The Triplet Alphas' Secret Mate-Chapter 40: Fighting Over Me

Scarlett’s POV

I froze.

The ringing in my ears grew so loud it drowned out everything—even the wind rustling through the trees.

His woman?

I slowly lifted my head to look at Ethan, searching his face for any sign that this was a joke.

But there was nothing.

His profile was calm. Cold. Unreadable.

​"What?" Alpha Lennox choked out, the word sounding like it had been physically punched out of him. His face shifted from rage to confusion. "Ethan, you cannot be serious."

​"I said what I said," Ethan replied, his voice authoritative. He didn’t look at the triplets, though I could feel their collective rage radiating off them like a furnace. "I bought Scarlett’s contract when she was being auctioned. Technically, she belongs to me. And since I am staying here for the next few days..."

​He paused, his grip tightening around my waist as he pulled me flush against his side. The heat of his body was overwhelming, making my head spin.

​"My woman stays here. With me."

​I gasped, my hands instinctively bunching the fabric of his charcoal shirt. I looked toward the triplets. Liam looked like he was about to have a heart attack; his eyes were blown wide, fixed on where Ethan’s hand rested on my hip. Leo’s claws were fully retracted, but his hands were shaking so hard I thought he might shift right there on the gravel. And Leon... Leon looked like I had just stabbed him.

​"You can’t do this," Leo snarled, his voice full of rage. "She’s not... you don’t even know her!"

​Ethan finally turned his gaze toward them, a devilish smirk playing on his lips. "I know her well enough to know what she’s worth. More than any of you apparently did, considering you let her get hauled off to a slave auction."

​"We didn’t know!" Leon shouted, stepping forward, but Ethan’s Obsidian guards instantly shifted, their hands moving to their holstered weapons. In doing so, the pack house guards did the same.

​"Ignorance is a poor excuse for an Alpha," Ethan countered coldly. He turned his back on them, dismissing the most powerful men in the territory as if they were nothing more than annoying boys. He began to lead me up the stairs, past the stunned, silent fathers.

​"STOP RIGHT THERE!" Alpha Lennox called out, his voice full of anger. "Ethan, I am the Alpha of this pack—"

​"And this is my home," Ethan threw back over his shoulder. "As for Scarlett, consider her debt to this pack paid in full by the five hundred thousand I spent to get her back. From this moment on, Scarlett answers only to me."

​As we crossed the threshold of the mansion—the same mansion I had been kicked out of just days ago—I felt the heavy, suffocating weight of three pairs of eyes burning into my back. I wanted to turn around. I wanted to scream that I wasn’t anyone’s "woman." But as the massive oak doors groaned shut, sealing the triplets and the fathers outside, I realized I was cornered.

​Ethan didn’t stop until we were in the center of the grand foyer. He let go of my waist, but the heat where he had touched me remained.

​"Why?" I whispered, my voice finally returning. "Why would you say that to them?"

​Before Alpha Ethan could respond, the massive oak doors suddenly burst open with terrifying force.

​Leon was the fastest. Before I could even blink, he was in front of Ethan, his face contorted with a wild, desperate fury. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

​"You bought her for five hundred thousand dollars? Fine!" Leon roared. He didn’t wait for an answer. He reached out, his grip tight as he snatched my arm and yanked me away from Ethan’s side. I stumbled, gasping as I was pulled flush against Leon’s chest. "We’re paying you double. Triple! Name your price, Ethan, but she stays with us."

​Leon’s arm wrapped around my waist, pinning me to him so tightly I could feel the thundering rhythm of his heart. "Scarlett is not yours," he spat, glaring at his cousin. "She never was."

​I looked up at Leon, shocked by the possessiveness in his voice. This was the same man who had turned his back on me for two years, yet now he was holding me as if he’d burn the world down before letting go.

​Ethan didn’t growl. He didn’t shift. He didn’t even look angry. He remained terrifyingly calm, slowly straightening the cuffs of his charcoal shirt.

​He didn’t look at Leon. Instead, he turned his head toward the two older Alphas standing by the door.

​"Uncles," Ethan said, his voice calm and composed. "Please tell your sons to return Scarlett to me. I don’t want to have to shed blood in my grandfather’s house on my very first day."

​"Leon, let her go!" Alpha Lennox commanded, though he seemed annoyed. He looked between Ethan and his own sons. "Ethan has the legal right over her!"

​"I don’t care!" Leo shouted, stepping up to stand beside Leon, his teeth bared. "He’s not taking her!"

​I felt trapped between two mountains. On one side, the brothers who had broken my heart were suddenly acting like my saviors; on the other, a man who had bought me like an investment was claiming me as his woman.

​Ethan turned to Leon and stretched forth his hand. "Let her go... or I’ll be forced to take her from you, and it won’t end well."

​Liam stepped forward, his claws out. "I dare you," he challenged.

​I could barely breathe. Leon’s grip on me was so strong it told me he wasn’t letting go for anything.

​"I said, name your price!" Leon roared again.

​"There is no price," Ethan said calmly.

​"What is your fucking problem, Ethan!" Liam barked, stepping into Ethan’s space, his chest nearly brushing against Ethan’s. "We called you! We pleaded with you to go to that rogue camp because our fathers had us locked in. We told you to buy her, and we promised we would pay you back every single cent! What the hell is all this ’my woman’ bullshit?"

​My blood turned to ice. My heart, which had been racing in fear, suddenly felt like it had stopped beating altogether.

​I looked at Liam’s angry face, then at Leon, whose arms were still wrapped around me like a chain. They had sent him? The men who had treated me like a ghost for two years, who had acted so coldly toward me... they were the ones who had sent Ethan to rescue me.

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