As I walked into the street, the rain soaked me from head to toe, and the cold air wrapped around me, making me shiver but I felt nothing.

No pain. No hurt. Just emptiness, as I wandered aimlessly with no destination in mind.

What was I supposed to do now?

I worked as a waitress at a restaurant, and that was only because my boss had been kind enough to hire me when no one else would.

After everything that happened, everyone seemed to believe I was a curse. No one wanted to hire me. They thought I’d jinx their businesses.

And it didn’t help that I was wolfless… or that my mother had poisoned herself with wolfsbane—something every werewolf despised. They saw it as a sin, an unforgivable shame and because she drank it, my family’s reputation was ruined.

Now I needed money to save her, and I couldn’t ask my boss for another advance. I had already asked last month, and even if I did again… it wouldn’t be enough. So…

“What should I do? What should I do? I’m tired… I’m so sick of everything. I just want to die,” I whispered under my breath, tears streaming down my cheeks, blending with the rain.

It truly felt like I had been abandoned—abandoned by my father who died and left me all alone, abandoned by my mother who chose to poison herself, abandoned by the one man I trusted who left me for his mate, abandoned by the world... and worst of all, abandoned by the goddess.

“Goddess…” I stopped walking and stared up at the sky, tapping my chest with a trembling hand. “Why am I alive? If this is the life you gave me, then why did you bring me into this world at all? Why am I alive if I can’t even be happy? Why? What did I ever do wrong?.

My voice cracked as it rose in frustration.

“Why are you letting me live like this? Why did you let him die?! Why are you so cruel? You couldn’t even protect him. You took the one person my mother loved most. And now, even though I know she wants to be with him on the other side, I can’t let her go. I know I’m selfish… I know I couldn’t even fulfill her dying wish.”

I muttered under my breath, my voice a whisper as I remembered the last words my mother said to me before she lost consciousness that day.

“I’m sorry, my child. I know this is wrong… but I can’t live without your father. Please don’t make me live without him. I want to see him again. Please forgive me, my daughter. Don’t cry for me.”

My fists clenched as I looked up at the storming sky. “But why are you just sitting there—doing nothing, no matter how much I cry out to you?! Why are you so cruel?!”

Thunder rumbled above me at my words, but I didn’t stop.

I didn’t care if I was committing a sin, speaking this way to the mother of all werewolves.

I just wanted to let it all out.

To blame someone for everything I’d lost.

“If this is the life you want me to live…” I whispered, breathless, my gaze dropping to the ground as I hissed out the final words, “then I’d rather die.”

A deafening clap of thunder tore through the sky, louder this time, as if it could crack the earth itself.

And before I could take my next breath, time seemed to slow.

A flash of light burst before me.

I blinked, glancing up, just in time to see a car speeding straight toward me, its horn blaring wildly.

My breath caught in my throat. I froze, unable to move as the car closed in, ready to hit me at any second.

I should move. I knew I should. But my feet stayed rooted to the ground, completely frozen.

And as the car came closer, I slowly closed my eyes, a single tear slipping down my cheek.

This was it. The moment I would meet my end.

I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t even sad.

The only regret I had… was leaving my mother behind.

As I accepted my fate, I prayed, hoped that if I died, Kael would continue to look after her.

I know it was foolish. I know I shouldn’t trust him, not after everything. But still… I hoped.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” I whispered, bracing myself for the pain.

Except… it never came.

Even after counting five seconds in my head… nothing happened.

My eyes snapped open.

The car had stopped, right in front of me. Just an inch away.

A shaky breath tore from my chest as my knees buckled, and I dropped to the ground, gasping, my hand pressed tightly to my pounding heart.

The sound of the heavy rain was all I heard as I stared at the ground, struggling to catch my breath. But as I tried to wrap my head around what had just happened, I felt a hand touch my shoulder and heard a voice.

“Are you okay, miss?"

The soothing voice of a man reached my ears, and the moment I looked up and saw the figure standing in front of me, all the air seemed to leave my lungs.

I was staring into a pair of completely white eyes, eyes that seemed to pull me in.

The world stopped again.

“If you want to kill yourself, I suggest you don’t do it in the middle of the road and inconvenience other people,”

An annoyed voice snapped me out of my daze.

I looked past the man in front of me and saw another standing behind him, wearing a cold expression, his lips tugged into a slight frown as he looked down at me with the same haunting white eyes.

“Aw, brother. Don’t you think that’s a bit harsh for a woman?”

I tore my gaze from the second man and turned to the third person who had just spoken, his eyes were fixed on me. The corner of his lips pulled into an amused smirk.

