Thea doesn't believe she has magical powers or a destiny to save the werewolf race. She wants to be Beta to her future Alphas, identical triplets Alaric, Conri, and Kai, but they want her as their Luna. While they wait to shift for proof they're mates, they must prepare to fight a growing evil that's wiping out werewolf packs, suspects Thea is goddess gifted, and wants to take her power. As enemies pile up, Thea must embrace her fate to protect the people she loves. * * * * * This is not a story about characters abusing and hurting each other then somehow ending up together. Rather, the main characters treat each other well and support each other, fighting enemies side by side together. * * * This is an 18+ Reverse Harem story with adult themes and situations. * * * List of books (in order) in this series:Triplet Alphas Gifted Luna Vol 1 (complete) * * * Triplet Alphas Gifted Luna Vol 2 (complete) * * * Triplet Alphas Gifted Luna Vol 3 (complete) * * * Triplet Alphas Gifted Luna Vol 4 (complete) * * * Hope and Fate - The Alpha Stoll Alpha Ledger m/m romance spin-off (complete) * * * Alpha of New Dawn (coming soon) * * *

They smelled her arousal. There was no doubt the future Alphas knew she wanted them, and that was forbidden.

Thea, the Beta's daughter, trained every morning with identical triplets Alaric, Conri, and Kai, the future Alphas of their pack, New Dawn.

This morning, Thea was about to pin Kai when Conri and Alaric grabbed her arms from behind and held her tight.

"Come on, Kai," Alaric said. "We've evened out the fight for you."

"What the hell?" Thea said. She tried to free her arms from their grasp, her ponytail of chestnut hair whipping back and forth.

"You didn't sense us behind you?" Conri said.

"I thought you were watching, not plotting." She continued to struggle against their grip. "It's not fair. Boys get strength and muscles when they hit puberty. Girls get boobs. Useless!"

Kai's crystal blue eyes went to her chest and darkened. "I don't think boobs are useless," he said.

"You three keep getting bigger and stronger." Thea's turquoise eyes raked over Kai's tall, broad, thick-muscled body, his workout clothes leaving nothing to the imagination.

"And yet you still routinely pin us," Kai said.

Her eyes flitted back to his. "You guys pin me all the time now."

"We never used to be able to pin you at all," Alaric said, his strong hands holding her steady.

"I'd say the playing field is evening out," Conri said from her other side. One of his course hands slid down her arm an inch and renewed its grip.

"By restraining me while he attacks?" Thea said.

Conri shrugged, then smiled.

Thea shook her head at him. "This reminds me of when we were kids, and Kai punched my head from behind when I was leaving the ring, thinking he could sneak in a surprise attack and beat me after the fight. Your father was so angry, but before he could punish you, I jumped up from the ground, tackled you, and punched you until you cried. Your father laughed so hard. I can still hear him. 'That's what you get for being dishonorable, son.' What would he say if he saw you now?"

Kai walked toward her, head tilted down in what everyone else would call an intimidating posture. Nobody knew it was a turn-on for Thea. His crystal blue eyes—the same color and intensity as his brothers'—peered at her from under his messy pompadour of dark hair, muscles rippling in his broad shoulders.

"Dad’s not here now,” Kai said in his deep voice. “No one will save you when I have you on your back, begging for mercy.”

Kai always egged her on, goading her until she fought him. He loved it when she exerted dominance over him. It made him feel like he belonged to her. That she wanted him. She hadn’t figured that out yet. She just got caught up in the challenge.

As soon as he was close enough, Thea used Conri’s and Alaric’s hold on her as leverage to kick and swing her legs up and over Kai’s shoulders. She squeezed them around his neck and locked them into a figure four submission hold.

“Thanks for the assist, boys,” Thea said.

Conri and Alaric let go as if she burned them. Her top half fell, and her head hit Kai’s knees, but she didn’t loosen her submission hold on him. She punched Alaric and Conri in the crotch, and they doubled over.

