Chapter 31 Lydia's Desperation
Malia's POV
The gossip begins the day after I settle into the Moonfall suite.
The first time I noticed it is at breakfast. Students who regularly pretend I don’t exist now openly stare—not with curiosity, but with something darker.
Suspicion or fear…or disgust.
"Am I the only one," July mutters, as she scoots in the chair opposite me, "Or is everyone acting really strange lately?"
"It's not just you."
A cluster of girls at the next table is whispering loudly enough for us to listen in.
"...living with all three of them now…"
"...how else could she pull that off except…"
"...hybrid magic, obviously."
I'm looking at her, my hand holding the fork halfway to my mouth frozen.
Hybrid magic?
"What are they talking about?" July inquires. But her face says that she already knows.
Before I know it, Freddy is sitting next to me, laptop open.
"Okay, so don’t panic, um, but there’s talk you’re employing some sort of hybrid enchantment to make the Moonfall triplets, you know, protect you."
My stomach drops. "What?"
"It's all over the campus message boards. Someone—and I think I know exactly who—it’s gotten around that hybrids can somehow tap into this ancient power to enchant purebloods. Make them obsessed. Control them." He shows me his screen.
Thread after thread concerning “hybrid magic” debate, whether I use it on the Moonfalls.
Some posts are curious, some are hostile.
Some say that I ought to be ‘investigated,’ or ‘removed from campus for everyone’s safety.’
“This is insane,” I breathe.
July sighs “It's also so full of bullshit. Hybrid magic isn’t real. It’s an old superstition from like, the 1600s when they were burning ‘witches’ on the bush.”
“Kinda doesn’t matter if it’s real,” Freddy says, darkly. “People believe it. Or want to believe it. Answers the question of why three alpha heirs would give a damn about a hybrid scholarship student.”
“Because we’re people?” I say, my voice rising in anger. “Because maybe they just give a damn?”
"Logic loses when fear and bigotry do." He closes his laptop. “So the question is, who started this?”
We all know the answer.
Lydia.
—--
It gets worse as the day goes on.
In WEREWOLF HISTORY, I notice my classmates pull back their chairs from me.
In Pack Dynamics, the group to which I’m assigned “accidentally” leaves me out of their project conversation.
And in the hallway between class times, I watch students making the warding signs—ancient superstitious signs to guard them from dark magic.
Like I’m something to fear. Something dangerous.
"Ignore them," July says fiercely as she hooks her arm through mine. “They’re idiots.”
“They’re scared,” I quietly correct. “Someone’s making them scared of me.”
I’m already tired from all the staring and whispering by lunch. I’m thinking of just not eating when Rowan appears next to me.
“Come sit with us,” he says softly.
"With who?" I blink.
“Me and my brothers. At our table.” I glance toward the Moonfall table, the one no one approaches uninvited, the one that might as well have a velvet rope around it.
"Rowan, it'll just make everything worse—"
"Things are already worse. Quite the contrary. Please? ”
I hesitate. Then take his hand, the room falls silent as Rowan takes me by the hand and leads me across the cafeteria.
Every eye follows us, every conversation is interrupted. By the time we made it to the Moonfall table, you could hear a pin drop.
Aiden looks up, surprise flickering across his face.
Cian, however, just nods, as though he knew this was coming.
"She with us," Rowan tells his brothers. Not asking. Stating.
"Good," Aiden says, his voice carrying over the silent cafeteria. "She belongs here."
The pronouncement is solid. Public, a line in the sand.
I sit down, feeling like a hundred eyes are boring into my back.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I whisper.
"Yes, we did," Cian says quietly.
We spend the next twenty minutes eating in strained silence as the cafeteria gradually returns to its customary level of noise.
But the damage is done.
Now all that’s left is for every day to bring news of the Moonfalls’ public declaration that they have ‘me’, as in… what? Friend? Ally? Something more?
—---
After lunch, I'm on my way to my next class when someone steps into my path.
Lydia. Her two shadows—Dina and Beretta—flank her as always.
And today, it seems like Lydia has completely transformed—she’s not beautiful, she is simply more beautiful than that’s. Lydia looks different. Not polished and controlled…Desperate.
Slightly unhinged.
"Enjoying your new accommodations?" she asks airily, voice thick with fake sweetness.
“Excuse me?”
"The Moonfall suite. Must be nice, three alpha heirs at your service like that." Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. "What spell did you use? Love potion? Enchantment? Or just good, old-fashioned bullshit?"
"I didn't use anything—"
"Of course you did." She steps closer, and I can smell the desperation on her. "There’s no other explanation. Aiden was supposed to choose me. We were perfect together. Suddenly he can’t see anyone else – not with your wretched hybrid act."
