The Three Alphas Who Denied My Triplet Babies Came Back... novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Third Heartbeat
Sorrel learns she is carrying triplets, tells the Kincannon council all three heirs are the fathers, and hears each of them say they are not. She walks out of the pack gate while the banishment howl rises behind her.
"You're pregnant, Sorrel," the pack doctor said.
She stayed behind her desk with the lab results fanned out in front of her.
I had suspected it for three weeks, but suspicion was easier to live with than paper.
The clinic was cold enough that my breath showed, and my hands were warm anyway.
They were always warm. I tugged my hoodie sleeves down over them until only my fingertips showed.
"Do you know who the father is?" the doctor asked, and her pen tapped the page. "Is he your fated mate?"
"I don't know what he is to me yet."
"Then let's listen."
She rolled the little monitor over and pressed it to my stomach.
A heartbeat filled the room, fast and loud.
Then a second one, right behind it.
Then a third.
The doctor frowned and slid the probe an inch to the left. The sound didn't change.
"Three," she said. "Three heartbeats, and strong ones. Much stronger than I'd expect from a girl who has never shifted."
"Is that bad?"
"It's unusual." She switched the monitor off. "You understand that I have to report this to the Alpha. Pack law says any unmated pregnancy goes to him the same day."
My stomach dropped.
"You're eighteen, you have no wolf, and your mother cleans this hall for a living," she said. "Your family spent everything they had on your nursing course, and this is how you repay them?"
I thought of the boathouse on the night of the Moon Run, the night I turned eighteen.
All three of them had found me there, one after another.
I had told myself it was a dream for as long as I could.
"I'll tell the Alpha myself," I said.
The doctor stared at me. "Sorrel."
"Tonight. Don't call ahead."
I stood up. My knees held.
Kincannon Hall was lit up for the evening council.
I walked in through the front doors in my hoodie.
Two guards let me pass, because they knew me as the cleaner's girl.
Nobody stopped me.
Hugh Kincannon sat at the head of the long table, pressed and silver-haired, with the pack elders on either side.
His three sons stood along the wall behind him.
Thane, the eldest, stood big and silent with his arms crossed.
Lorcan had walked me home from the library a hundred times.
Gareth used to throw pebbles at my window to make me laugh.
All three looked up when I came in.
"Sorrel Linwood," Hugh said pleasantly. "Is something wrong with your mother?"
"No, Alpha. I came to report something myself."
My voice shook, so I said it fast.
"I'm pregnant. It's triplets. And it's one of your sons."
The room went still.
"One of them?" Hugh asked.
"I don't know which one," I said. "It was all three."
A chair scraped. One of the elders swore.
I looked at the wall, at the three men I had trusted my whole life, and waited for someone to say my name the way they used to.
Lorcan spoke first.
"Not mine," he said.
His voice was smooth and very quiet. He didn't look at me.
"Not mine," said Thane, flat, to the floor.
Gareth's face had gone white. He opened his mouth and nothing came out for a long moment.
"Not mine," he said at last.
I heard it three times, and it was the same sentence.
"I think we all understand," Hugh said gently.
"She's an omega's daughter with no wolf and no mate. Someone got her pregnant, and she has picked the three names that matter most."
"That isn't what happened."
"Doctor," Hugh said without turning his head. The doctor was standing in the doorway behind me, out of breath. "How far along?"
"Seven weeks, Alpha."
"Then there's still time." He folded his hands. "Tonight, in the infirmary. Her mother will bring her."
"No."
I said it before I thought about it.
"No," I said again. "They're mine, and I'm keeping them."
A murmur went round the elders.
"The council will not raise three bastards born of a lie," Hugh said. "You're offered a clean way out, child. I would take it."
"I won't."
Hugh's face didn't change at all.
"Then you'll leave my territory," he said, "and you'll leave tonight. Thane. Walk her to the gate."
Thane didn't move.
"Thane," Hugh said again.
He came off the wall. He stopped an arm's length from me and didn't touch me.
I looked up at him. He looked at my shoulder.
"I can find the gate myself," I said.
So I turned around and walked out of Kincannon Hall.
Nobody followed me except the sound of their silence.
The road to the main gate was a mile of gravel.
I walked it with one hand on my stomach, and the other under my sleeve, still warm.
My mother wasn't at the gate.
The guards stood aside and didn't look at me either.
Behind me, up at the Hall, one voice began to howl.
A second took it up, and then the whole pack joined in.
It was the banishment call, and I had only ever heard it sung for other people.
Under my palm, three small hearts kept going.
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