Conri’s long hair covered his face, but Alaric’s crew cut showed his pained expression. Kai passed out and crumpled to the ground. Thea caught herself and landed on her feet, smiling to herself.

“That wasn’t fair!” Conri said, hunched over.

“Excuse me? You want to talk about fair?” Thea put her hands on her hips.

“You hit below the belt,” Alaric said.

“You guys changed the rules in the middle of the fight. Why can’t I? If this was real life, and a group was attacking me, you better believe I’ll do what I have to. Plus, you’re wearing cups. You’re fine.”

She turned to Kai and knelt next to him on the grass. They were on the training field—a big clearing in the middle of the woods of their pack lands.

“Kai, are you okay?” She noticed Kai’s chest wasn’t moving, and she gasped. “He’s not breathing!”

She put her hands above his heart to start CPR, and suddenly Kai’s hands shot up. He flipped her, straddled her hips, and pinned her hands above her head. He leaned down and put his mouth to her ear.

“Gotcha.” His warm, hard chest brushed against hers, and her body reacted. She hoped he didn’t notice her now stiff peaks pressing against him. “Hold her down. We need to punish her.”

Alaric and Conri each grabbed an arm and held it down. Three identical, chiseled faces looked down at her. Kai started tickling her sides, and she started laughing.

“Stop!” she cried. She struggled against them, kicking her legs and laughing. Kai lifted her shirt and blew a raspberry on her belly. Alaric and Conri started biting her arms, working up to her shoulders. Kai bit the side of her waist.

She was gasping for air between laughing fits, but the bites had her feeling something entirely different. Tingles all over that sent warmth pooling low in her belly.

After her next gasp, Alaric and Conri bit a place on either side of her neck that made her panties wet and her body melt into compliance. She had never been sensitive in those areas before, but she immediately stopped struggling as her laughter transformed into moaning.

The triplets stilled.

Thea froze in horror, except for her chest, still heaving up and down from trying to catch her breath.

The triplets lifted their heads to look at her, shock on their handsome faces. They looked at each other, breathed in the air laced with her scent, then looked back at Thea, eyes dark.

She knew they smelled her arousal. Mortified, she used their moment of distraction, threw them off, and ran from the training field into the woods.

Thea sprinted to school. She couldn’t risk running into the triplets back at the pack house. She went to the girls’ locker room to shower.

What was wrong with her? She had never gotten aroused while training before. She was always professional. She saved that for her alone time.

Yes, ever since the triplets hit puberty, they were getting more muscular, and they could actually pin her now, and yes, she secretly liked it. Keyword being secret. She wanted her future Alphas to get more powerful. She also wanted them on top of her. That was the real reason they were sometimes able to pin her. She let them. They weren’t supposed to know any of that. No one was.

She was supposed to be the next Beta. Their Beta. She couldn’t complicate that relationship by fawning over them. A Beta couldn’t be in love with her Alphas. She’d never get the position if she acted like a lovesick puppy around them or if she smelled of arousal whenever they were near. Once the triplets found their mates, the Lunas would want her replaced. That’s why most Betas were male. Well, aside from the fact that males were almost always stronger.

She had Alpha blood, though. Her father was the Beta of their pack—New Dawn, the biggest pack on the west coast—but he was the fourth son of an Alpha from the east coast. His pack didn’t need him, and he wanted to be useful, so he came out here to be Beta. Thea's mother was the daughter of an Alpha too.

Thea was strong. Tall, strong, and she trained harder than anybody.

The triplets’ father, Alpha Ulric, had included her in his sons’ training since day one. The unspoken expectation was that she would take over her father’s position just like the triplets would take over theirs.

Now that was all jeopardized. She had demonstrated why a female shouldn’t be Beta. She thought her attraction to them was under control, but something took over her body when they were all biting her. When they nipped her marking spot, that moan was as involuntary as it was embarrassing. One second she was fighting against them. The next, she was limp and wanting.

She was about to tilt her hips and grind herself against Kai when they all froze. They must have been horrified at the sound of her moan. Then they sniffed the air and smelled how turned on she was! How could she ever look at any of them again? She shouldn’t have stopped running at the school. She needed to leave town. The state. The country. Who was she kidding? The planet.

