Chapter 3 Trish
Trish
“Was there any particular reason you felt like baking this morning?” Meg asked as we walked downtown, sticking to the sidewalk along the cobblestone Main Street to the heart of Cerberus territory. All square-mile wide of it.
I hugged the basket of cupcakes my mom had whipped up after my disaster, hating myself for her having to save me yet again.
At least you won’t be empty-handed.
“No reason,” I said.
“Not buying it.” Alec walked on my other side. The two of them squished me in, always needling and prodding and generally being pains in the ass. Being a triplet was fun until the logistics played out and you didn’t get any personal space.
“I think you’re up to something,” Alec mused as she caught a lock of my teal hair and held it to the light. “An Alpha-male shaped something.”
“It’s not what you think.” I jerked my head back, freeing my hair from her grasp, and bumped into Meg, who had to step into the street to avoid being knocked over.
Like I said: Love my sisters.
Hated sharing all our space.
It’s probably why Alec insisted on moving to the old haunted Alpha’s mansion, leaving Meg and me to live in the small cabin in our parents’ front yard—the one without a working stove.
And I’d just been forever banned from using Mom’s stove too.
Good thing I can hunt.
“Sure it isn’t…” Alec continued to poke at me. Meg normally would’ve stopped her, but I could tell she was just as interested.
Knowing I had to throw them a bone, I lowered my voice, “It was a spell.”
“What did you say?” Alec cupped her hand over her ear. We all had wolf shifter hearing and could pick up most sounds within a few miles if we really tuned in. She just wanted to make me suffer.
“I was trying to work a spell,” I growled, loud enough for everyone on Main Street to hear, especially the shifters.
“Trish,” Meg warned.
Alec laughed just as old Mrs. Kathryn crossed herself and stepped off the sidewalk into the street, getting far away from me.
“Come on,” I cried as she refused to look my way. “You’re not even religious.”
We weren’t like Amarok pack to the north or any of the more traditional wolf packs that held monthly Luna celebrations and spoke of the old ways.
Cerberus was more modern. Probably because Aunt Kera had been younger when she took over the pack, years before we were born, and she’d mated with Alpha Jareth of Anubis, who loved all things ancient technology reborn, like indoor plumbing and solar power.
Or maybe it was because we lived so close to the human city of Ethica where the braver humans left to play tourist, coming to visit the Wild.
That’s where Mom and Aunt Coral had come from, also many years ago. But they weren’t tourists and life was a lot crueler back then. The women in our family were badasses. And they’d passed those traits onto my sisters. Too bad I was the magic black sheep the whole town ran away from.
“It’s the universal sign to ward off bad luck,” Meg explained, like it was any consolation. “Don’t take it personally.”
Joke was on her.
I took it all personally.
But that didn’t mean I let them know it. “We should hurry.” I picked up the pace. “Don’t want to be late for work.”
*
“I was wondering when you girls would get here.” Lennox paused in the reception room with a tray of breakfast and vase of roses balanced in his arms. “Easy day today. Room 12 checked out. Room 15 needs trash removed. And Room 5 doesn’t want any service. I’m taking the morning off to treat my mate.”
Lennox, the old shifter and inn-keeper, didn’t stick around long. We never saw much of him without his mate and he took every chance he got to disappear with her. It made him an easy boss.
“You heard the wolf.” Meg clapped her hands. “Let’s get started.”
Three Sisters Cleaning at your service.
I climbed up the small staircase behind Meg. The name—and business—had been her idea when we were sixteen. Somehow it’d stuck, and this became our lives.
I didn’t blame Meg for needing to do something.
She was an alpha born wolf through and through.
Her beast got restless if she had to sit still for long.
I was the beta wolf in the traditional triplet Cerberus birth.
Historically, I was supposed to be the peacekeeper. But I didn’t know about all that.
“Another day, another prison sentence,” Alec grumbled as she trudged behind me. As a rare sigma female wolf, she… Honestly, there was no describing what Alec did. She had more secrets than any of us, and she was closest to our Sigma father.
