POV: Maya
Pain ripped through my left wrist like liquid fire, jerking me awake from deep sleep. I gasped and clutched my arm, tears springing to my eyes as the burning sensation spread up toward my elbow.
"What's happening to me?" I whispered into the darkness of my tiny servant's room.
The pain pulsed in time with my heartbeat—throb, burn, throb, burn. I fumbled for the lamp beside my bed, my hand shaking as I clicked it on. Soft yellow light filled the tight space, and I pushed up my sleeve to check my wrist.
My breath caught in my throat.
A silver mark was forming on my skin, glowing dimly in the lamplight. I watched in wonder and fear as delicate lines appeared, swirling into the shape of a crescent moon surrounded by three small stars.
A mate mark.
"This can't be real," I breathed, feeling the mark gently. It felt warm under my fingers and pulsed with its own light.
Every werewolf got their mate mark on their eighteenth birthday, showing who they were meant to love forever. But I stared at mine in total shock. The three stars could only mean one thing—my mate was one of the Alpha's triplet kids.
My heart hammered against my ribs. This had to be some kind of mistake. I was just an omega, the lowest rank in the pack. Girls like me didn't get fairy tale ends with handsome princes.
The mark flared brighter, making me wince. It definitely wasn't my fantasy.
I quickly wrapped a kitchen towel around my wrist, covering the impossible mark. I needed time to think before anyone saw it. If Sophia found out an omega was meant for one of her future mates, she'd probably try to kill me.
The thought made me shiver.
My small alarm clock showed 5:30 AM. Time to start breakfast prep for the pack. On any other day, I would have groaned about getting up so early. But today—my eighteenth birthday—I was glad for something to distract me from the chaos in my head.
I crept through the quiet halls toward the kitchen, my wrapped wrist throbbing with each step. Mrs. Peterson was already there, stirring a huge pot of oatmeal.
"You're late," she snapped without looking up. "The eggs won't cook themselves."
"Sorry," I mumbled, running to the stove.
I tried to focus on cracking eggs and flipping pancakes, but my mark burned under its covering. Every few minutes, it would pulse with warmth, making me jump and nearly drop whatever I was holding.
"What's wrong with you today?" Mrs. Peterson ordered after I almost spilled a bowl of batter. "You're jumpier than a rabbit."
"Just tired," I lied.
The truth was, I felt like my whole world had turned upside down. Yesterday I was invisible Maya, the beta nobody noticed. Today I had a mate mark linking me to the most important family in the pack.
When breakfast service started, I brought trays of food to the dining hall with shaking hands. The triplets sat at the high table with their father, just like every morning. But now I couldn't look at them without my mark sparking.
Ethan smiled and said "thank you" when I refilled his orange juice. My mark gave a little flutter of warmth.
Logan nodded his thanks when I brought fresh pancakes to his plate. Again, that strange warm beat.
But when Kai looked up from his papers and met my eyes, my mark practically glowed under its cover. Heat flooded my cheeks as his golden gaze held mine for a long moment.
"Are you feeling alright, Maya?" he asked with genuine worry. "You look flushed."
"I'm fine," I squeaked, quickly moving away before he could spot my wrapped wrist.
Behind me, I heard Sophia's tinkling laugh. "Poor little omega probably has a crush," she said loud enough for everyone to hear. "How adorable."
Embarrassment burned hotter than my mate mark. I hurried back to the kitchen, fighting tears of frustration.
The morning dragged on forever. Every time I got near any of the triplets, my mark would react, sending confusing messages through my body. How was I supposed to figure out which brother was my true mate when the mark seemed to respond to all of them?
During my lunch break, I fled to the small garden behind the kitchen. I needed fresh air and room to think. But as I sat on an old wooden crate, unwrapping my wrist to look at the mark again, footsteps crunched on the dirt path.
"Happy birthday, child."
I spun around to find Elder Rose approaching with a handmade basket in her hands. The old omega's eyes twinkled with mysterious information.
"You remembered?" I asked, shocked. No one else had addressed my birthday. "Of course I remembered." Elder Rose sat beside me on another box. "Eighteen is a very important age for our kind."
She glanced thoughtfully at my wrapped wrist. My heart skipped a beat.
"I don't know what you mean," I said softly.
Elder Rose laughed. "Show me."
With shaking fingers, I unwrapped the towel. The Triple Star Mark gleamed silver in the afternoon sunlight, beautiful and impossible.
Elder Rose gasped, her aged hand flying to her mouth. "The Triple Star Mark. I haven't seen one in fifty years."
"What does it mean?" I whispered desperately.
"It means your mate is one of the three Alpha sons, but the mark won't show which one until you've spent time with each of them. The moon wants you to know all three brothers before picking."
"But that's impossible. I'm just an omega. Sophia is meant to mate with one of them."
Elder Rose's eyes got serious. "The mate marks don't lie, Maya. Sophia has no mark because none of those boys are meant for her. You are the one picked by the moon."
My world turned sideways. "There must be a mistake."
"The moon doesn't make mistakes." Elder Rose opened her basket and pulled out bunches of dried herbs. "These are birthday gifts—healing herbs from my home garden. But more importantly, they're going to help you understand your fate."
"What destiny?"
Before Elder Rose could answer, screams emerged from the direction of the pack house. We both jumped up, my herbs scattering across the ground.
"Help!" someone yelled. "Someone help us!"
Elder Rose and I ran toward the noise. In the main courtyard, a crowd had formed around something on the ground. My heart stopped when I saw what they were looking at.
Blood. Lots of blood.
"What happened?" I gasped, pushing through the crowd.
"Rogue attack," Beta Marcus said sadly. "They left a message."
In the center of the courtyard, written in dark red blood, were words that made my soul freeze: "THE OMEGA DIES AT THE FULL MOON."
Everyone started talking at once, sounds filled with fear and confusion. But through the chaos, I felt three pairs of eyes lock onto me. Ethan, Logan, and Kai were all staring at me with expressions of shock and increasing protectiveness.
My mate mark blazed with sudden heat, as if responding to their attention. The burning was so strong I couldn't help but cry out and clutch my wrist.
"Maya!" Kai's words cut through the crowd as he pushed toward me.
But before he could reach me, the world started spinning. The blood, the message, the watching faces—it all became too much. My knees buckled as darkness crept around the edges of my vision.
The last thing I heard before everything went black was Elder Rose's urgent voice: "The prophecy is starting. The Triple Star has woken, and now everyone will know."
As awareness slipped away, one terrifying thought echoed in my mind: Someone wanted me dead, and they planned to kill me in just three days when the full moon rose.