Page 53 of Captivated By Alphas 1, Fated (The Blood Moon Chronicle #4)

I examined my reflection and had to admit she’d done a good job. I looked more awake, less haunted, and the clothes fit me perfectly, highlighting my slim frame without making me look like I was being strangled by fabric.

“Thanks,” I said sincerely. “It’s actually… nice. I look less like I should be haunting an abandoned orphanage while carrying a candlestick and moaning about lost love.”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” she repeated, putting away her supplies. “Now go help your mom before she sends out a search party. And maybe try not to get devoured by my brother and cousins before lunch? I have plans for you this afternoon.”

“That’s… an unsettling way to phrase it,” I said, heading for the door. “And what do you mean ‘devoured’?”

“Oh, honey.” Sheena laughed, the sound following me like a premonition. “If you don’t know by now, you’re the only one who doesn’t. Just try to stay in one piece until I get back from my spa appointment.”

I hurried down to the kitchen, bracing myself for the inevitable teasing from Duncan.

As I pushed through the swinging door, I was greeted by the familiar organized chaos of breakfast preparation.

My mother was at the counter arranging fruit on a platter, while Duncan barked orders at his assistant with the authority of a Scottish general commanding troops.

They both looked up as I entered and did identical double takes that would have been comical if I wasn’t the subject of their surprise.

“Well, well,” Duncan said, his accent rolling the L’s like they owed him money. “Look who’s finally graced us with his presence. And all dolled up too. Special occasion, is it? Planning to break some hearts before lunch?”

“Sheena,” I explained simply, and both nodded in understanding. It was a one-word explanation that required no further elaboration in this household. Like “hurricane” or “earthquake”—a force of nature that leaves destruction and makeovers in its wake.

“You look nice, honey,” my mom said, but I noticed the worry lines around her eyes were deeper than usual. Something was bothering her, and it wasn’t just my fashion upgrade.

“Thanks,” I replied. “Sorry I’m late. It was a… weird night.”

The memory of waking up with Titan beside me, feeling oddly safe despite the storm raging outside, flashed through my mind.

I’d slept better than I had in years, despite the strange dreams that hovered just at the edge of my consciousness—dreams of moonlight and forests and eyes watching me from the darkness.

I moved to the pastry station, grabbing a piece of warm croissant as I worked. “What’s for breakfast besides the obvious carb overload? I’m assuming we’re not going for ‘sensible portion sizes’ today.”

“Watch your cheek,” Duncan warned, but there was no heat in it. “We’ve got the full Scottish this morning. The young masters are home, after all.”

“By ‘young masters,’ I assume you mean the three horsemen of the hotpocalypse who’ve been watching me like I’m the last cupcake at a birthday party?” I asked, arranging pastries on a silver tray with more care than they probably deserved.

Duncan snorted despite himself, the sound somewhere between amusement and warning. “Aye, those would be the ones. Though I’d watch yourself around them if I were you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, genuinely curious. There was something in his tone that went beyond the usual staff gossip.

“Just that the Carmichael men have always had… particular tastes,” Duncan said cryptically, turning back to his stove. “And they tend to get what they want.”

Before I could press him further, the kitchen door swung open again, and David entered, already dressed for the day in casual business attire. He somehow managed to make jeans and a button-down look like they belonged on a magazine cover. It was deeply unfair.

“Morning.” He nodded to us, then did a double take when he saw me. “Sheena got to you, I see.”

“Is it that obvious?” I sighed. “Did she send out a memo? ‘Attention all Carmichaels: I’ve upgraded Eli from disaster to presentable. Adjust your expectations accordingly.’”

“Only to those of us who’ve been her victims before,” he replied with a sympathetic smile. “Coffee ready, Duncan?”

“Aye, help yourself.” The chef waved toward the pot.

David poured himself a cup, then leaned against the counter next to me. “Fair warning—Paul’s in a mood this morning. Something about Jace and the cousins in the gym.”

“Do I want to know?” I asked, arranging the last pastry. “On a scale of ‘mild sibling rivalry’ to ‘preparing for supernatural cage match,’ how worried should I be?”

“Probably not.” David shrugged. “But you might want to prepare yourself for breakfast. It’s going to be… interesting.”

“When is it not in this house?” I muttered, grabbing another piece of croissant.

“Stop picking at the food,” Duncan scolded, swatting at my hand with a wooden spoon. “There’ll be none left for the table at this rate.”

“I’m a growing boy,” I protested, dodging the spoon. “Vertically challenged but growing. Somewhere. Probably.”

“You’re a menace is what you are,” Duncan retorted. “Now take that fruit platter out to the dining room before I use you as the centerpiece.”

I grinned, picking up the platter. “Your threats would be more convincing if you hadn’t been making them for five years without follow-through. I’m starting to think you actually like me, Duncan.”

“One of these days, lad,” Duncan warned, but I could see the smile he was fighting. “One of these days.”

I carried the fruit platter to the dining room, balancing it with all the grace of a drunken flamingo on roller skates.

The Carmichael family was already gathering around the massive table.

Paul and Sheena were arguing about something that involved excessive hand gestures, while George and Madi sat at either end of the table, both engrossed in their tablets.

The picture of modern family breakfast—together but separate, connected by technology and proximity rather than actual conversation.

