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EVIANA

The farmhouse is quiet tonight, the hum of the scent neutralisers blending with the creak of the old wooden beams. The air smells faintly of lavender and chamomile – the scents Grams insists keep us calm. I hate the smell though. It reminds me of old ladies and repression. I don’t know if it’s true about those particular aromas keeping omegas calm, but I’ve never dared question her.

Grams is everything in this world: mother, father, protector, and jailer all at once. She always says the world out there is full of dangers we can’t imagine, that we’re safest here, hidden away where no one can hurt us. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember.

“Evie, get the door,” Grams calls from the kitchen, her voice firm, brooking no argument.

I jump, my heart skipping a beat. I didn’t hear a knock. My sisters are scattered around the living room – Evangaline’s curled up with a book, Evelyn is sketching quietly by the fire, and Everly is lying on her stomach, feet kicking the air, scribbling in her journal – something Grams definitely wouldn’t approve of, but Everly’s the boldest of the four of us.

None of them move to help. I guess none of us heard the door.

With a sigh, I put down the knitting needles Grams handed me earlier, the half-formed scarf pooling on my lap, and walk to the door. I hate knitting. I’d much rather have been working on my song lyrics, but whilst Grams love hymns and church songs, she’s less keen on modern music.

When I open it, the wind rushes in, cold and biting. I shiver, pulling my thin cardigan tighter around my shoulders. There’s no-one there. As expected.

Grams appears behind me, a force of nature despite her small stature. “I told you to shut that properly,” she snaps, brushing past me to lock the door herself.

I don’t respond. There’s no point. She’s not quite as sharp as she used to be, but when Everly once suggested Gramsmayhave been mistaken and forgotten something, she got whacked so hard with the hairbrush, she cried for an hour.

And Everlynevercries.

As Grams works the bolt, I glance out at the darkness, the world beyond the farmhouse shrouded in mystery. She always says alphas roam out there like wolves, predators, sniffing the wind for any hint of an unclaimed omega. It’s a terrifying image, one she’s spent years drilling into us, right from her twisted bedtime fairy tales. The likes of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ takeon a whole new meaning when thewolfis really just an alpha hunting an innocent omega to have his wicked way with her.

And Grams said alphas were theleastof our worries.

“Grams?” I ask hesitantly, my voice barely audible over the double-time beating of my heart. I’m wondering if in her more lucid state she’d be open to having a discussion about easing the tight boundaries she’s imposed on me and my sisters. “Do you think…do you think the world’s really as bad as you say?”

She turns sharply, her eyes narrowing and I know that I’ve misjudged the moment. “Don’t be foolish, Eviana. The worldisthat bad.Worse, in fact. I’ve not burdened your young minds with the worst of it. You’re lucky you don’t know the true horrors that await you girls out there. Why else would I keep you girls safe here if I was exaggerating?”

Why indeed?

“But—”

“No buts,” she cuts me off, her tone leaving no room for argument. “You’ve got everything you need right here. You’ve got your sisters. This house. Me.” She glances at the other girls, her expression softening slightly. “You’re all I’ve got. And I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you.”

Her words are meant to comfort, but they feel more like chains wrapping around my chest, squeezing so tight that I can no longer take a full and proper breath. Will it always be this way?

Grams goes back to the kitchen, her footsteps heavy on the creaking floorboards.

I sink back into the lounge, dropping into my seat by the window, staring out at the fields beyond the farmhouse. The moonlight glints off the frost-covered grass, and I wonder – just for a moment – what it would feel like to run across it, barefoot. To feel the cold bite of the wind without the weight of Grams’s warnings pressing down on me.

My sisters are quiet. They’ve mostly learned not to question Grams, not to let their thoughts wander too far from the safety of these walls, though Everly likes to push the limits sometimes.

I try to be like them, I really do. But I can’t help it.

“Eviana,” Evangaline whispers, her voice soft and gentle. “Stop thinking so loudly. She’ll hear.”

I glance at her, guilt twisting in my chest. “Sorry.”

If Grams knew what I was really thinking, we’d all be punished for it. Me, most severely of all, but all of us nonetheless. She likes to make an example out of us. If one misbehaves, we all get taught the same lesson. Usually by her strap, a belt, and one time, even a broom. She learnt pretty quickly that Everly didn’t have enough self preservation to keep her in line, but that I was her particular weakness. Hurting me keeps Everly in line. Most of the time. But we’re all the same. Willing to walk through fire for our sisters.

Evangeline smiles faintly and goes back to her book, but the weight of the night doesn’t lift.

Grams’s words echo in my mind: The world is dangerous.Alphasare dangerous.

And yet, as I stare out into the darkness through the gap in the curtain, new lyrics forming in my mind, I can’t stop wondering what it would feel like to be free.

DANE