“And she’s pretty too,” he added with a lazy grin. “Drenched, but still pretty.”

I swallowed hard as my body trembled—not from the cold, not from fear, but from the realization that I knew exactly who they were.

The Alpha triplets.

Silas, Lucien, and Claude.

The cursed Alpha triplets.

That was what everyone called them.

They were the ones destined to die on their twenty-sixth birthday if they didn’t find, mate, and mark their true mate before then.

Everyone feared and respected them. Feared them because they were ruthless, they killed without hesitation, unlike their father, who had been known as a kind Alpha. Yet people respected them because they were unlike any Alphas the Fangspire Pack had ever seen.

They were powerful men, each blessed with a white wolf—the strongest breed there was.

And now, those very men were standing before me, white eyes locked on mine.

I wasn’t sure if it was the intensity of their piercing stares or the cold, heavy rain pouring down on me, but my body trembled, and my breathing grew heavy—almost suffocating. I clutched my chest and shut my eyes against the pain as the world blurred around me.

“Are you alright, miss? Do you feel unwell?” the man in front of me asked.

When I opened my eyes to look at him, his face was unreadable, not a flicker of emotion despite the concern in his words.

Alpha Silas.

Brown-haired, with eyes as piercing as the white moon.

“I don’t think she’s okay, Silas,” a low, lazy voice hummed.

I turned to the blond-haired man leaning casually against the car, arms folded, an amused smirk tugging at his lips as the rain poured down over him.

“I mean, we did almost run her over a few minutes ago,” he added with a low chuckle, water sliding down the sharp line of his jaw. “Pretty sure that’s the opposite of okay.”

My heart hammered against my chest as I met his gaze, and when his eyes narrowed on me, that smirk widened, his irises flashing whiter.

Alpha Claude.

I immediately lowered my head, looking away.

“If running her over meant not standing in the rain, I’d take that choice,” a cold voice drawled. “Let’s go. I’d rather not catch a cold after that boring meeting with that old man.”

I didn’t need to look up to know who had just spoken.

Alpha Lucien.

These three men stood before me, and I was in a daze—drenched, trembling, and unsure of what I was even doing.

But more than anything, what kept running through my mind was how I had almost died.

How I had stood there, frozen, as the car came barreling toward me… how I had nearly abandoned my mother.

In that moment, I had truly seen my life flash before my eyes but it wasn’t the bad memories I saw. It was the good ones, the ones from before my father died and everything in my life turned upside down.

And one memory had shone brighter than all the rest.

The day before my father left for the war with the late Alpha.

That day, it was just the three of us, my father, mother, and I—sitting together, smiling as we drank tea and talked.

We laughed, joked, and spoke about his return in time for my eighteenth birthday.

He had promised me he’d be home.

That promise never came true but I had also made a promise too.

Whenever he went off to war against the rogues, my father always made me promise that if anything ever happened to him, I would stay strong.

That no matter what, I would remain unbroken. That I would never give up.

At the time, I’d thought he was just treating me like a child.

I thought it was ridiculous.

But now I understood.

He knew the risks that came with his position.

He knew one day, he might leave… and never return.

A tear slipped down my cheek before I even realized it, and as I brought my hands to my face, more followed, my body wrecked with sobs. And as I cried, I could feel three intense gazes locked on me.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” I whispered, crying harder because I had almost broken that promise. I knew I wasn’t strong, but I couldn’t give up.

“Damn, is she crying? I think you made her cry, Lucien. That’s pretty mean of you,” I heard Claude murmur, followed by an unamused scoff.

“Can you stand up?” Silas, who was kneeling in front of me, asked. And as I lifted my head, eyes blurred with tears, I found a slight frown tugging at his lips.

“It’s raining,” he added, brown strands of hair clinging to his face as he reached his hand out for me to take. “Let’s get to the car, and we’ll talk.”

My lips trembled as I stared at him, but before I could say a word, the sharp ringing of a phone cut through the moment. I blinked, then shakily lowered my gaze to my pocket and instinctively reached for it.

I already knew who it was.

The hospital.

And when I saw the caller ID, I was right.

I didn’t think twice before answering, even though I was still in front of the three Alphas.

As soon as the call connected, the voice on the other end spoke urgently.

“Mrs. Lilith, we’ve been trying to reach you for a while now. Can you come to the hospital? Your mother—your mother—”

My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach as the voice became static and inaudible. My eyes widened in panic.

“My mother—what happened to her? Hello? Can you hear me?” I asked, my voice rising with worry, but the line had already disconnected.

“Hello?! Please, can you hear me? What happened to my mother?!”