But we were a family of entrepreneurs. Mom owned the café. Aunt Coral ran the library along with helping Alpha Kera manage the entire pack. If we hadn’t formed our own business, the three of them would’ve had jobs ready for us.
Cleaning rooms wasn’t that bad.
“If we attack 12 together, we can get you to City Hall before everyone arrives this afternoon,” Meg said, like she was doing me a favor.
I nodded, still not letting on how much my insides were twisting about this. That stupid summons was the least of my worries.
“Why are humans so gross?” Alec sneered as we stood in the open doorway of Room 12.
“Shh.” Meg and I shushed her at the same time, looking over our shoulders.
“Lennox’s mate might hear you,” Meg said.
“Plus, our mom is human,” I pointed out, pinching my nose.
“Mom’s a witch.” Alec rolled her eyes. “And you know what I mean. The purist humans. I call laundry.”
Meg was already pushing the vacuum in and opening the window to air the room out, which left me with bathroom duty… again.
“It’s not that they stink.” I breathed through my mouth as I dug out our natural cleaning supplies from the cart. “They just use so much to cover up their natural scent.”
The smells of perfumes and weird soaps and whatever other chemicals they’d sprayed still lingered in the air. Thankfully, they hadn’t stayed for long, so it wasn’t as much to clean.
Humans never stayed very long anyway.
Most of them stuck to their city and its high walls, believing the land out here was toxic. Even when they’d seen the truth, many were reluctant to give up the way of life they’d always known.
A few travelers came once or twice a year—mainly those who tried to spend credits and were met with cold indifference until they coughed up some tangible trade.
Of those, only a few ever ventured beyond Cerberus Pack.
It was Alpha Kera’s treaty after the war that forced them to keep the option open for the humans to be able to leave the city as they pleased.
“It’s not natural,” Alec grumbled.
She wasn’t the purist humans’ biggest fan, like many other wolf shifters. We had more reason than most to despise them, especially with how they treated our mom and Aunt Coral.
But no one could hate something as much as Alec could.
Except for maybe me and cleaning toilets.
I despised this job as much as she did, but the difference was that I didn’t want to make anyone upset. I wasn’t good at much anymore, yet I still pulled my own weight.
Sighing, I ran the brush around the inside of the toilet bowl.
At the ripe old age of twenty-four, I’d resigned myself to this life with my sisters.
Even though Mom hadn’t mated until twenty-seven, the three of us were basically unmated old maids.
Most shifters met their fated matches around puberty.
Not us.
If Gram had still been alive… If my magic hadn’t gone on the fritz… If Alpha Kera didn’t insist that the three of us were the ‘Fated Destiny’ of the Cerberus pack…
I flushed the bowl and dropped to my knees to scrub the outside with a rag.
I was going to die here in this pack, cleaning toilets and being warded off by packmates, eating fresh kill every night instead of grilling it.
It’s not so bad, my wolf offered comfort.
I gave her a mental pat and stood, catching Alec’s reflection in the mirror.
My sister gave me a knowing look.
“I think you should go,” Alec said.
I nodded despite the trembling sensation her words invoked. A witch without magic didn’t belong at a magic festival, and she definitely had no place being tested against other powerful witches and warlocks like she was worth something more than she was.
“Don’t do that.” Alec shook her head and turned to gather up the flannel blankets and sheets.
“Do what?” Meg asked as she wrapped up the vacuum cord. Alec headed down the hall without answering.
Don’t bother her with this.
With tears blurring my vision, I blew out a heavy breath. “Nothing.”
Meg’s worried expression tore at my heart. “You’re nervous about seeing Jaxon today.”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” I said, too quickly.
She studied me. “And the others? I don’t think I’ve seen them all in one place since Gram died. Is that why you blew up Mom’s kitchen this morning? Are you trying to bribe them with cupcakes?”
“Can you please stop nitpicking me for once in your life?” I moved to close the bathroom door and then hesitated. “Also, you missed a spot.”