I let their confessions settle around me like falling leaves, each one landing soft and heavy against my skin. Three Alphas. Three broken, beautiful men. All of them wanting me.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't want them too.
"Here's the problem. I'm not going to choose between you." I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and held up a hand when Remy opened his mouth to speak, cutting off whatever hopeful or desperate thing he was about to say. "Let me finish." I waited until he subsided, his jaw snapping shut with an audible click.
"I've been on my own for a long time. Since Marguerite died, it's been just me and Gumbo. I've learned how to take care of myself, how to be alone. I never expected this. Any of this. Three Alphas showing up in my life within a few weeks, all of them looking at me like..." I took a breath, feeling the weight of what I was about to say pressing down on my chest, and trailed off with a shake of my head.
"Like you're the most important thing in the world." Harper finished quietly, his dark eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that made my stomach flip, his rough voice barely above a whisper.
"Yeah. Like that." I admitted, my voice softer than I intended, and had to clear my throat before I could continue.The silence stretched again, but it was different now. Charged with something other than aggression—something warmer, something that made my skin prickle with awareness.
"I'm attracted to all of you." I said it plainly, without apology, letting the words land where they would. "Harper, you're steady and solid and you look at me like I'm something precious. Remy, underneath all that charm you've got a heart that's been broken and put back together wrong, and I want to know every crack. Silas, you see me like no one else ever has, and it scares the hell out of me in the best way." I looked at each of them as I spoke their names, letting them see the truth in my eyes, watching the way their expressions shifted—hope and fear and longing all tangled together.
Three sharp intakes of breath, almost simultaneous. Three scents shifting from aggression to something warmer, something wanting, something that wrapped around me like an embrace.
"So here's how this is going to work. I'm not choosing. Not now. Maybe not ever. If you want me—any of you—you're going to have to learn to share." I sat back and let the words land like stones in still water, watching the ripples spread across each of their faces.
Harper went rigid, his massive frame turning to granite, his dark eyes widening with shock. Remy's mouth fell open slightly, his amber eyes huge in his handsome face. Silas's expression flickered with something I couldn't read—surprise, maybe, or calculation, or something deeper.
"Share. You mean... all three of us?" Harper repeated the word like he was testing a foreign language, his voice rough with disbelief, his brow furrowing as he tried to process what I was saying.
"That's exactly what I mean." I held his gaze without flinching, letting him see that I was completely serious. "I won'tbe fought over. I won't be a prize to be won. I won't tear myself apart trying to choose when I don't have to. This isn't traditional. It's not how things are supposed to work. But nothing about this situation is traditional." I gestured at the three of them, at Gumbo floating in the distance, at my cabin perched above the bayou like something out of a fever dream.
"An Omega with three Alphas. Pack structure." Remy's voice was wondering, his accent thick with emotion, and he leaned forward with something lighting up in his amber eyes—recognition, maybe, or hope.
"Packs are normal. One Alpha, one Omega—that's what most folks do." I kept my voice steady, matter-of-fact. "But more than one Alpha to an Omega? That's where it gets rare. Two Alphas sharing an Omega happens sometimes—not common, but it happens. Marguerite had friends over in Terrebonne Parish like that. Two Alphas, one Omega, thirty years together. Happiest people I ever saw." I let that sink in, watching their faces. "But three Alphas? That's old ways. The kind of pack you read about in history books or hear whispered about in bayou stories. Most people go their whole lives never seeing one because they keep it behind closed doors.." I shrugged, meeting each of their eyes in turn. "Doesn't mean it can't work. Just means we'd be something rare." I let the word hang in the air between us.
"I've read about it. Historical accounts, before things changed. Three or four Alphas to one Omega wasn't unusual back then." Silas's voice was quiet, thoughtful, his pale eyes meeting mine with something that looked almost like respect as he tilted his head slightly, considering. "The old ways faded, but they didn't disappear entirely." He added, something almost wistful in his flat tone.
Harper was silent, his dark eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my stomach flip. I could see him wrestling with it—the traditional Alpha instinct to possess, to claim, warring withsomething deeper, something that wanted me badly enough to consider the impossible.
"Harper." I said his name softly, and he flinched like I'd touched him, his whole body jerking toward me. "I know this isn't easy. For any of you. But I need to know if you can do this." I waited, watching the battle play out across his features.
"If it means being with you, I'll learn. I've spent my whole life alone. If sharing you with them means I get to have you at all... I'll learn." He finally said, his voice rough and low, his jaw tight but his dark eyes holding something like hope as he glanced at Remy, at Silas, something complicated passing over his face before he repeated with more certainty, "I'll learn."
"Remy?" I turned to him, watching the way his throat worked as he swallowed.
"Chere, I've shared less and lost more. At least this way, I'm not running. At least this way, I'm choosing to stay. I can't promise it won't be messy. But I can promise I'll try." His smile was crooked, self-deprecating, and he reached up to run a hand through his honey-blond curls in a nervous gesture that made him look younger, more vulnerable, his amber eyes earnest and bright.
"Silas?" I looked at him last, and found him watching me with that unnerving stillness, his pale eyes holding depths I couldn't begin to fathom.
"I've never had anything worth sharing before. If this is what it takes to be part of something... to be part of you... I'll adapt." His voice was barely above a whisper, and for just a moment his controlled facade cracked, letting me see something raw and vulnerable underneath—a loneliness so deep it made my chest ache. He nodded once, sharp and certain, sealing the promise.
Something warm bloomed in my chest—hope and terror and something else I wasn't ready to name, all tangled together in a knot I couldn't begin to untangle.
"Good. Then here's what happens next." I picked up my whiskey and took a long sip, letting the burn steady my racing heart, then set down the glass and looked at each of them in turn. All three of them leaned in slightly, waiting, their attention fixed on me with an intensity that should have been overwhelming.
"I want to know each of you. Really know you, not just the surface stuff. So we're going to do this properly. One date. Each of you. One-on-one time where we can actually talk without—" I gestured at the tension still crackling between them, the air thick with competing scents and barely leashed aggression, "—all of this." I circled my hand in the air.
"Dates. I can do dates. I'm excellent at dates." Remy's grin was spreading across his face, his charm creeping back now that the worst of the tension had broken, dimples appearing in his cheeks.
"No performances. I want the real you, remember? Not the show." I pointed at him sternly, holding his gaze until his grin softened into something more honest, more vulnerable.
"The real me. I can try." He nodded slowly, ducking his head in acknowledgment, a faint flush coloring his cheekbones.
"Harper, you're first. Saturday. Pick me up at six. Take me somewhere that means something to you." I turned to him, watching his dark eyes widen slightly with surprise, then kindle with something that looked like determination.
"Somewhere that means something. I... yes. I know a place. Saturday at six." He repeated, his voice rough but gaining strength, his massive hands unclenching slightly as he nodded, already planning.
