My Alpha Boss Gave Me Triplets – Episode 03
Several days after Evie walked out of his room, Leopold found himself facing three smiling she-wolves he had never asked to meet. They waited in an exclusive lounge while Max watched with the hopeful expression of a man convinced he had solved his Alpha’s most persistent problem. All three were polished, powerful, and carefully chosen from families the pack would approve. Leopold stopped at the entrance and immediately regretted answering the invitation, especially when none of them stirred even a fraction of the response an angry human intern had drawn from him.
“Ladies,” Max said, presenting them with an enthusiastic sweep of his hand. “Alpha, look at the beautiful she-wolves I found.” Each woman came from a respected bloodline, and any other unmated wolf might have considered the gathering an extraordinary opportunity.
Leopold felt nothing. No recognition, no pull, not even enough curiosity to learn their names. “You called me away from work for this?” he asked. Before Max could defend himself, Leopold looked toward the women. “Get them out of my sight.”
The smiles vanished. Max apologized and hurried them away, then returned with his frustration barely contained. “You’re my Alpha, and I’m worried about you. You’re well past the age when most wolves find their mates.”
“You remember why.” Leopold poured himself a drink he did not want. “I’m cursed.” He spoke the word dismissively, but the Stonehearth curse had shadowed his family for generations. Power had never protected its Alphas from loneliness.
Max knew the history as well as he did. Stonehearth Alphas did not find their mates easily, and the delay left every generation wondering whether the family line would continue. When one finally found and consummated the bond with his destined mate, their connection would become a thousand times stronger than an ordinary mate bond. The blessing was also a burden, because such a connection offered no safe distance and no easy escape. The old words attached to the curse were stranger still: Whom thy love shall feel thy pain.
“Whatever that means,” Leopold muttered. He had spent years treating the prophecy as a family legend rather than a promise. Believing in it would mean admitting that somewhere there was one person capable of breaking through every defense he possessed.
Max was less skeptical. “Tell yourself whatever you want. When you find her, the bond will be so magnetic that neither of you will be able to stay away.”
An unwanted image of Evie surfaced in Leopold’s mind: tangled hair, defiant eyes, and the outrage in her voice when she called him a jerk. He remembered how her presence had quieted the drug’s torment when no one else could have approached him safely. He pushed the memory aside. She had asked for a job before the sheets were cold, and he had spent days using that request to explain why he still thought about her. Whatever had drawn him to her had nothing to do with destiny.
“Speak of the human,” he said bitterly, finishing his drink. He had no intention of discussing her further, and even less intention of admitting that he had thought about her at all.
Across the company, Evie arrived in the design department carrying a cup of coffee that had cost her most of the morning. Francesca, her supervisor, accepted it with an expression of theatrical disgust. “It took you three hours, and it’s already cold.”
Evie had tolerated months of assignments designed to make her fail, but the unfairness finally broke through her caution. “You sent me to a boutique café four hours away. If anything, I’m overachieving.”
The room went quiet. Francesca was a she-wolf with rank, influence, and an open contempt for the only human in her department. Everyone present knew she regularly assigned Evie work no one could complete on time, then used the inevitable delay as proof that humans were unreliable. No one had ever challenged the arrangement aloud. Francesca stepped close enough for Evie to see the fury in her eyes. “How dare you talk back to me?”
The blow came before Evie could brace herself. Pain burst across her face, sharp enough to send her stumbling against the edge of a desk. Around them, no one moved to help. Challenging Francesca would require treating Evie as though she belonged there.
Miles away, Leopold jerked as if an invisible hand had struck him. His fingers flew to his cheek, but there was no attacker and no mark. The pain was real nevertheless—sudden, bright, and completely inexplicable.
Max’s teasing expression vanished. “What the hell was that? What’s wrong?”
Leopold stared toward the door while the old prophecy returned with terrible clarity. Whom thy love shall feel thy pain. No opponent stood close enough to strike him, and the sudden sensation carried the unmistakable impression of someone else’s shock. He had been with Evie, and now agony that was not his own had reached him across the city. There was only one explanation, and it was the one he least wanted to accept, because accepting it would make the human he had insulted central to his fate.
“I don’t know,” he said, though the denial sounded weak even to him. “She’s human. There’s no way she’s my mate.” But another pulse of pain settled the argument his pride was trying to make. Leopold put down his glass and strode toward the exit. “I need to get to the design department.”