Their Powerful Hybrid Mate

Chapter 8

Owen

Those eyes.

I couldn't stop looking at those eyes. Those silver eyes. I checked her file three times, and even pulled her school photos. Her eyes were blue, not silver. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me...maybe it was. I shook my head, taking the steps back up to my room three at a time. I all but broke through our bedroom door, slamming it behind me.

"Everything okay bro?" Zack asked, noticing my sour mood right away.

"What was the emergency call?" Noah asked, looking equally concerned.

"It's Lorraine." I sighed, scrubbing my hands over my face.

My brothers were both standing in front of me, looking for answers, when I looked up again.

"She is okay." I said, though I didn't quite believe it. "She was having a night terror and her parents didn't know what to do."

They frowned. So I continued. "What color are her eyes?"

"Blue."

"Blue."

Maybe I was just imagining things...

"She agreed to see someone, a counselor, though I'm not confident she will open up very much." I continued, not wanting to sound like a fool by bringing up what could have been a trick on my own eyes.

"It's a start at least," Noah said, running a hand through his hair.

"We could help her..." Zack murmured. ".... Telling her might not be so bad-"

"No, not yet." Noah said, shaking his head. "She is just warming up to me, to us. I don't want to ruin it by telling her just yet."

"Not to mention she hasn't even shifted yet, and we are several years past that. I doubt her parents would humor the idea of three grown alpha men pursuing their underage daughter, mate or not." I sighed. "Her mother is quite fierce. And her father seems very protective as well."

"So what do we do then? How can we help her?" Zack huffed.

"Keep doing what we are doing." Noah shrugged. "We can perhaps make a point to seek her out more, especially if she is finally giving us a chance at being friends."

"Friend zone. Yeah, that's a great f*****g place to be." Zack rolled his eyes. I couldn't help but agree.

"Once the bond kicks in for her, things will be different," I said sharply. I just hoped it would be for the better.

"Fine. Whatever." Zack huffed. "I'm going for a run." He said, storming out of our room.

I sighed and went from our main living area to my room, and flopped down on my bed. I still wasn't used to this new living situation. My brothers insisted several months ago that since Lorraine would learn that she was out mate in only a year, that we should push to have renovations done to accommodate our future luna.

Those renovations took our one bedroom (complete with bunk beds), and attached bathroom, and turned it into nearly half the alpha floor. We each have our own room now, with a king-sized bed in each. There was even a separate room for Lorraine. We weren't sure how she would want to handle sleeping arrangements, but we made sure all options were on the table. In addition to the massive bedrooms, there was also a luxury bathroom, one that could easily fit all four of us, a small kitchen and dining area (though most of our meals would be downstairs with the rest of the pack members who lived in the pack house), and the main living area, which is what connected everything. We would eventually take over our father's office, and once he moved out, or at least to another floor, probably take his one office and turn it into four.

Closing my eyes, I replayed tonight's events in my head over and over and over again. I couldn't get her terrified look out of my head. Everything in me wanted to scoop her up and take her home with me. I felt like a shitty mate for not doing just that, or anything really. It was in that moment that I felt a pang of jealousy for my brother Noah, who volunteered to help at Lorraine's high school, and even Zack, who made sure he was able to see her during some of her community service. How was I going to establish any sort of relationship with her when the only time I currently see her is if something is going wrong, and I happen to be studying under Dr. Melvin? It was an internship, with set hours, which would be over before I knew it. I have been lucky twice now. How was I going to win over my mate? What if she finds that she doesn't want me, only one of my other siblings? Would she even want all three of us?

It was moments like this that I wished our mother was still around, she always knew how to talk me down. She always had some bit of advice or would offer support to help me through whatever it was that I was going through. But she died a few years ago, and there was no more of that. No more late night talks or warm hugs. Our father, who was a good alpha, often struggled to be a good dad. Especially once our mom, his mate, died. He was always more focused on preparing us to take over, not so much on what we might need from him as a dad.

"Hey, dad agreed to let the high school have their prom here." Noah said, bursting into my room. He never bothered to knock. There was hardly any point after we spent so many years together all crammed in the same room. "We should go, ya know, in case Lorraine is there."

