They Took His Inheritance, He Claimed Three Alpha Mates novel · Chapter 1 of 40
Chapter 1: The Toast
At the banquet where three packs toast Linda as their childhood rescuer, Max wakes in the body of the omega her family means to ruin. He turns down a drugged cup and decides to claim the alphas she sends, and Rose warns him a clerk is logging every night.
The whole banquet hall stood up to toast Linda, and Max woke on his feet in the middle of it.
He had a silver cup in his hand and a pounding head.
Then the memories arrived, a lifetime of them in a rush, and the hand holding the cup became his own.
His name was Max, he was twenty-two, and he was an omega in a house full of wolves.
He had read this book on a night shift, between pharmacy deliveries, and he knew exactly which character he was.
The side character who died before winter.
"Eleven years ago, the Black River rose in the night," Linda said from the high table.
She wore a white dress and long white gloves, and she held her glass out to the three packs.
"Three boys were swept off the bank, and I only did what anyone would do."
The hall roared.
Linda was twenty-four, honey-blonde and radiant, and everyone in the hall loved her.
Max's host memory added a plain correction.
It had been twelve years, not eleven, and she had not been the one in the water.
He kept his mouth shut, because a stranger in a stranger's body does not contradict the hostess at a banquet.
At the three seats of honor, the men she was toasting stood with their glasses raised.
James of the Helix Pack grinned and thumped the table.
Joel of the Tyros Pack lifted his glass an inch, and his face gave nothing away.
Raven of the Rydes Pack did not lift anything.
He stood very tall and very still, and he looked straight down the hall at Max.
Max felt that look on his skin.
"There you are, darling," said a warm voice at his elbow.
Mary, his stepmother, slipped an arm through his and dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief.
She was forty-eight, silver-streaked and soft-faced, and she smelled of lavender.
A ring of small keys jingled at her belt, and she was already fussing with his collar.
"You're white as milk. Sit, sit, you've been on your feet all night."
She guided him into a chair and pressed a fresh cup of spiced wine into his hands.
"Hold it a moment, at least. Your hands are cold."
Max looked down at the cup.
Words slid across the inside of his eyes, in plain white letters nobody else could see.
ROSE: Hello, Max. Your host has been dead for four minutes. I am your system.
ROSE: The cup in your hand holds a sedative. A full cup puts you to sleep for a day.
Max did not move.
"Thank you, Mama," he said, because the memories said that was what he called her. "I'll save it for the toast."
"Of course, dear." Mary patted his hand.
She did not push, and she did not look at the cup again.
That was what made his stomach go cold.
Max set the wine on the table and slid it behind a bread basket, and his sleeves rode up an inch as he did.
Across both palms ran old white scars, raised and white, from a night he could remember in pieces.
He tugged the cuffs back down over his fingers.
Nobody in this house ever asked him about those scars.
"You're going to waste that."
A long shadow dropped into the chair beside him.
It was James, who had somehow crossed the hall in the time it took Max to hide a cup.
Up close he had rumpled dark hair, brown eyes and a crooked grin, and he smelled of cut grass and woodsmoke.
"Wasting wine at a banquet is a crime in Helix," James said. "I'd have to arrest you."
"Take it, then." Max pushed the bread basket aside. "I'm told it's very good."
James looked at the cup, then at Max's face, and his grin slipped a little.
"You look terrible," he said, more quietly. "Do you need to lie down?"
"I'm fine."
"You're gray." James put two fingers on Max's wrist, light, over the pulse. "You're burning up."
The touch lit a line of warmth up Max's arm.
ROSE: Notice that. Mate-compatible scent, rated high. He is the only one of the three who has asked how you feel.
"Stop reading my wrist," Max muttered.
"Stop being sick at a party." James let go, but he stayed leaned in. "Seriously. If anyone gives you trouble tonight, you tell me."
At the high table Linda had sat down, and Mary rose and went to her side.
They put their heads together, and Linda glanced down the hall at Max, once, and smiled.
It was a lovely smile.
ROSE: Survival odds, current: three percent. Summary: your stepmother and stepsister intend you to lose the Greywater fortune and then lose your life.
Max kept his face still and read on.
ROSE: The Charter of Houses says an unbonded omega who lies with three alphas is ruined, and a ruined heir's fortune passes to his guardian. Mary is your guardian. Linda's three suitors are the three alphas.
Max almost laughed out loud.
The book had never explained why the villains sent three men, one at a time, to the same omega's door.
Now it did.
ROSE: I can offer you the Night Domain. From dusk to dawn you become an alpha. One alpha of your choice becomes an omega. He carries your mark, and you take his rut and spend it tenfold.
ROSE: Your fortune only counts once it is yours. Claim the three alphas before they ruin you, and you cannot be ruined.
Max looked at James, who was reaching for a roll and complaining about the bread.
He looked at Joel, who had not looked away from Linda once, and at Raven, who still had not looked away from him.
Three alphas, sent to kill him by inches.
He was twenty-two and tired, he had died once already, and he did not intend to do it again.
So he decided to take every one of them.
ROSE: Accepted. Domain unlocked.
At the high table Linda rose with a laugh and came gliding down the hall, gloved hands out.
"Max, darling, you look dreadful," she said, loud enough for the benches. "James, be a love and walk him home. He's been so lonely."
James stood at once.
"Happy to," he said, and offered Max his arm.
Max took it.
They went out under the eyes of three packs and into the east corridor, where the lamps burned low.
James stopped at the foot of the stairs and kept his voice down.
"I should tell you something, and you can hit me for it," he said. "Linda asked me to be at your door at midnight. She said it was so you wouldn't be alone."
Max waited.
"I told her I'd think about it." James rubbed the back of his head. "I'm only telling you because you look like you'd rather I told you to go to hell."
"I wouldn't," said Max.
James blinked.
ROSE: Warning. A registry clerk is standing behind the third pillar of this corridor, writing in a ledger.
ROSE: One logged night is a rumor. Three are a ruling.
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