She got out of the shower and changed into some spare clothes she had there. Her life here was over. She couldn’t go to classes. She shared all but one with the triplets. She would have to leave and start a new life somewhere else. Maybe her uncle’s pack on the east coast would take her in. She would call her parents and apologize for shaming the family after she settled.

She left the locker room and ran straight into the triplets. Alaric had Thea’s backpack on his shoulder and a peach in his hand. She abruptly turned and ran in the opposite direction.

“Hey!” Kai called out.

“Thea, stop!” Conri said.

Alaric caught up to her first. He grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. “Thea, what are you doing?”

“I’m running away,” she said. Conri and Kai caught up. The three of them formed a circle around her.

“Why?” Conri said.

“Why do you think? I'm humiliated.”

“Why are you embarrassed? It's okay,” Kai said.

“No, it's not, and it'll never happen again,” Thea said.

Kai’s hands trailed up her sides. He stepped closer to her, pinning her against Conri and Alaric, who each grabbed one of her arms. Kai leaned down and brushed his lips across her collar bone then up to her ear. She suppressed whatever sound was building in her throat.

“Are you saying if we kissed your neck, it wouldn't turn you on?”

They brought their noses to her neck and breathed in. Thea clenched her legs together, trying to temper the heat that was building. Kai’s hand moved down, snuck under her shirt. His fingers grazed inside the waistband of her pants.

“If I reached in and touched you, you wouldn't be wet for us?”

It took everything in her not to beg him to do just that. Best she could figure, this was some kind of test for the Beta position, and she was failing miserably. That thought sobered her quickly, and anger built inside Thea—not at Kai, but herself. She wasn't Beta material. She steeled herself, ripped her arms from Conri and Alaric, and shoved Kai.

“You’ll never find out, Kaiser Valko,” she said, using his full name. She only did that when she was angry.

She ran, waiting until she rounded the corner to wipe the tears from her eyes.

“Way to go, idiot,” Thea heard Alaric say to Kai.

“I can smell her. Why is she fighting it?” Conri said.

She made it to her locker before Alaric caught up with her. He offered her backpack to her.

“I figured you’d need this since you didn’t come back to the pack house,” he said. “I put a change of clothes in there.”

“Thanks.” She took her bag from him. He offered the peach to her.

“Figured you didn’t get breakfast either.”

She wanted to hug him. Instead, she took the peach. “Thanks,” she said. She could always count on Alaric to take care of her, make her feel better, but even he couldn’t fix this.

“I’m sorry about Kai. Are you okay?”

“I can’t stay here after that,” she said.

“What do you mean? Where would you go?”

“My uncle’s pack? Anywhere else, really.”

“Thea, you’re not going anywhere. We’ll track you down and drag you back. You’re not leaving.”

“You don’t get it.”

“Don’t let his immaturity scare you off.”

“It’s not him. He was just testing me. I failed. I’m the problem.”

“What?” Alaric said. Kai and Conri turned the corner and slowly approached.

“How can I train with you anymore? I can’t.” She grabbed her stuff, closed her locker.

“Thea, you’re not making any sense.”

“Think about it. If I can’t train, my future in the pack is over.” She wiped the tears she couldn’t stop and walked away.

Kai and Conri joined Alaric at Thea’s locker, and they watched her walk away.

“I think we messed up,” Alaric said.

School was awkward. They had all but one class together, and Thea did her best to avoid or ignore the triplets all day. Everyone could tell something was wrong. Typically, they were inseparable. Kai usually had his arm draped over her shoulders. Alaric always offered her his arm when they walked because she often didn’t pay attention to where she was going. Conri held onto the hem of her shirt to keep her close. Today, she ignored them, left each class as the bell rang, didn’t walk with them anywhere, and made sure there was plenty of space between them.

Thea was usually good-natured and happy, but she spent the day subdued. Instead of eating lunch at their usual table, she went to the library to be alone and think.

