The Triplet Alphas' Secret Mate

Chapter 36: Familiar

Scarlett’s POV

​I flinched as if he’d struck me. Save me? The word echoed in my head, sounding entirely wrong, almost unreal. It didn’t fit him... it didn’t fit this situation.

I wanted to ask what he meant, to make sense of it, but the threat of the Rogue King’s camp was enough to make my legs move before my mind could catch up. I scrambled into the seat, pulling my knees to my chest and trying to take up as little space as possible, as if shrinking myself could somehow make me invisible.

​The door slammed shut, sealing out the sounds of the forest. The SUV began to move, the ride so smooth I couldn’t even feel the road.

​"You’re bleeding," Ethan remarked after a few minutes of suffocating silence. He wasn’t looking at me; he was looking at a tablet in his hand, but his nose—his Alpha senses—clearly picked up the scent of the blood on my skin.

​I touched my bruised cheek, my fingers coming away red. "It doesn’t matter," I whispered, my voice cracking.

​"It matters to me," he replied, finally turning his head to look at me. His gray eyes were unreadable. "I paid a high price for ’undamaged goods.’ Don’t make me regret the investment, Scarlett."

​My breath hitched. He knew my name.

​"You... you know my name?" I whispered, the sound barely audible over the hum of the engine.

a flicker of something—disappointment? annoyance?—crossing his cold features.

rising, but everything

trying to ignore the bruising pain in my ribs and the cold metal of the choker. His jaw was sharp, his gray eyes like polished

voice trembling. "Do I know

back to his tablet, his silence more deafening than any

out the window as we approached a heavily fortified border. I expected a struggle, or at least a halt, but as the SUVs rolled forward, the guards on duty didn’t just step aside—they bowed their heads in

are you taking me?" I asked, the panic finally rising past my exhaustion. "What do

The silence lasted until the convoy turned into a set of gigantic iron gates. We drove up a long, winding path lined with ancient oaks until a massive, modern mansion made of

phone began to vibrate. He picked it up immediately, his expression

one of his soldiers. As I was being led out, the last thing I heard before the heavy door thudded shut was Ethan’s deep, steady voice saying into the

​"I have her."

darkened glass of the SUV, but

driveway, shivering in the cool night air. The soldier didn’t

mansion, wishing the ground would open

Ethan stepped out. He didn’t look at me or say a word; he simply began walking toward the towering glass entrance, his long, confident steps forcing me to

ceilings seemed to touch the sky. As we passed, members of the household staff stopped what they

didn’t want to hear. Was he going to have me? Right now? I was a mess of mud and blood, and I was... I was a virgin. The thought of his cold, flinty eyes and his massive strength being used to break me