Lysander's POV
The triplets burst through my apartment door like a small hurricane, all restless energy and overlapping voices. Phoenix immediately starts climbing my couch like it's a jungle gym. Orion gravitates toward my bookshelf, fingers already tracing spines. Luna stands in the middle of it all, taking in my space with those quiet, assessing eyes.
"Uncle Lysander!" Phoenix launches herself off the couch and into my arms. "Mom said we get to stay a whole week!"
I catch her easily, swing her around until she shrieks with laughter. "A whole week of chaos. My neighbors are going to love that."
"Your neighbors are boring," she announces with the confidence only an eight-year-old can muster.
"But you've never met them, darling."
"Don't need to. Boring people live in boring apartments, and your apartment is boring."
Orion looks up from examining my business management textbooks. "It's not boring, just minimalist. There's a difference."
"Same!"
"Categorically untrue. Minimalism is a deliberate aesthetic choice emphasizing functionality and clean lines. Boring implies a lack of intentionality."
Phoenix sticks her tongue out at him. Luna sighs.
Something in my chest loosens. This—their bickering, energy, presence filling spaces that have felt too empty—is what I've been missing.
The week unfolds in a blur of activity. I take them hiking on trails I've discovered since moving to Colorado, the mountain air crisp and clean in ways Seattle never managed. Phoenix challenges me to race through the trees, her supernatural speed already impressive for her age. She beats me twice before I stop letting her win.
"You're getting slow, Uncle Lys," she taunts, barely winded while I lean against a pine tree catching my breath.
"I'm letting you build confidence."
"You're lying. Your face is all red."
"Altitude adjustment."
"Sure it is." She grins, victorious and wild, and sprints ahead to the next marker.
Orion peppers me with questions during our quieter moments—supply chain logistics, profit margins, the complexities of running a satellite office three states from headquarters. I answer everything honestly, watching his mind absorb and process information at speeds that shouldn't be possible for someone his age.
"What's your quarterly revenue projection?" he asks over lunch at a mountain café.
"Classified."
He narrows his eyes. "I could calculate it from publicly available data."
"Probably. But that would be corporate espionage, and I'd have to disown you as a nephew."
"You can't do that. That's not how family structures work."
"Watch me try."
Luna laughs quietly, the sound soft and precious. She's been organizing everything since they arrived—snacks arranged by type in my pantry, their luggage unpacked with military precision, even my chaotic junk drawer now sorted into labeled sections.
"You didn't have to do that," I tell her, watching her alphabetize my spice rack.
"It was bothering me." She shrugs, moving cumin to its proper place. "Things should have order."
"Even in other people's kitchens?"
"Especially there."
It feels easy and natural. The kind of family rhythm I've been mourning since I left Seattle, now restored in temporary bursts that make the eventual goodbye harder to contemplate.
The evening everything changes starts simply enough.
I'm teaching Phoenix how to make pasta from scratch while Orion reads at the kitchen table and Luna arranges vegetables for the salad with geometric precision.
"You have to knead it longer," I tell Phoenix, guiding her small hands through the dough. "Feel how it's still too sticky?"
"It's supposed to be sticky. It's dough."
"Not this sticky. Another minute."
She huffs but keeps working, flour dusting her nose and cheeks. "Mr. Hendricks would say I'm doing it wrong. He says everything I do is wrong."
The name catches my attention. "Who's Mr. Hendricks?"
"Orion's teacher. He's mean."
"He's not," Orion says without looking up from his book. "He's intellectually insecure, which manifests as hostility toward students who challenge his authority."
I set down the rolling pin. "What kind of hostility?"
"Verbal mostly." Orion's tone stays clinical, detached. "He calls me aggressive when I correct his mistakes. The other kids have started copying his language."
"Really?" Something cold settles in my stomach.
"Some of them." Luna's voice comes soft from behind me. "Other kids shove in the hallways. They whisper things when teachers aren't looking and call Phoenix a freak because she's strong. And guess who am I? A mind-reader like it's something dirty."
Phoenix has stopped kneading, her small hands motionless in the dough. "There's this boy named Tyler who says we don't belong at the school and that our kind should stay with our own."
"Your kind?"
"Wolves." She says it quietly. "Monsters, he calls us when nobody's listening."
The fury that floods through me is immediate, volcanic. My hands grip the counter edge hard enough that my knuckles go white. I force my voice to stay level.
"Do your parents know about this?"
Luna nods. "Mom knows everything. She gets really quiet when we tell her. Dad knows too."
"And what are they doing about it?"
The children exchange glances. Phoenix shrugs. "They're talking about it. Mom wants to meet with teachers, I think. Dad has other plans, and they had a fight about that."
Kieran knows. My brother—Alpha heir, father, protector—knows that children are shoving his kids in hallways, calling them monsters, and he's doing nothing. Having fights with Thalia instead of fixing the problem! Choosing restraint while my niece and nephews suffer.
I mask the rage building in my chest, keep my expression easy and warm. "Hey, firecracker. Why don't you go wash that flour off your face? Dinner's almost ready."
Phoenix bounds off toward the bathroom. Orion returns to his book. Luna watches me with those too-knowing eyes, feeling everything I'm trying to hide.
"You're angry," she says quietly.
"I'm concerned."
"Those feel different." She tilts her head. "This feels like anger."
I crouch down to her level, take her small hands in mine. "I'm angry that anyone would treat you three like that. But I'm not angry at you. Never at you."
She squeezes my fingers. "You feel safe when you're angry. Some people feel scared, but you just feel... determined."
The insight cuts through my carefully constructed calm. This child sees too much, feels too deeply. And someone is making her feel like that's something shameful.
"Go help your sister," I say gently. "Make sure she actually uses soap this time."
Luna smiles and disappears down the hallway. I stand alone in my kitchen, hands braced against the counter, and let the fury fully surface.
That night, after the children fall asleep in my guest room, I call Claire. She answers on the second ring.
"It's late. Is everything okay?"
"I need to rearrange my schedule for next week."
A pause. "What happened?"
Her voice carries genuine concern, sliding past professional courtesy into something warmer, more personal than either of us has acknowledged. We've been circling this for months—late-night calls about cases that don't require discussion, lunches that stretch beyond reasonable work hours, the way her hand sometimes lingers on my arm during meetings.
"Family situation," I tell her. "I need to fly to Seattle for a few days."
"The kids?" She knows more about my complicated history than anyone else in Colorado.
"Someone's hurting them at school. Teachers, classmates. Systematic cruelty disguised as discipline." My jaw clenches. "My brother knows and he's doing nothing."
"That doesn't sound like Kieran. From what you've told me, he's protective to a fault."
"He's choosing pack politics over his own children." The words taste bitter. "Worrying about scandal while eight-year-olds call his daughter a monster."
Claire's quiet for a moment. "What are you going to do?"
I stare out my window at the Colorado night, mountains dark against the stars, and make a decision that feels like coming home.
"If my brother won't protect them, I will."