Who's My Triplet's Alpha Daddy? Novel

Chapter 175 Jan 15, 2026 POV: Thalia Lysander packs up his Seattle life with the efficiency of someone who's done this before-or maybe just someone who can't afford to linger over memories that make breathing difficult. I watch him fold expensive shirts into boxes destined for Colorado, where he's accepted the position leading their satellite office because three states feels like the minimum safe distance from your brother's mate. Geography as emotional armor. It's almost poetic if you ignore the catastrophically depressing part.

The Colorado position is prestigious enough that nobody questions the transfer. Fenris Group expansion, leveraging expertise, better opportunities. All perfectly reasonable explanations that have zero to do with the actual reason: watching the woman you love complete a mate bond with your brother is torture that makes waterboarding look like a spa treatment. Thursday night-his last night in Seattle-he shows up at Kieran's penthouse to say goodbye to the children.

She opens the door and they both just stand there, two people who used to fit together now maintaining careful distance like proximity might detonate something. "They're in the living room," she says. Her voice comes out too casual, aggressively normal. The kids are sprawled across furniture in various states of homework avoidance. Phoenix coloring, Luna reading, Orion building something with alarming structural integrity. They look up when Lysander enters, and I watch three faces transform with joy about to get demolished. "Lysander!" Phoenix launches herself first.

"Are you staying for dinner? Can we watch a movie?" "Actually," Lysander crouches to her level, voice already threatening to break, "I came to say goodbye for a while. I'm moving to Colorado for work." The silence that follows could suffocate galaxies. "How long is 'for a while'?" Orion asks, analytical brain already calculating timeframes. "Pretty long. Maybe permanently." Lysander says it gently but doesn't soften the truth. "But I'll video call. And you can visit during summers if your parents agree." Parents . Plural.

Acknowledging that Kieran has moved from uncle to father while Lysander relocates to "family friend who lives very far away." Luna's face crumples first. Silent tears streaming as her empathic abilities slam her with everyone's grief. "But you said you'd be here. You said you weren't going anywhere." "I know, sweetheart. And I'm sorry I lied." Lysander pulls her into a hug that looks like he's trying to memorize the feeling. "Sometimes adults make promises they can't keep because the situation changes." "Did we do something wrong?" Orion's voice stays controlled but his hands clench.

"Is this because we're not-because you're not-" "This has nothing to do with you." Lysander moves to Orion, hands on his shoulders, forcing eye contact. "You three are the best thing that ever happened to me. But your mom has a mate bond with your father, and me being here makes that complicated." "So you're leaving because of biology." Orion's face does Kieran's exact expression-clinical detachment hiding devastation. "Logical. Efficient. Terrible." "Yeah." Lysander's voice cracks completely.

"All of those things." Phoenix climbs into his lap without asking permission, clinging with Alpha strength that suggests she's not letting go without a fight. "When are you coming back?" "I don't know." He holds her while she sobs. "But I promise I still love you. All of you. That doesn't change just because I'm in Colorado." They spend two hours together. Lysander reading to Luna, helping Orion with math homework one last time, letting Phoenix show him every rock in her collection. Eventually it's time.

Lysander hugs each of them one more time-long, desperate embraces that look like he's trying to absorb enough contact to last through years of absence. "I love you," he tells them. "Always. That's not conditional on geography." She walks him to his car because apparently they both need one more moment of torture. The parking garage is concrete and fluorescent lighting and the kind of atmosphere that makes emotional conversations feel extra devastating. They stand beside his packed SUV and neither knows how to start. "So," Lysander finally breaks the silence.

"Colorado." "Three states away." Her arms wrap around herself. "Far enough." "Far enough," he agrees. Far enough that he can't smell her scent on the wind. Far enough that running into her at pack functions isn't possible. Far enough that watching her be happy with his brother doesn't happen accidentally. "I'm sorry it couldn't work," Lysander says. His voice is raw, stripped of easy charm. "Sorry I wasn't strong enough to fight destiny." "Don't." Her voice breaks. "Don't apologize for being exactly what I needed when I needed it. You were perfect.

This isn't about you not being enough-it's about biology not caring who's better." "You never meant to hurt me." He says it like he's absolving her of sins she's definitely committed. "You genuinely tried to choose me. That matters." "Does it?" She laughs but it comes out bitter, broken. "Because trying just meant dragging you through months of denial before biology won anyway." "You deserve better than being second to a mate bond." Lysander steps closer, frames her face with both hands. "I got to love you. Got to be part of those kids' lives.

Got to have something real even if it couldn't last. That's more than most people get." His thumb catches a tear tracking down her cheek. "So maybe stop apologizing for things neither of us could control." Then he kisses her forehead. Gentle, final, the kind of goodbye that acknowledges this is actually goodbye. His lips press against her skin and I watch tears track down his face. "Be happy with Kieran," he whispers against her hair. "Let yourself love him. Stop fighting what was always going to happen." "It doesn't feel good." Her voice is barely audible.

"It feels like I'm betraying something important." "You're not betraying anything. You're surviving." He pulls back, looks at her with devastating tenderness. "And you're really good at that. So keep surviving. Eventually it might even feel like living." He gets in his SUV before either can fall apart completely. Starts the engine, adjusts mirrors, goes through normal departure motions while nothing about this is normal. She stands in the parking garage watching him back out. He doesn't look at her-probably can't without losing whatever composure he has left.

Just drives away with three states worth of distance as the goal and heartbreak as the fuel. She stands there long after his taillights disappear. Processing that she just lost one of the best things that ever happened to her. That Lysander-patient, gentle, perfect Lysander-is gone because biology decided she belonged to someone else. Eventually the cold drives her back inside. Back to the penthouse, back to Kieran who's waiting in the living room pretending he wasn't watching the security camera feed. The kids are in bed. The apartment is quiet.

Kieran's standing by the windows with whiskey he's not drinking. "He's really gone," she says into the silence. "Yeah." Kieran sets down the glass. "He is." "I loved him." She says it like confession, like admitting treason. "Maybe not the way the bond makes me feel about you. But I loved him. And now he's in Colorado because I couldn't choose right." "You couldn't choose differently than biology decided." Kieran moves toward her but stops short of touching. "That's not the same as choosing wrong." "Feels the same from where I'm standing." She's crying now-ugly, exhausted tears.

"I destroyed him trying to fight what I should have just accepted." "Or you loved him as long as you could before reality intervened." Kieran's voice is careful, gentle. "That's not destruction. That's just tragedy no one could prevent." She wants to argue. But arguing requires energy she doesn't have. So she just stands there crying in the life she didn't choose, mourning the man she lost to destiny. Kieran eventually pulls her against his chest. Not sexual, not claiming-just comfort while she falls apart. The mate bond hums approval at the contact, and she hates that too.

Hates that her body responds with contentment while her heart is breaking. "It gets easier," Kieran murmurs into her hair. "Not right away. But eventually." She doesn't believe him. Can't imagine a future where this guilt and grief transform into anything resembling peace. But the bond is patient, Kieran is patient, and biology has already demonstrated it doesn't accept alternatives. So she cries in her mate's arms, mourning the life she tried to build with Lysander, and hopes that someday this forced future might feel less like cage and more like choice.

Somewhere in Colorado, Lysander's probably unpacking boxes in a new apartment, building a life three states away from the woman he loved and the children he lost to biology. And she's learning that sometimes you can choose perfectly and still lose everything. admin