Who's My Triplet's Alpha Daddy? Novel

Chapter 99 Dec 18, 2025 POV: Lysander Fortifying a mountain retreat against military-grade mercenaries with limited resources and two hundred terrified wolves turns out to be exactly as fun as it sounds, which is to say not at all. Day one I'm organizing patrol rotations with wolves who've never held a defensive position in their lives, explaining to a middle-aged accountant why he needs to learn how to spot hunter reconnaissance patterns. "Because they'll kill you" seems insufficient motivation but it's all I've got.

Marcus-pack elder, perpetual pain in my ass, guy who thinks leadership means never making hard calls-finds me on day three while I'm helping tech-savvy pack members rig security cameras using solar panels and batteries scrounged from who the fuck knows where. "We should negotiate." He says it with the confidence of someone who's never actually faced an enemy who wants genocide, not compromise. "Surely there's a truce we can broker. Common ground." I don't stop working, just keep mounting the camera to a tree that gives us sight lines on the north approach.

"They've killed three of our people in the last month. Marcus. Three." "Which is why we need to stop the violence before-" "Before what?" I turn on him with enough Alpha command that he actually steps back. "Before they kill more? They're not interested in peace talks. They're interested in systematic extermination of everything we are." "You don't know that-" "I know they burned families alive in their homes." My voice drops to something lethal. "I know they've been planning this for months with inside help.

I know negotiating with people who think we're monsters needing purification is suicide dressed up as diplomacy." He opens his mouth to argue but I'm already done with this conversation, done with people who think being reasonable means letting someone murder you politely. "Meeting adjourned. You're on watch rotation starting tonight. Maybe spending twelve hours staring at the forest wondering if the thing that kills you is coming from the trees will adjust your perspective on negotiation." The pack divides along predictable lines after that.

The ones who trust my leadership versus the ones who think I'm too young, too soft, too willing to make calls that prioritize survival over comfort. Catherine corners me during week two about housing assignments, voice dripping with the kind of judgment that makes you understand why some wolves eat their elders. "Lower-ranked families in the outer cabins while Alpha bloodlines stay central. That's your father's hierarchy, not the equality you promised." "That's tactical positioning." I'm so tired my bones hurt, existing on maybe four hours of sleep total over the last seventy-two.

"Central cabins have reinforced walls. Outer cabins serve as early warning system. It's not about rank, it's about defense." "Tell that to the families you're using as bait." The words hit because they're not entirely wrong, and that truth tastes like poison. I can't protect everyone equally. Can't make the math work where two hundred wolves all get maximum security. Some will be more exposed. Some will face more danger. And knowing that's destroying me one impossible choice at a time.

Caroline's staying in my cabin because having her vulnerable and alone felt like asking the universe to remind me exactly how badly this can go. Plus the cabin's barely two rooms-I'm on the couch, she gets the bed, we're maintaining boundaries that feel increasingly pointless. Week three, 2 AM, neither of us sleeping. We end up on the tiny porch with instant coffee that tastes like battery acid mixed with regret, watching the forest for movement that might mean death incoming. "I keep thinking about what you said." Her voice cuts through the quiet, soft but steady.

"The bond." "Yeah?" I take a sip of the terrible coffee because doing something with my hands helps. "Is it-does it mean what I think it means?" She's choosing words carefully, lawyer brain working even exhausted and terrified. "That we're mates?" Might as well just say it, rip the bandaid off. "Yeah." She processes this in silence, staring at trees that might hide hunters or might hide nothing. The uncertainty's going to drive us all insane before the actual violence does. "So I don't have a choice." Not accusatory-just stating what she thinks is fact.

"You always have a choice." I turn to look at her fully, need her to understand this. "The bond shows compatibility, not prison. It means we're matched, not that you're trapped." "But you feel it." Her eyes meet mine. "This pull." "Every second." No point lying when she can probably feel it too, that gravitational certainty that says she's mine and I'm hers regardless of whether that makes sense given literally everything else in our lives. She sets down her coffee with deliberate care, moves closer until we're sharing space on the tiny porch. "Then I choose this. Choose you.

Choose us." She kisses me and the bond flares bright enough to hurt, bright enough to drown out every doubt and fear and tactical concern currently eating me alive. Her mouth is soft and certain, her hands frame my face, and for maybe thirty seconds I forget we're on a mountain preparing for war. When she pulls back, her eyes hold something that makes my chest tight. "I'm choosing you even though biology already did. That matters, right?" "That matters more than you know." My voice comes out rougher than intended. The bond settles between us-not demanding, not consuming, just present. Steady.

Right. Three weeks of relative quiet follow. We maintain patrols, run drills, stay vigilant despite nothing happening except the slow erosion of everyone's nerves. The pack starts to relax incrementally, whispers spreading that maybe the hunters gave up, maybe showing strength was enough to make them back off. I know better but hope's a powerful drug when you're surrounded by people desperate to believe the nightmare might be ending. Week three, night twenty-one, the attack comes at 3 AM when most of the pack's deeply asleep and even the patrol rotation's dulled by weeks of nothing.

Not hunters though. Something else. The cabins burn-not all of them, not random. Just the outlying ones. The ones housing lower-ranked families. The ones Catherine accused me of using as bait. Fire erupts simultaneously across four buildings, professional accelerant that catches fast and spreads faster. The screams start seconds later, wolves trapped inside with flames blocking exits. I'm running before fully conscious, Caroline shouting something behind me, pack members pouring from cabins in various states of undress and panic. We get them out. Barely.

Twelve families displaced, three wolves with burns serious enough to need medical attention we don't really have up here, everyone's possessions reduced to ash and the smell that'll haunt dreams for years. Standing in the clearing watching four cabins burn to their foundations while terrified families huddle together, the message crystallizes with brutal clarity: We can reach anyone. Nobody's safe. Not in the center, not on the edges, not anywhere. Catherine finds me while the fires still smolder, her face illuminated by dying flames. "You said tactical positioning.

You said it wasn't about rank." "It wasn't." My voice sounds detached, clinical, completely divorced from the screaming currently happening inside my head. "They went after the vulnerable ones anyway. Made a point." "So what now, Alpha?" The title drips with sarcasm and accusation and the weight of every impossible choice I've made. "How do you protect us from an enemy that can strike anywhere, anytime, and we never see them coming?" I stare at the burning cabins, at the families who trusted me to keep them safe, at the evidence that I'm failing at the one job that actually matters.

"I don't know." The admission tastes like defeat. "But I'm going to figure it out before they burn us all." 150 Contents Archer