Who's My Triplet's Alpha Daddy? Novel

Chapter 168 Jan 15, 2026 POV: Thalia The dreams start innocently enough-if you can call biological warfare wrapped in REM cycles innocent. The other me dreams of running through forests on four legs, paws hitting earth with rhythms her conscious mind doesn't recognize but her body remembers like breathing. The world explodes in scent and sound-prey moving through underbrush, pack members flanking her, the moon overhead so bright it feels like a second sun. She dreams of hunting. The pack moving as one organism, coordinated without words.

The kill is clean and fast and when they eat, it's communion instead of consumption. She dreams of a mate she can't see but knows with absolute certainty. His scent is cedar and smoke. His presence is gravity and home. His touch would complete circuits she didn't know were broken. The first few nights, she wakes gasping and reaches for Lysander out of habit. Finds him there, solid and steady and completely wrong in ways her conscious mind won't acknowledge but her body screams about. She tells herself it's just stress. Just her wolf trying to emerge. Just biology being dramatic.

Denial is a hell of a drug and she's mainlining it at dangerous doses. The dreams escalate with the kind of progression usually reserved for diseases-slow at first, then catastrophically fast. Week two brings dreams that make her wake up with her hand between her legs and Lysander's name dying on her lips because it's the wrong fucking name. She dreams of Kieran touching her. Not the explosive heat-drunk fucking from eight years ago but something different. Reverent. His hands map her body like he's memorizing scripture.

His mouth whispers apologies into her skin for every cruel word, every moment he made her feel worthless. In the dreams, he touches her like she's something precious instead of conquered. His voice breaks with need when he says her name. His body completes hers with the kind of cosmic rightness that makes you understand why people write terrible poetry about soulmates. She comes awake aroused and guilty, Lysander sleeping peacefully beside her like a security blanket she's outgrown but can't throw away.

Her body is screaming for someone else while her mind tries desperately to convince her this is fine. The lying to herself is getting pathetic. By week three, the dreams start bleeding into waking life with the subtlety of a hemorrhage. Conference room meetings become exercises in not staring. Kieran's explaining merger strategies and she's remembering dream-images of his hands on her hips, his mouth on her throat, his body moving in hers with the kind of precision that makes you understand why wolves mate for life. Except they're not memories. They can't be.

They're just dreams her traitorous subconscious is manufacturing because stress and proximity. "Thalia?" Lysander's voice cuts through. "Did you hear the question?" She blinks. Everyone's staring. She has no idea what anyone just said. "Sorry, could you repeat that?" Across the table, Kieran's eyes track over her face with that intensity that makes her skin prickle. He knows. Somehow he knows she's been dreaming about him. The guilt is corrosive. She goes home with Lysander, lets him make dinner while she pretends to review case files.

Watches him move through the kitchen with easy domesticity that should feel comforting and just feels wrong. "You seem distracted lately," Lysander says carefully. They're eating pasta that tastes like cardboard because everything tastes wrong when you're drowning in guilt. "Want to talk about it?" "Just work stress." The lie tastes metallic. "The Silverton case is more complicated than we thought." He doesn't believe her. She can see it in how his shoulders tense, how his jaw clenches before he forces a smile.

But he doesn't push because pushing means confronting truths neither of them wants to acknowledge. That night, she dreams of Kieran again. This time it's worse-he's holding her after, foreheads pressed together, telling her he's sorry for everything. That he searched for eight years because losing her nearly killed him. That the bond has been there since they were kids and he was too blind to see it. His voice breaks on the words: "You're mine. Always were. Always will be.

And I'm so fucking sorry I didn't fight for you when it mattered." She wakes up with tears on her face and Lysander's arms around her. He murmurs something soothing, still mostly asleep, and she wants to scream because this is torture-being held by the wrong man while dreaming about the right one. Her wolf is trying to communicate through the only channel available when conscious resistance drops. Sleep is where the mate bond gets through, where biology overrides stubborn denial. Week four, the alternate me starts avoiding sleep like it's an abusive ex.

Coffee consumption goes from normal to concerning to "should we stage an intervention" levels. Three cups before breakfast. Two more by lunch. She's consuming caffeine like it's life support because staying awake means not dreaming. She works late every night. Finds excuses to stay at the office until midnight, reviewing documents that could wait. Anything to delay the moment she has to close her eyes and face what's waiting there. Lysander notices the exhaustion first. The dark circles under her eyes that makeup can't hide. The way her hands shake slightly from too much caffeine.

The irritability that comes from running on fumes. "You need to sleep," he says Thursday evening. They're in bed that's starting to feel like a crime scene. "You're running yourself into the ground." "I'm fine." She stares at the ceiling, fighting to keep her eyes open even though they burn. "Just have a lot on my mind." "What's keeping you awake?" His voice is gentle. Concerned. "Talk to me." How do you tell your partner you're dreaming about his brother? That closing your eyes means facing a mate bond you're desperately trying to deny?

That sleep is where your wolf tells you everything you've built together is a beautiful lie? "Work stuff," she says instead. "Magnus's ultimatum. The kids acting out." "There's nothing normal about any of this." Lysander props himself on one elbow, studying her face in the darkness. "You're barely sleeping, drinking enough coffee to kill a horse, and you flinch every time Kieran walks into a room. Something's wrong." "I'm fine," she repeats. The lie is wearing so thin you can see through it. "I just need to get through the next week." One week until Magnus's ultimatum expires.

Seven days to choose between exile and accepting a mate bond she's convinced herself doesn't exist. Lysander doesn't press. Just pulls her against his chest and holds her while she fights sleep with every weapon she has. But exhaustion wins eventually-biology doesn't accept substitutions and the body demands rest. She falls asleep around three AM and immediately drops into nightmares that feel more real than waking. This time, Kieran's holding her while she cries.

Not sex, just comfort-his arms around her while she falls apart, his voice promising he's got her, that she's safe, that he's not going anywhere. The intimacy is worse than any sexual dream because it's what she actually needs and has been denying herself. When she wakes at dawn, Lysander's already gone. Left a note about early meeting. Coffee made but she can't stomach it because even the smell makes her nauseous now. I watch that version of me deteriorate in real-time. Sleep deprivation plus mate bond resistance creates a cocktail of symptoms that would send most people to the ER.

Headaches that last days. Nausea that comes in waves. Skin that feels wrong, bones that ache. The dreams are the mate bond trying to complete itself through the only pathway available. Her conscious mind can deny all it wants, but asleep, the truth gets through. Her wolf knows. Her body knows. Something has to break. Biology doesn't accept indefinite resistance. You can only run from destiny for so long before it tackles you from behind.

And she is trying to survive on caffeine and denial, working herself into collapse to avoid sleeping, avoiding sleep to avoid dreams that tell her everything she's built with Lysander is fundamentally wrong. The mate bond is patient but merciless. It'll wait for her to stop running. And then it'll complete itself whether she's ready or not. The dreams are just the warning shots. The real devastation is still coming. admin