No response.

I brought the phone to my face with shaky hands and saw that it had died.

Without thinking twice, I shot up from the ground and turned around, running through the rain, leaving the three men behind me.

As I ran toward the hospital, the only thing I could hear was the pounding of my heart in my ears as I silently prayed to the goddess that my mother would be fine—that this wouldn’t be the day I received the news I had always feared.

It wasn’t long before I arrived at the hospital.

By then, the rain had already stopped, and as I stepped inside, one of the receptionists who recognized me immediately stepped forward but I rushed past her, heading straight to the ward where my mother was staying, ignoring her as she called after me.

As soon as I reached there, I stopped.

The doctor was standing in front of the door, instructing the nurses around him.

“We don’t know when her body will start convulsing again due to the wolfsbane spreading fast, so make sure you check on her—”

“Doctor,” I cut in, stepping forward, my voice breaking.

He stopped speaking and turned to look at me, a sad frown forming on his face.

Ever since my mother had been admitted to this hospital three years ago, I had learned to read the doctors’ expressions and even without him saying a word, I already knew what he was going to say.

I bit my bottom lip and walked past him toward the window.

And as I saw my mother’s frail figure on the hospital bed, with life support machines hooked up to her, my heart cracked even more.

“Miss Lilith,” the doctor’s voice came from beside me, but I didn’t look away from my mother. Still, he continued,

“I’m sorry to say this, but your mother’s condition is getting worse. It’s beyond our control now. As you know, we don’t have a cure for wolfsbane yet. The only option is surgery to slow the spread but we can’t begin until you…”

His words trailed off, but I already knew what he meant.

Until I pay.

Silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating. Then finally, I whispered,

“Give me a day… just one more day. I’ll have the money by tomorrow.”

My breath trembled as I closed my eyes.

I knew he wanted to say something but instead, he sighed and nodded.

“Okay, Miss Lilith. Please don’t be late. We can’t afford to delay the surgery.”

With that, he left.

I turned away from the sight of my mother and sank to the floor, curling in on myself, arms wrapped tightly around my head.

What was I supposed to do now?

How was I supposed to come up with that kind of money by tomorrow?

I couldn’t even cry anymore. I just needed to think.

I needed to find a way.

And right then, as if the universe had heard my desperate questions, two women passed by in front of me, their voices loud as they chatted.

“Did you hear that Stella got real gold just for spending the night with the Alphas?” one of them said in disbelief.

Lifting my head slowly, I watched as the other woman responded, “Really? Is it because of that ritual where the Alphas are sleeping with different women to find their mate? Even if she wasn’t their mate, they still gave her gold?”

As they continued walking away, the first woman nodded.

“She just had to offer her body for the night and they paid her.”

My gaze dropped to the ground, breath catching as my chest tightened.

That was it. The only choice I had left.

If I wanted to save my mother.

If I wanted to keep my last piece of family alive.

Then I had to give myself to the Alpha triplets. I had to participate in the ritual.

It was a ritual.

One meant to find the right she-wolf who would be claimed by the Alpha triplets, Lucien, Claude and Silas.

Yes, the three ruthless men who practically ruled the entire werewolf world. They were powerful, as mesmerizing as the moon that hung in the sky. They were perfect... but they were cursed.

I had heard stories about these men, how the goddess herself had cursed them. Despite being gifted with powerful wolves, they were not the kind of Alphas she had envisioned.

They were heartless, they killed without remorse. But what truly disgusted the goddess were their carnal desires.

It was said that Lucien, Claude and Silas craved one thing above all— sex.

They used it to pass the time, indulging in pleasure without care. Being the fantasy of nearly every she-wolf, countless women threw themselves at them. And they didn’t care who they slept with as long as it satisfied their need.

But to the goddess, this was unholy.

Sex was sacred, meant mostly to be shared between mates, not treated as a fleeting indulgence.

And so, she cursed them. If they did not find and mark their fated mate before their 26th birthday, they would die.

But that wasn’t the cruelest part.

The goddess had given them a single mate to share— a woman neither of them could scent. They wouldn’t even know who she was unless they claimed and marked her.

And that explained why I was currently walking through the halls of the packhouse belonging to those very men, their attendants trailing behind me. Their voices faded into the background, drowned out by the pounding of my heart.

Today, I had been chosen to spend the night with the Alpha triplets.

They called it lucky—said that even if I wasn’t their mate, just one night with Lucien, Claude and Silas was every woman’s dream.

Everyone but me.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t mesmerized by their beauty like the others, how could I not be, when they looked like walking gods?

