​Scarlett’s POV

​The air in the room was so thick with Alpha pheromones and the heavy smell of blood that I could barely draw a clean breath. Liam’s hands were still cupping my face, his thumbs wiping away a stray tear I didn’t even know had fallen. He was staring at me like he wanted to swallow me whole, to hide me away inside his chest where no one else could ever look at me.

​"We are taking you home," Liam said. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t an invitation. It was a final decree, spoken with the absolute authority of a supreme Alpha who had just reclaimed his most prized possession.

​"No," a trembling voice cut through the heavy silence.

​We all turned. Chen was standing up, his legs shaking so badly he had to hold onto the edge of a broken wooden cabinet just to stay upright. His face was completely white, but there was a desperate, stubborn bravery in his human eyes.

​"You can’t just... take her," Chen stammered, looking directly at Liam. "She doesn’t want to go with you. Look at her! She’s terrified of you!"

​Leonard let out a dark, low growl that vibrated right through the floorboards. He took a predatory step toward Chen, his claws flexing. "Shut up, human. You have no idea who she belongs to. If you say another word, I will rip your tongue out."

​"Leonard, stop!" I cried out, finally breaking away from Liam’s tight grip. I rushed over and threw myself in front of Chen, shielding him with my own body. "Don’t touch him! He has nothing to do with this!"

​Liam’s gold eyes narrowed into dangerously sharp slits as he watched me protect another male. The possessive rage rolling off him was suffocating.

​"You are protecting him?" Liam whispered, his voice dangerously quiet. "After five years of leaving us to rot in our own grief, you are standing in front of a human, defending him?"

​"He is my friend, Liam!" I shouted back, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes. "And I didn’t leave you because I wanted to hurt you! I left to save you from the prophecy! But you don’t care about that, do you? You just care about your own pride!"

​While Liam and Leonard glared at me, their chests heaving with wounded fury, Leo stood slightly back in the shadows. His face was full of pure conflict. He looked at the blood on the floor, then at me, and then at his brothers. He knew the real truth. He knew I had been alive for two years... If he spoke up now, the whole room would explode.

​I sucked in a deep breath, composing myself. "You men can leave," I said, my voice shaking but firm as I stood tall in front of Chen. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and looked at the triplets. "You have seen me. You know I am alive, and you can see that I am fine now. Please, just go back to the pack."

​Liam let out a harsh, bitter laugh and spat on the blood-stained carpet. "Hell no," he growled, his golden eyes flashing with possession. "If you think we crossed the entire ocean just to turn around and leave you behind, you are completely out of your mind, Scarlett."

​"I am not coming with you!" I shouted back, taking a step away from them. "I built a life here. I am done letting my life revolve around you three."

​Leonard stepped closer, his face twisted in a mix of pure anger and deep pain. He pointed a blood-covered finger at the dead assassin on the floor.

​"Did you not see what just happened?!" Leonard yelled, his voice cracking with emotion. "People are literally after your life, Scar! They just stormed a highly secured mansion with military-grade weapons! What the hell makes you think more won’t come the moment we walk out those gates?"

​I froze, looking down at the lifeless bodies. Leonard’s words hit me like a bucket of ice water, but before I could think of a reply, he took another step forward, his Alpha presence locking me in place.

​"You are completely unprotected out here in the human world," Leonard said, his tone dropping into a desperate, possessive command. "You are coming with us, Scarlett. We are not letting you stay here to die."

​I stood frozen, staring at the blood on the floor. Leonard’s words were totally true, and they felt like a bucket of ice water poured over my head. I was unprotected here. The human world couldn’t save me from masked werewolves.

​But before I could even open my mouth to answer him, a sudden movement on the floor caught my eye.

​The first assassin—the one Leonard had slammed down—wasn’t completely dead. Through the thick pool of blood, his hand slowly crept toward his belt. He pulled out a small, hidden pistol and pointed it straight at my chest.

​"Scar, watch out!" Leonard roared.

​Everything happened in a split second.

​Liam, Leonard, and Leo didn’t even think. Moving together as one single unit, all three of them threw their large bodies right in front of me, completely blocking me from the gun. Their Alpha auras exploded into the room at maximum power, so loud and fierce that the remaining walls seemed to shake.

​Bang!

​The gun went off, but the bullet just ricocheted off Liam’s heavy leather jacket as he dove forward, completely crushing the assassin’s skull into the floorboards. This time, the killer didn’t move again.

​I fell back onto the floor, my breath completely caught in my throat. I looked up at the three giant men standing in front of me like a solid wall of muscle and bone. They had put their lives on the line without a single thought, completely driven by their primal instinct to keep me safe.

​And right then, something violent happened inside my soul.

​Five years ago, I had used a powerful witch’s spell to block our fated mate bond. Three years ago, they had gone ahead, married other ladies, and taken their marks. The block spell was supposed to keep my feelings dead forever.

​But seeing them risk everything for me—feeling the raw, suffocating heat of their combined Alpha power—was too much. The shock of the danger and the absolute strength of their protective instincts violently ripped right through my magic.

​Crack.

​Inside my chest, it felt like a thick glass wall was shattering into pieces. The old block spell snapped completely. The heavy scent of their forest, pine, and mint rushed into my senses, and for the first time in five long years, my inner wolf stood up on her hind legs.

​She looked at the three Alphas standing over us, recognized her males, and let out a loud, beautiful, and completely possessive howl inside my mind.

​MATES! MATES! THEY ARE OUR MATES!

​Suddenly, Leo gasped first, his eyes glowing gold. "Mine..." he growled out.

​Liam froze, his face shattering in shock as he caught my unlocked scent. "Mine," he growled out next.

​Then Leonard moved forward. "Mine..." he whispered.

​Slowly, the triplets turned their heads and stared at each other. They looked from Liam, to Leonard, to Leo, and then back to me. The absolute shock on their faces was paralyzing. For five years, they thought only one of them belonged to me. But right now, through the raw power of the broken spell, the truth was screaming in their blood.

​They stared at each other with utter disbelief, realizing for the very first time that I was mated to all three.