"She doesn't strike me for the prom type." I sighed heavily.

"No, but her friend is." He countered. "And I personally plan on being there. At the very least, I want to make sure she is safe. You know how proms can get, especially since some of the students are already shifted."

Ah yes, with all the newly shifted hormones. Making the males a bit more feral, and the females a bit more giving.

"When is it?"

"A few weeks, I'll count you in?"

"Yeah." I nodded.

I thought Noah was going to leave, but instead he flopped down next to me, staring at the ceiling.

"What is it?"

"I was going to bring it up, but then Zack bolted." He sighed. "Dad was at the high school today, he was personally overseeing Lorraine's placement testing."

"How did you-?"

"Pure coincidence, I caught him in the halls with her." He said. "But it didn't sit well with me. He hasn't been that involved with a student since..."

"James Webber." I filled in the blank.

James was a rogue wolf who our mother insisted should be able to join our pack. He said he was only eighteen, and lost his parents while they were fleeing their supposed evil alpha. My father was leery of him, but allowed him into our pack because of our mother's persistence. He overlooked his studies, his movements, everything. He said he didn't trust him. Sure enough, a month later, he was gone and our mom and a dozen others were found dead.

We never did get any clear answers as to what happened, but our father places all the blame on James Webber. For him to be looking so closely into Lorraine's studies...what did he think of her? Was he worried that she was another James? Perhaps we would work up the nerve to ask him one day. But until then, my brother and I sat in silence wondering what was so concerning about our mate that our father would get involved.

- - - - - - - - -

Lorraine

"Hi Lorraine, please make yourself comfortable." The counselor, my new counselor, Jenny, said, a bit too bright of a smile on her face.

I wordlessly sat on the worn couch across from her stiff-looking chair. Her office wasn't much; a small room with a desk in the corner, one large window that held plants on its sill trying to work their way around the curtains to the sunlight, a slightly cluttered coffee table, a couch, a chair, and a massive bookshelf filled with plenty of self-help books.

"I'm so excited to work with you." Jenny said in a chippy voice, taking her seat across from me.

I had no words for her. She cleared her throat awkwardly, picking up her pen and paper, before she began.

"So, Dr. Melvin said you had a night terror last night? Your mother suggested it was because of an event that happened several months back?"

There was so much wrong with that. It wasn't a night terror, it was an evil spirit. That 'Event' was a war in which I summoned an undead army. And she isn't my mom, she is my grandma. But I didn't show any emotion, I didn't even blink as I answered her flatly.

"I already told him and everyone else that I don't want to talk about it. I'm sorry that this will be a waste of your time."

"What about something else then? Tell me how school is going." She said, recovering quickly.

I swear a blood vessel in my head nearly burst.

"Pass."

"Friends?"

Goddess, she was trying so hard. I decided to throw her a bone if only to get her off my back.

"One friend."

"Great! Why don't you tell me about her?"

I gave her the basics, nothing too intrusive, anything to get her to stop grilling me for questions. She seemed interested in what I was saying, but then again, that was her job.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" She blurted out.

"No." I said a bit sharper than intended.

But it was the truth. I didn't have a boyfriend. But perhaps I had the start of boy-friends. Friends who were boys. I had a few recent run-ins with the triplets, and for once I didn't mind their presence. And I don't know if it was the start of something good, or just an irregular occurrence, one where they were just being nice because they finally grew up, preparing themselves to take over as alphas over the pack in a few years, and nothing more.

But that didn't explain why I found an alpha wolf, Zack's wolf, lying on the grass outside my house, staring up at my window the rest of the night after I had my night terror. I even let him see me cry, which is something very few have ever witnessed. My own grandparents never saw my break.

Jenny saved my thoughts from going any further by asking another dull question. My session dragged on, but I made it out in one piece. Jenny said she wanted to see me back next week and I didn't object, not in front of my grandmother anyway. Some part of me deep down hoped her session would have helped, but at the stroke of midnight when I was woken up by the first spirit of the night, my heart sank.

I was up the rest of the night.