But the reason I was doing this… wasn’t because I wanted to.

It was because I had no choice, because if I wanted to keep her alive, I had to.

“Remember what we taught you, child,” Thalia, the head attendant, said with a sad smile as we stopped in front of a large golden door. Her smile was wide and well-practiced, like someone who had done this many times before (which she had).

“Don’t question what the Alphas ask of you. Don’t stare at them too long without permission. Refer to them separately as Alpha Lucien, Claude and Silas. And by all means, do not try to strike up a conversation with them unless given permission.”

I repeated her instructions word for word, just as she had taught me.

The corners of her lips curved into a smile, and she nodded, her hand reaching for the doors. As she pushed them open, she murmured under her breath,

“I wish you the best of luck, Lilith,”

“Thank you for helping me, Thalia.” I whispered, and gave her a small smile.

The moment the doors opened, I swallowed nervously and watched as the attendants turned and walked away without sparing me another glance.

For a brief moment, I stood still, staring into the space before me, cloaked in darkness. Taking a deep breath, I braced myself for the inevitable.

I was, in every sense, selling my body. So I told myself I’d close my eyes and let it be over quickly.

That was the plan.

But the moment I stepped into the room, the door slammed shut behind me but that wasn’t what made me freeze in place.

The reason my breath hitched and my body trembled was because of the three men in front of me, whose eyes snapped toward me the second I entered. Because of their beauty.

Oh, goddess.

How could anyone look so breathtaking? Even though I had seen them before, they were still utterly stunning.

They weren’t the muscular kind of attractive like most men. No, their beauty was something else entirely—refined, striking.

They were flawless without looking feminine. Their faces were identical, sculpted so perfectly it felt as though the goddess had taken her time crafting a masterpiece.

The only notable difference between them was their hair. Lucien had long black hair, Silas’s was brown, and Claude’s was a soft blond so I knew it was Claude on the bed, his lips curving into an amused smirk the moment he saw me. His head rested lazily on his hand, and as he spoke, he looked like something straight out of one of those fairytales Mother used to read to me, the kind of prince who would sweep you off your feet.

“Oh, this one is different. I’m not sure why, but she smells more delicious than the others, brothers. Something tells me she’s our mate,” he hummed, his tongue flicking across his bottom lip, his eyes trailing down my body like I was a meal he was about to devour.

“Didn’t you say that about the one we fucked yesterday? And the day before that?” a cool, unimpressed voice cut in.

I turned my gaze to the shirtless man seated on the couch, his eyes fixed on the book in his hand as he casually flipped through it.

As I stared at him, a thought flashed through my mind, if Claude looked like a prince, then Silas was a beautiful, brilliant man destined to destroy you.

“But you’re right about this one… she smells delicious,” he muttered under his breath, his eyes flickering to me.

For a brief moment, I saw recognition in them but just as quickly, it vanished. He closed the book and rested his head on his hand, narrowing his eyes at me, intrigued.

“It doesn’t matter if she smells good or not. What matters is finding our mate,” another deep voice echoed, and my gaze flickered to the third triplet, sitting at the edge of the window, sipping from a glass of wine.

Alpha Lucien.

A dark knight.

“We are not to enjoy them.” At that last word, his eyes flashed a bright, eerie white as he tilted his head to look at me.

Before I could even react, Claude was suddenly in front of me, making me flinch and nearly stumble. But his hand wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer, so close that a gasp escaped my lips as he stood just inches away.

He was watching me, studying me, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him.

“Don’t stare at them too long without permission,”

The attendants warning echoed in my head, making my eyes widen before I quickly dropped my gaze.

“Look up, little she-wolf,” Claude demanded, and I instantly obeyed.

This time, standing beside Claude was Silas, his eyes narrowed intently at me.

“What is your name, she-wolf?” Silas asked, circling behind me, and I inhaled sharply as he pressed up from behind, trapping me between him and Claude.

“Refer to them separately as Alpha Claude, Silas and Lucien.

“M-My name is Lilith, Alpha Silas,” I forced the words from my lips, my fists clenching as Silas leaned in, brushed my hair aside, and took a slow inhale at my neck.

But before I could even process that, Claude reached out and grabbed my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. The amused grin that stretched across his lips and the eerie white of his eyes made my stomach drop.

“Lilth,” he murmured, then chuckled, his gaze falling to my lips. And just as Silas leaned away from me, Claude echoed,

“Well, Lilith. Kneel for me. Let’s put that pretty mouth to use.”

Just like that, those simple words made my heart feel like it was about to explode. But...

“Don’t question what the Alphas ask of you.”

So I did just that.