Could she be blamed for being attracted to the triplets? Everyone wanted them. They were Alphas. They exuded power and sexiness: tall, dark hair, crystal blue eyes, beautiful chiseled faces, strong jaws, defined cheekbones, broad shoulders, muscles for days. They were gorgeous among werewolves, who were already preternaturally attractive beings.

Maybe she could recover from this. If she could figure out a way to tame her libido, things could go back to normal.

Maybe she was just full of hormones because her first shift was close. What if her wolf turned out to be a horny beast, and she had to satisfy her urges constantly?

Maybe there were herbs she could take that would suppress any hormones or horniness. She could at least look into masking her scent. There had to be herbs for that.

She started looking up books that could give her insight into how to fix this. Witches could do all sorts of things, but she didn’t want to mess with them. They were enemies of werewolves. Dangerous. She’d leave the pack before she used witches.

She loved this pack, though. The people. Her family. The triplets. All she ever wanted was to be Beta and help this pack stay the most powerful, most coveted on the west coast. She didn’t want to leave. She checked out several books and put them in her backpack to take home.

After school, she dutifully went to the training field to lead training alongside the triplets. She didn’t look them in the eye, which irritated Kai and Conri. She tried to look professional, only speaking to them when necessary. She brought up other wolves to demonstrate things where they usually used each other.

After training, Thea usually stuck around and talked with the pack members. This time, she left immediately. She went to the pack house, got some food, then went to her room to read the books she checked out. She didn’t go to pack dinner.

A while later, she’d written down a list of all the herbs she wanted. She went down to the pack apothecary store in the village area of the pack lands and handed the list to the apothecary. The older gentleman gathered the items, labeled them, bundled them up, separated them into groups.

“These are most effective in tea form. You can mix them with your favorite tea or brave the bitter taste alone. These are most effective when smoked. Do you have something to smoke with?”

“No,” Thea said.

The apothecary walked away and came back with a pipe and lighter. He demonstrated how to use it, how to clean it.

“I also devised a concoction that may interest you. It’s a spray. Our warriors and trackers use it regularly to mask their scents. Would you like to try it?”

“Yes, please.”

He added it to the bundle, handed it to her. “If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.”

“Thank you.” She paid for them. “Can you make sure you have these in stock? I’ll probably be buying them regularly.”

“Of course, Miss Lyall.”

“Thea. Please call me Thea, Mr. Garrity.”

“Of course, Thea.” He smiled at her.

She went back to her room and read up on how to prepare the herbs. How much to use, how long to steep the tea, how long the effects would last. She fell asleep with her head in a book, the rest of them strewn around her on her bed.

She woke up when the bed dipped. Two strong hands pulled her against a warm body. She instantly knew it was Alaric. She always knew which triplet was which, ever since they were kids. Everyone else had trouble telling them apart since they were identical. He had cleared the books off her bed, stacked them on her desk, and put a blanket over her.

“Hey,” Alaric said softly. “I missed you at dinner. I missed you all day. How are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Thea said.

“You’re researching something.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay. You don’t have to. Can I stay with you like old times?”

The triplets used to sneak into her room every night and sleep with her. They always slept better in her bed. They stopped a few years ago. Thea missed sleeping with them, but she would never sneak into any of their rooms. She had to accept it.

Thea nodded. Even with the lights off, they could see each other in the dark. She didn’t know if she’d ever get to sleep with him again. She didn’t expect this tonight, but being in his arms was comforting. She wrapped her arms around his waist. He adjusted, and they pulled in tight. He hooked her head under his chin. Her face against his chest, she breathed in his scent. It calmed her and made her sad at the same time. She knew he wasn’t hers. None of them were. Tears spilled over.

“Hey,” Alaric said. He rubbed her back up and down. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid of losing you guys.” She sniffled.

“Never going to happen. You’re stuck with us forever.”

She wished that were true. She settled for being in Alaric’s arms tonight.

He held her, trailing his fingers over her until she fell asleep.