"That’s not—"
"Don’t lie to me!" Her voice rises, putting her on the brink of screaming. "I know what you are. What you're doing. Hybrids have always been dangerous. Corrupting. That's why they were kept separate. Why they were never permitted into places like this."
Students are gathering now, forming a loose circle around us.
"Lydia," I say cautiously, "I'm not doing anything to anyone. The Moonfalls are just—"
"Just what? Protecting you out of the goodness of their hearts?" She laughs, sharp and bitter. "They're under a spell. And once I prove it, once everyone sees what you really are, they’ll be able to cast you out just as they casting out the mistake that you’ve been."
The words hit like physical blows.
"That's enough," a voice says. Rowan pushes through the crowd, Aiden and Cian right behind him. All three of them get between me and Lydia. An unified wall.
“Move,” Lydia barks at Rowan. “This is none of your business—”
“When you go around lying and attacking the people I love, that’s what concerns me,” says Rowan, who sounds anything but gentle.
“Lies? Everyone knows hybrids can enchant—”
“That’s not real,” Rowan says, his voice ringing over the crowd as he interrupts. "Hybrid magic is a superstition. A lie people told each other for centuries to justify hate. And now you’re using it because you’re afraid Malia is here on her own merits and not because you pulled her leg up the cliff.”
“Merit?” Lydia’s voice climbs into a scream. "She's a hybrid—"
“You’re a bigot,” Aiden snaps back. “Which is far more shameful than anything having to do with bloodlines.”
A round of gasps roll through the crowd, a wave of emotion washes over Lydia’s face Lydia's face flushes red. “Who do you think you are—”
"How dare you," Aiden righted him with a step that radiated alpha force, making several students step back. "Spread vicious rumors. Target a sucker. Pretend like your family’s dough makes you want to be somebody you’re not."
“My family—”
“Your family gave a building. Mine established this institution.” His voice is ice. “So when I say back off, you back off. Get it?”
Lydia gazes at him, something shifting in her expression.
“You’re choosing her,” she whispers. “Over me. Over all the things we shared.”
“There is no choice to make,” says Aiden flatly. "There never was.”
The words are harsh in their realism, Lydia's face crumples. Then hardens.
"All right," she says, her voice trembling with anger. “Yell at me all you want, if that’s what it takes to prove that I'm meant for you, not her!
But don’t say I didn’t warn you. She’ll destroy you. All you. That’s what hybrids do.”
She spins around on her heel and stomps off, Dina and Beretta hurrying to catch up.The crowd begins to thin, buzzing with excited whispers about the scene they had just seen.
I stand there, frozen, trying to understand what had just happened.
“Are you all right?” Rowan inquires gently.
"You shouldn't have done that," I say. "She is going to make this worse—"
"Let her try," Aiden says. “She’s humiliated herself. No one will take her seriously now.”
"You don’t know that. She’s desperate. Desperate people are dangerous."
“Then we’ll take care of it,” Cian says quietly. “We do this together.”
—---
That night, in the suite. I’m trying to do homework when my phone vibrates.
Unknown number.
Unknown: You think the Moonfalls can protect you? You’re wrong. Three days until the blood moon. We’re coming.
My hands tremble as I take a screenshot of the message. Then I hear a knock at my door before I can send it to the brothers. I open it to see all three.
"Now someone’s trying to take us all out," Rowan says.
"Escalation," Cian says. "They are becoming more daring."
"Or more desperate," I say. "Like Lydia."
"Do you think she’s involved?" Rowan asks.
"I dunno. But when people are desperate, they do alliances with really terrible forces."
I tell them Marcus' earlier warning. "Three days, that's what everyone keeps saying. Something is happening on the blood moon."
"So that gives us three days to get ready," Aiden says.
"And who we're fighting," adds Cian.
"And to live, too," Rowan adds, giving me a look of resolve.
I want to argue.
To let them know I can do this on my own. But I'm not really able to, it's bigger than me, whatever it is that's coming.
Bigger than any one of us. Together, though?
Maybe we can try, for once.
"Okay," I say quietly. "So what’s the plan?"
Aiden's smile was sharp and menacing.
"We find out who did this. We expose them. And we make sure they never threaten you again."
"How?"
"By being smarter, faster and more ruthless than they thought they could be." His brothers catch his eyes. "We're terminating this."
I realize something as they file into the living room to plan, I'm not alone in this fight.
I have three wolves who have claimed me as theirs. Who will burn the world down to keep me safe.
And honestly?
That's terrifying and comforting in equal measure.