Claimed By The Alpha Trio

"Selene Voss." The announcer's voice rang out across the courtyard, and eight hundred students rose to their feet at once, a wave of black and crimson academy blazers turning toward the stage like a single creature. I stayed seated at the back, half hidden behind a stone pillar, exactly where I always sat during pack ceremonies. Watching. Not watched. Selene climbed the steps in white, her hair pinned back with silver combs, chin lifted like she'd been born for this exact moment. Which, as far as anyone at this academy knew, she had. "Eighteen years old today," the announcer continued, "and the pack's chosen candidate for the position of future Luna." Applause rolled through the courtyard. I clapped too, because not clapping would have gotten me looks I didn't want. Charles stood near the front with the other senior alphas, arms crossed, expression unreadable the way it always was in public. Elvis stood beside him, and even from here I could see him trying to catch Selene's eye with something like reassurance. Felix looked like he'd rather be anywhere else, jaw tight, red hair catching the afternoon light. The three most eligible alphas on campus, and every single person in this courtyard expected one of them to walk up those steps in the next five minutes and complete the bonding ceremony with Selene in front of the entire pack. I had exactly zero stake in any of it. I told myself that every year. I almost believed it. "As tradition dictates," the announcer said, "we now invite the eligible alphas forward for the Calling." Charles moved first, unhurried, the crowd parting for him without needing to be asked. Elvis followed. Felix came last, dragging his feet just enough that it read as reluctance rather than nerves. Selene's smile widened as they climbed the steps toward her. Then Charles stopped. Not gradually. Not like a man pausing to collect himself. He stopped mid-step like something had physically grabbed him by the throat, his whole body going rigid, and beside him Elvis made a small, sharp sound and gripped the stage railing like the ground had tilted. "Charles?" Selene's voice cracked, confusion breaking through the composure. "What's wrong with you?" Felix wasn't moving at all. He'd gone completely still, eyes wide, and I watched three of the most controlled alphas I'd ever seen lose control in front of eight hundred witnesses. The pillar at my back suddenly felt very far away from my body. Heat crawled up my spine like something had been lit under my skin, fast, vicious, nothing like the mild discomfort I'd learned to expect from a delayed suppressant dose. I gripped the stone edge of the pillar and my knees buckled anyway. "Something's wrong." My own voice sounded far away. "Something's—" Charles's head turned. Not toward Selene. Toward me. His eyes locked onto mine across eight hundred students, across the entire length of that courtyard, and I watched the exact moment recognition hit him, raw and stunned and unmistakable. "No." He said it out loud, to no one, to everyone. "That's not possible." "Charles." Selene's voice had gone thin. "What are you looking at?" He didn't answer her. He was already moving, down the stage steps, straight through the crowd, and people were turning now, following his line of sight, and I felt every single head in that courtyard swing toward the girl hiding behind the pillar at the back. "Oh my god." Someone near me whispered it, not quietly enough. "It's her. It's not Selene, it's her." "Devina?" A voice, disbelieving. "The scholarship girl?" Felix reached me before Charles did, moving faster than I'd ever seen a person move, and Elvis wasn't far behind him, and the three of them converged on me in front of the entire academy while my legs finally gave out completely. "Get back." Charles's voice cracked out like a whip, not at me, at the crowd surging closer. "All of you, get back." Nobody listened. Bodies pressed in from every side, blazers and ties and wide eyes, someone's elbow catching my shoulder, a girl's perfume too sharp and too close. A phone screen flashed inches from my face and Felix knocked it out of the boy's hand without even looking at him. "This isn't right." Selene's voice, high and shaking, cut through the noise from the stage. "This isn't happening. Tell me this isn't happening." I looked up past Charles's shoulder and found her standing exactly where she'd been crowned a moment ago, white dress, silver combs, the whole courtyard's attention ripped away from her and thrown at me instead. Her hands had curled into fists at her sides. The silver combs had slipped, one of them hanging loose against her hair like even her own crown couldn't hold steady anymore. Her face had gone white. Not angry yet. Just shattered. "Eighteen years." Her voice barely carried, and somehow that made it worse than shouting would have. "Eighteen years, and it's her." Somewhere to my left, a teacher was shouting for order, and it did nothing. A boy near the stage had climbed onto a bench to see better. Someone was crying, though I couldn't tell if it was for Selene or just the shock of it all. The heat under my skin surged again, sharp enough that I gasped, and my vision blurred at the edges. Elvis's arm caught me before I hit the ground, his hand splayed flat against my back like he could hold the fever in by pressure alone. "Someone get her out of here," he snapped, and I felt the world tilt sideways, students shouting, phones raised, Selene's name and mine tangled together in a hundred whispers at once. Charles crouched in front of me, and for one strange second the noise around us seemed to fall away entirely. His eyes moved over my face like he was looking for a reason, any reason, this could still be a mistake. "Say something," he said, low, only for me. "Tell me you feel it too." I couldn't answer him. My throat had closed around every word I might have used. Felix's hand closed around my wrist, steadying, and even through the haze I felt him flinch at the contact, like touching me had cost him something he hadn't been ready to spend. "She's burning up," he said, and his voice had lost its edge completely. The crowd was still pressing closer when a new sound cut through it, sharp heels against stone, unhurried, deliberate, the kind of walk that didn't need to rush because everyone else would simply move. The last thing I saw before the crowd swallowed the stage completely was Selene's mother rising from the front row, face carved from stone, eyes locked on me like she already knew exactly who I was.

"Move." Charles's voice had lost every trace of composure. "Now." The crowd didn't move fast enough. He shouldered through anyway, one arm locking around me, and the second his skin met mine the burn under my own skin spiked so hard I nearly bit through my lip. "Careful." Felix's hand found my other side, and his eyes weren't fully his own anymore, gold bleeding into the brown for half a second before he blinked it back. "She's not stable." "None of us are stable." Elvis's voice came out rough, nothing like his usual calm. Behind him, a teacher had gone pale watching his eyes flash the same gold, gone and back so fast most of the crowd would doubt they'd seen it at all. "Is that her wolf?" Someone's whisper carried further than they meant it to. "I don't even see anything. She's not even shifting." "Maybe she can't." Another voice, closer, cruel with the easy confidence of someone who'd never been the one people stared at. "Unregistered omega, weak line, probably barely has a w