“Morning,” I greeted them, setting down the platter with a flourish that was only slightly undermined by my nearly dropping it.

Paul looked up and whistled, the sound cutting through the room like a referee at a foul. “Damn, Harper. Sheena really outdid herself this time.”

I felt heat rush to my face faster than a teenager caught watching porn. “Shut up, Carmichael.”

“No, seriously,” he continued, looking me up and down like I was a science experiment with unexpected results. “You clean up nice. Too nice. You might want to go roll in some mud before my brother and cousins get here.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, though I knew exactly what he meant.

Paul stood, coming around to throw an arm over my shoulders like I was a convenient armrest. “I’m talking about the fact that you’re looking like a snack, and they’re coming in hungry. Like, haven’t-eaten-in-forty-days hungry. Biblical famine hungry.”

“You’re disgusting,” I said, trying to shrug off his arm. “Has anyone ever told you that your metaphors need work? Like, serious work. Professional help level work. You should consider a support group for people with terminal metaphor disease.”

“I’m helpful,” he corrected, giving me a playful swat on the butt that would have gotten anyone else slapped with a harassment suit. “Consider this a friendly warning.”

I slapped his shoulder in retaliation. “Keep your hands to yourself, you overgrown child. I’m not one of your basketball bros who thinks butt-slapping is an acceptable form of communication.”

“Children, behave,” Madi said without looking up from her tablet, though I could hear the smile in her voice. She’d been mediating these exchanges for years with the practiced patience of a saint with unlimited data.

“He started it,” I said automatically, at the same time Paul said, “He deserved it.”

We grinned at each other, the familiar banter comforting. This was normal. This was how things had always been between us—the easy camaraderie of almost-siblings who teased each other mercilessly but with genuine affection.

The comfort lasted approximately thirty seconds, until the dining room door opened again and Jace, Adrian, and Cole entered.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees, like someone had installed an industrial freezer where the door used to be.

All three cousins took in the sight of Paul’s arm still draped casually over my shoulders, and suddenly the air felt thick enough to slice with a butter knife.

Oh. Oh no.

The look on Jace’s face could have frozen hell itself.

His blue eyes went arctic, focusing on his brother’s arm with an intensity that should have set it on fire.

Adrian’s usual easy smile seemed strained, more predatory than playful as his gaze flicked between Paul’s face and the offending arm.

Cole’s expression remained impassive, but there was a tightness around his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“Morning,” Adrian greeted, his voice light, though his eyes were anything but. They glowed with a possessive heat that made my stomach do a complicated gymnastics routine.

“Sleep well?” Cole asked, his eyes never leaving Paul’s arm like he was mentally calculating how much force it would take to remove it. From Paul’s body. Permanently.

Jace said nothing, but the look he gave his brother could have melted steel. I’d seen friendlier expressions on sharks circling bleeding seals.

Paul, either oblivious or suicidal, squeezed my shoulder. “Eli was just telling me about his night in the blue room. Sounds like he slept like a baby.”

I elbowed him in the ribs with more force than strictly necessary. “I said no such thing, you compulsive liar. Stop trying to start trouble before I’ve had my second cup of coffee. My ability to deal with your BS is directly proportional to my caffeine intake.”

“But you did sleep well?” Cole asked, his voice carrying an intensity that seemed disproportionate to the question. It was like he was asking if I’d survived a near-death experience rather than a night in sheets with a thread count higher than my credit score.

“Like the dead,” I confirmed, slipping out from under Paul’s arm before one of the cousins decided to remove it for me. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have more food to bring out before Duncan declares a Scottish fatwa on all of us.”

As I turned to head back to the kitchen, I caught all three of them watching me with identical expressions of…

hunger. Not the “I skipped lunch” kind of hunger, but the “I’ve been tracking this prey for days and finally have it cornered” kind.

A shiver that was equal parts fear and something else entirely raced down my spine.

I pushed through the kitchen doors, leaning against them for a moment to collect myself. The weight of those stares had been almost physical, like hands brushing across my skin.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” my mom said, loading bacon onto a serving platter with the precision of someone who’s done it a thousand times.

“Three of them,” I muttered, grabbing the platter from her. “All six feet tall, unfairly gorgeous, and staring at me like I’m the last piece of chocolate cake at a Weight Watchers meeting.”

“When are they not?” she asked, but her expression held something I couldn’t quite decipher—concern, maybe, but also a strange kind of expectation, like she was waiting for something to happen.

I balanced the bacon platter and a basket of fresh bread, pushing back through the doors with my hip. The conversation in the dining room hushed slightly as I entered, then resumed at a more deliberate pace. It was the conversational equivalent of “act natural, he’s coming.”

“—absolutely flooded,” David was saying, scrolling through his phone. “The east road is still underwater, and they’re saying the Miller’s Creek Bridge is completely washed out.”

“That storm was something else,” Paul agreed, reaching for the bacon as I set it down.

“At least the forecast is clear for the rest of the week,” Madi noted, accepting a cup of coffee from my mother, who had followed me with the coffee service.

“Perfect for the reunion,” Sheena said around a mouthful of fruit. “Though I’m not sure how we’re going to manage with half the grounds still underwater.”

“We’re moving everything to the west side,” George replied, looking up from his tablet. “The vineyard backdrop will actually work better for photos.”