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.

flicker of something—disappointment? annoyance?—crossing his

memory, panic rising, but

the bruising pain in my ribs and the cold metal of the choker. His jaw was sharp, his gray eyes like polished flint, and there was an air of absolute, terrifying authority

voice trembling. "Do

turned back to his tablet,

expected a struggle, or at least a halt, but as the SUVs rolled forward, the guards on

panic finally rising

a long, winding path lined with ancient oaks until a massive, modern mansion made of glass and dark stone came into view. It looked more

to a halt, Ethan’s phone began to vibrate.

I was being led out, the last thing I heard before the heavy door thudded shut was Ethan’s deep, steady

​"I have her."

glass of the SUV, but I

was left standing on the gravel driveway, shivering in the cool night air. The soldier didn’t touch me, but he stood close

wishing the ground would open and

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 hurry to

As we passed, members of the household staff stopped what they were doing

flared in my chest. Where are we going? My mind screamed the answer I 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