Chapter 5 A Battle For Her

• Brianna's POV
• Silence.
• Heavy. Suffocating. Deafening silence.
• The kind that makes your skin crawl and your pulse thunder in your ears.
• I stood there, frozen, eyes locked on the Elders as their words echoed like a curse across the hall. My name. Marriage. Proposal. Bloodfang.
• It didn’t make sense—none of it did. And yet, the way Rowan’s jaw clenched, the way Ryker’s smug facade dropped, and the way Reid finally lifted his eyes from the shadows told me they weren’t surprised.
• They knew something.
• I just didn’t know what.
• "What the hell do you mean a marriage alliance?" Rowan's voice broke the silence, sharp as a blade drawn too fast. His body moved in front of mine, protective… territorial. "Who approved this?"
• Elder Callan, always the smug one, stepped forward, his gnarled hand clasping his staff like it gave him authority. "Alpha Martinez of the Bloodfang Pack has requested a union. He seeks peace through a bond."
• "Peace?" Ryker scoffed bitterly, stepping beside his brother. "The bastard killed his last mate. Ripped her throat out in front of her pack."
• Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
• Martinez.
• The name alone made my stomach knot. I'd heard the whispers too—how he carved loyalty with teeth and ruled with blood. If he wanted peace, it would be laced in venom and end in ashes.
• "Do you expect us to hand over our Luna to a madman?" Reid's voice was low, deadly calm. His eyes didn’t blink. "Or is that your idea of protection now?"
• "She’s not our Luna," Elder Darius interjected coldly. "And she won’t be. A female cannot be mated to three Alphas. The gods would never allow such a bond to remain stable."
• I blinked. Once. Twice.
• That again.
• The same excuse. The same damn reason they kept throwing at me like it was my fault. Like I asked to be tied to three of them. Like I wanted this chaos inside me.
• "So your solution," I said, stepping forward past Rowan’s arm, "is to throw me into the hands of a murderer?"
• Eyes turned to me. Dozens of them. Faces I knew. Faces I didn’t. All watching.
• Judging.
• Pitiful.
• "I didn’t ask for this," I hissed, my voice rising with each word. "I didn’t beg the Moon Goddess to bind me to three Alphas. I didn’t want your stares, your whispers, your damn traditions choking me in my sleep."
• "Brianna—" Rowan began, reaching for me.
• "No!" I jerked away. "You’re all worried about how this bond affects them—how it could weaken them, how unstable they’ll become. Has anyone stopped to ask what it’s doing to me? What it’s costing me?"
• Silence again. But this one was different.
• Heavier.
• Ashamed.
• The elders said nothing. The pack looked away.
• For once, they didn’t see me as a threat. Or a burden. They saw a girl drowning in something she never asked for, tied to powers she didn’t understand, being offered to a wolf who saw women as trophies and mates as prey.
• "She’s right," someone whispered in the crowd.
• "She’s just a girl," another muttered.
• "Not a pawn."
• Rowan turned toward the Elders, his voice quiet but resolute. "We won’t let this happen."
• Ryker nodded, for once not teasing, not smirking. His expression was all teeth and rage. "Over my dead body."
• Reid stepped forward too, dark eyes fixed on the council. "If this is your plan, then consider it war."
• Elder Callan’s mouth twitched. "You don’t understand the stakes."
• "Then make us understand," Rowan snapped.
• The oldest among them, Elder Caelum, stepped forward. He hadn’t spoken in months—not since the funeral of the last Luna. When his voice came, it was like the wind whispering through tombstones.
• "You three share a bond that’s unnatural. Dangerous. It isn’t meant to exist. You know that."
• "Yet here it is," Reid said darkly, "existing."
• "And unraveling everything we’ve built," the elder snapped. "Do you not feel it? The pull? The instability in your power?"
• Rowan’s eyes narrowed. "We feel the bond. We feel the power. It’s not unstable."
• "But it will be," Caelum said. "As she grows closer to one, the others will suffer. Your dominance will falter. Your instincts will clash. The pack will fracture."
• I took a sharp breath. "That’s a prophecy, not a fact."
• "It’s history," Callan said. "There’s a reason this has never been allowed. A woman cannot belong to more than one Alpha. She will break you. Or you will break her."
• I felt Reid’s stare burn into me at those words.
• Break her.
• "We’re not giving her up," Rowan said.
• "And what of the Bloodfang?" Elder Darius countered. "You’d risk a blood feud over a girl who shouldn’t be yours to begin with?"
• That’s when Ryker lost it.
• He stormed forward, slamming his hand down on the council’s stone table, cracking the edge. "She’s not just a girl. She’s ours. And we’re done playing by rules that were made to benefit cowards."
• Gasps followed.
• But Ryker didn’t flinch.
• Neither did I.
• "She didn’t choose us," Reid said, stepping beside him. "But now that she’s here, we’ll burn the world down before we let anyone else take her."
• That should have made me feel safe.
• But it didn’t.
• Because for all their rage, all their protectiveness, I was still the one at the center of it all. And none of them—not Rowan, not Ryker, not Reid—had asked me what I wanted.
• I looked at the elders, then back at the triplets. "So what now?"
• There was silence again.
• And then… Elder Caelum smiled.
• A slow, ominous smile that chilled me straight through.
• "You may not have a choice."
• "What the hell does that mean?" Ryker demanded.
• Callan answered instead. "Alpha Martinez will arrive by dawn. He wishes to meet his bride in person."
• Rowan stepped forward. "Then we’ll be ready."
• But Callan wasn’t done. "If he issues a formal challenge, you’ll have no choice but to accept it. A trial by combat. Pack law. If you refuse… we’ll be forced to declare neutrality. We won’t protect you."
• "Cowards," Ryker spat.
• "Realists," Caelum corrected.
• Reid’s jaw tightened. "He won’t win."
• "No," the elder said, eyes locking onto mine. "But if he does… Brianna goes with him. Willingly. Forever."
• My heart stopped.
• Rowan turned to me, voice raw. "We won’t let it happen. You have my word."
• But their word didn’t matter anymore.
• Not when the gods, the laws, and the fates were all stacked against me.
• Because no matter who won that fight tomorrow…
• I’d still be the prize.