Chapter 3

RIVER BROWN

Shane is the most insufferable Alpha I have ever met. He might be more insufferable than Landon and that’s saying a lot.

Immediately they leave, I stand up and run to the door trying to pull it open.

It’s closed shut and I sigh in annoyance.

Did they leave me to die alone in this empty cabin? Or are they going to come back and finish the job?

I run to the kitchen and I’m met by the grandest kitchen I’ve ever come across.

A large kitchen island stands in the middle holding a fancy sink and bowls of fruits that I can’t tell are fake or real.

At the corner stands a grey side by side large fridge and Shane’s words ring in my mind.

‘Help yourself to whatever you want’

I’m hungry and scared and so confused that food is the last thing on my mind right now.

The minute I see the barrel of knives by the counter, I take two knives.

Knives are good for self-defense.

I could stab Shane or Neo or the other guy who hasn’t said a word to me since the party and escape before their wounds heal.

Though they could shift into their wolves and kill me before I reach the door.

“Goddess, why me?” I cry, my emotions swirling inside of me as my feet lead me up the mahogany stairs.

I have never been inside a house like this. A cabin like this even.

Brackenridge is known for simplicity. We only see stuff like fridges in books, our floors are not tiled but lined with hard concrete and our houses are not lined with so many lights like the ones in this house.

But I have to remind myself these brothers are Alphas. Alphas have houses like these even though Landon’s can’t come close to this.

There are five rooms upstairs and each room has nothing useful but a bunch of clothes.

Their clothes. Their scent.

The last room is simple with a bed in the middle that has white sheets and a comforter. At the corner of the room is a huge closet with nothing in it.

This room is the only room I can relate to in the entire house.

I slump on the bed remembering Landon’s icy words.

Malia’s betrayal hits me square in the chest at the same time but Aunt Tilda’s tears are the ones that cripple me with churning pain that I slump into a ball and cry myself to sleep.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Can you believe him?” Neo’s voice stirs me from my slumber. His citrus scent feels so close and so is the sage scent that belongs to the other brother.

I can’t feel Shane in the room. And as stupid as it sounds, his presence feels incomplete.

“He has a point”

“You can’t be serious right now, Connor”

Connor? So that’s his name. The name blends well with his golden-brown eyes, with the way his jaw ticks every time I look at him.

“She’s weak. She won’t survive in our world, killing her is doing her a favor”

No.

Him calling me weak has me up from my sleep, my senses telling me it’s time for me to run.

The light stings my eyes as I grab hold of the two knives I stole from the kitchen.

“Drop the knife, darling”, Neo is standing in front of me in jeans and a white tee looking so different from earlier.

How long was I asleep?

Connor takes a step closer to the bed and I warn him off with a knife.

“Stay back”, My voice is shaking now. Connor is the one who wants me dead, isn’t he?

“You are going to hurt yourself. Drop the knife”, Connor warns.

“Why do you care? You want me dead!”

I sound like a stubborn child and I have every right to do so. They are all toying with me.

They are all driving me insane before they kill me. And the truth is maybe I’m going mad.

“You were supposed to be sleeping, River. That part of the conversation wasn’t for your ears”

Curse his whiskey-soaked voice and curse Neo’s concerned blue eyes.

It only takes a minute of hesitation for Connor to take my wrists yanking both knives from my hands.

Neo picks the knives from the bed leaving me in the room with Connor.

For a moment, his hands are digging into my wrists, his breath fanning my nose, my body pressed flush against his.

“Why did you have to be Landon’s mate, River? Why did you have to be there when we showed up?”

“Landon is not my mate. I never asked for any of this”

I’m surprised I’m still talking given how he’s holding me. We are too close.

“You were never Landon’s mate to begin with. You were someone else’s”

“W-what’s that supposed to mean?”

One of his hands moves past my wrists and my skin comes alive in the same way I did in the car when Shane touched me.

His palm cups my neck, his fingers stroking the skin on the length of my neck.

I refuse to give him the satisfaction that his presence, that his brothers are affecting me in a way that can’t be expressed by words alone. That deep inside, I’m horrified and shaken but I’m also tingling from their gazes, their attention, their indifference.

“You are broken. You are wolf-less. You are weak. You thought Landon O’Connor was a monster? Baby, you’ve not met us. The Kincaid brothers will rip you apart like flesh, we’ll sink our teeth on this graceful little neck so everyone sees our marks on you and afterwards? We’ll fill your womb with our pups so everyone gets the message who you belong to”

None of his words make sense and he doesn’t give me time to think about it either because his hand wraps around my neck a little too tight.

“This is going to hurt, River”, he says, sounding apologetic but his hand isn’t.

I kick him. He strangles me.

My eyes water. His grip on my neck tightens.

I’m trying so hard to breathe but I can feel the air dim from my lungs minute by minute, second by second until…everything turns black.

:[:[:[:[:[:[:[:[:[:[:[:[:[:[:[

Noise slams into my ear drums with a force.

The chirping of birds is gone and instead all I hear are people talking from a distance away. Gone is the smell that Brackenridge offered.

I can’t smell maple, pine, the rough earth or the salty mist of the river. All I smell is…mango? Perfume? Coffee?

My head throbs as my eyelids skitter open.

A smiling aging face of a woman comes to sight and I shriek retreating back to what I know now is the bed.

“No, no, I mean no harm. It’s just me Greta”

“Where am I? What’s this place?”

Floor to length glass acts as one of the walls to my right. Outside the window, buildings as tall as the old trees in Brackenridge sprout from the ground shielding the morning sun from view.

I’m not in Brackenridge anymore, I’m in-

“The cursed lands”, I mutter.

“They still call the cities the cursed lands?” Greta chuckles, I stare at the woman who’s probably fifty-five years around the sun and realize that yesterday’s events might not have been a nightmare at all.

Everything is real. The brothers took me. Landon is no longer my mate.

“Everything will be alright now that you are here. Pardon my staring, I can’t believe they found you. I had lost all hope for my boys”

“F-found me?”

“They hurt you, didn’t they? Of course, they were bound to hurt you. They just can’t come to terms that their mate exists. That you exist”

Their mate? No, I don’t have a mate.

And even if I did, the Moon Goddess would grant me one mate. Never two mates. Never three mates. Never three Rogue Alpha brothers.

“I’m not…their mate”