"Alright. We do this together. But I'm in charge. My land, my rules. You disagree with something, you tell me. You don't go behind my back. Understood?" I said, and all three of them went still, their attention snapping to me with an intensity that should have been unnerving. I held each of their gazes in turn—Harper's steady and dark, Remy's bright and searching, Silas's pale and unblinking.
Three nods. Three murmured agreements. Three Alphas, deferring to an Omega.
It shouldn't have felt as right as it did.
Gumbo chose that moment to haul himself out of the water and lumber up onto the dock, his massive body glistening in thelast rays of sunset, water streaming from his armored hide. All three Alphas went tense again.
"He wants to meet you. Properly, I mean. He's been watching you watch me for weeks. I think he's curious." I said, unable to keep the amusement from my voice as I stood and walked down the porch steps toward the dock, my bare feet familiar with every weathered board.
Harper rose first, following me with slow, careful steps that made no sudden movements. Remy hung back, his easy charm replaced by genuine wariness, one hand gripping the porch railing. Silas moved last, silent as always, but I caught the way his eyes tracked Gumbo—assessing, but not afraid. Interested.
"Gumbo, these are... friends. Be nice." The word felt strange in my mouth, not quite right but close enough for now, and I crouched down beside my alligator to scratch the ridge above his eye, feeling the familiar roughness of his scales beneath my fingers.
He rumbled—a low, vibrating sound that could have been greeting or warning or just indigestion. With Gumbo, you never quite knew.
Harper stopped a few feet away, his massive frame utterly still. Then, slowly, he crouched down to Gumbo's level, making himself smaller, less threatening. The two of them stared at each other for a long moment—two large, silent predators, sizing each other up across three feet of dock.
Gumbo's tail swished once. Then he settled, his amber eyes closing halfway in what I'd learned to recognize as acceptance.
"He likes you. He doesn't usually relax around strangers." I said, unable to hide my surprise, watching the unexpected interaction with fascination.
"Animals usually do. Like me, I mean. Easier than people." Harper's mouth twitched—almost a smile, the closest thing I'd seen to one on his face—and he kept his voice low and non-threatening as he held out his hand, palm down, not touching but offering. An invitation.
Gumbo's nostrils flared. He didn't move away.
"I'm good up here, thanks. Me and giant reptiles, we have an understanding. I don't bother them, they don't eat me." Remy called down from the porch, his arms crossed tight over his chest, his usual swagger completely absent as he eyed Gumbo with barely concealed nervousness. He was only half-joking.
Silas approached the dock without invitation, moving in that silent way of his that made the hair on my arms stand up. He stopped beside me and stared down at Gumbo with those pale silver eyes.
Gumbo stared back.
Something passed between them—recognition, maybe. One predator to another. Silas's lips curved into what might have been a ghost of a smile, so small and fleeting it was barely there at all.
"He's magnificent." His voice was barely above a whisper, rough with something that sounded almost like reverence.
I looked at the scene around me—Harper crouched beside my alligator, Silas standing silent and watchful, Remy hovering nervously on the porch. Three Alphas in my territory, all of them drawn to me, all of them broken in their own ways, all of them trying.
I didn't know what this was. Didn't know what it could become. The smart thing would be to send them away, keep my distance, protect my heart.
I'd never been particularly good at the smart thing.
"Same time next week. We'll make a plan. Figure out how to deal with the developers. And you—" I pointed at each of them in turn, my voice carrying clear across the dock, "—will keep me informed of anything you find. No secrets. No surveillancewithout my knowledge." I crossed my arms and waited for acknowledgment.
Three nods. Three murmured agreements. Three scents mingling in the evening air—moonshine and river water and rain.
"Good. Now get out. I need to process all of this, and I can't do that with you three making the air smell like a distillery mixed with a thunderstorm." I turned and walked back toward the porch, waving my hand dismissively over my shoulder even as something warm curled in my chest at the sound of their shuffling compliance.
They left. Harper first, with a lingering look over his shoulder that made my stomach flip—those dark eyes holding something that looked dangerously like devotion. Remy next, throwing me a crooked smile that was more genuine than any of his earlier performances, his dimples actually reaching his eyes this time. Silas last, pausing at the edge of the trees to turn and look at me—just for a moment, just long enough for our eyes to meet across the growing darkness.
Then they were gone, and I was alone with Gumbo and the rising moon and the memory of three different scents still clinging to my porch.
"Well. That was something." I said to Gumbo, who had followed me back up to the cabin, his claws clicking against the dock boards as he settled into his usual spot near the steps.
He rumbled in what might have been agreement.
I sat on my porch until the stars came out, thinking about broken Alphas and second chances and the way it felt when all three of them looked at me like I was the center of their universe.
Dangerous. That's what this was. Dangerous and complicated and probably a terrible idea.
