“This is most unusual,” Conrad rasped. “I’ve heard of another mate, but two?”

“They’re twins. They’re freaks of nature,” Sarah Yves muttered. “Everything they do is unusual.”

My eyes flashed at that, outrage filling me, but I didn’t let it show. Austin, on the other hand, did. His arms bunched up, his shoulders straightened, and he stopped slouching. The snarl that escaped him, the power behind it, surprised even me.

Austin was ever the joker, the playful one. The charmer. At that moment, he wasn’t playing.

The charm had left the building.

And in its stead?

A furious alpha wolf who was making himself known to the council.

Five

Sabina

The council meeting had either gone as planned or it hadn’t. I wasn’t sure.

Most of them were still looking at us like we were freaks—only, not like I remembered from high school. Freaks weren’t feared. Freaks were gaped at like they were zoo animals stuck in cages.

Here? Now? These people were scared of us. Scared of me.

Considering my role, something Austin and Ethan had been explaining to me, I didn’t feel that was right.

As their omega, I was supposed to soothe them, but even though I could feel their agitation, I had no desire to ease it. Even if I’d known how.

Eli told me things would make sense once the claimings had occurred, and while I was stronger than I’d been since this entire ordeal had begun, today was the first day I’d felt like I was at full strength.

In the books, of which I’d read many, alpha males couldn’t wait for their mates. They were overcome with passion, need, and desire. They couldn’t breathe until they’d claimed their woman. The one woman who was made for them.

I couldn’t exactly say made for them and them alone, because apparently, I had three mates. But still, I was surprised by how calm the three of them were.

Maybe a little disappointed too.

I guessed I wanted to be taken, to be ravaged and ravished, even if I understood their attention was split.

Someone had forced the transformation on me.

Someone had intended for me to hurt dozens of humans at the carnival. Someone had intended for the shifters in this county to be revealed to the humans.

That was a lot of shit to have to deal with.

Still…

A girl could dream, couldn’t she?

It amazed me that I was bothered, to be honest. After my experiences and with my past? Yeah, romance was dead, and below the waist, so was I.

But not anymore.

Not since I’d awoken in a clearing with Eli standing guard over me. Not when he’d helped me onto my feet, had tried to teach me how to walk. Not when two scamps, Austin and Ethan, had bounded in, scenting me and rubbing their bodies against mine in friendship and affection.

Everything had changed that day.

I was no longer in pain, which was more liberating than knowing my father couldn’t hurt me, even if he did get his mitts on me. The pain had been ever present, lingering in my bones. In my being. To wake up and be rid of it was something I was thanking Kali Sara for every day!

But the three men were a complication.

I wanted them.

I knew they wanted me.

I just wanted to be ravished too.

Would that happen?

Or was that just fiction?

I gnawed on my bottom lip as I watched the council watch us.

It was weird, and I didn’t understand why Eli was going ahead with this. There was overflowing wine and cheese boards for them to eat, and though they were making full use of his hospitality, they weren’t really talking, were just muttering about the new changes while they watched us.

If I hadn’t felt Eli’s power, Austin’s strength, and Ethan’s force, I might have been scared.

Those looks? I’d been on the receiving end of them before.