Claimed by the Wildwoods Pack: Her Triad Fate

Talia Barça’s phone buzzed for the third time in ten minutes, the ringtone a shrill mockery of the pop song Paul had once set as “their” tune. She didn’t need to glance at the screen to know who it was. That thieves, two-timing bastard.

She silenced the device with a jab of her thumb and stared into her glass. The last of the amaretto sour had gone warm, the ice reduced to slivers that clinked like loose change in a beggar’s cup. Fitting. She was down to her last forty-seven dollars, and thirty of those were earmarked for the electric bill that had already spawned two red-stamped envelopes.

“Let me guess,” Nita said, sliding onto the stool beside her. “The ex.”

“Fifth call tonight.” Talia’s voice came out flat, scraped raw. “He wants to ‘coordinate’ so we do not ‘make things awkward’ at the wedding.” She curled her fingers into air quotes, nails bitten to the quick. “As if he did not drain my savings and run off with the barista from Brew & Bean.”

Nita’s eyes narrowed. “Bella. Twenty-three, fake tan, thinks ‘vintage’ means anything from 2018.” She signaled the bartender. “Another round on me. You are not buying tonight.”

Talia opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. Pride was a luxury she could not afford. Not when the fridge at home held half a jar of peanut butter and a single egg. Not when her boss had “forgotten” to approve her overtime again, and the office vultures had started leaving passive-aggressive Post-its on her monitor: Talia, please stop using the color printer for personal documents. As if printing a rent receipt counted as personal.

She swallowed the dregs of her drink. The sour burn matched the pain behind her eyes. “I filed for divorce, remember? I am supposed to be over this.”

“You are over him,” Nita said. “you are not over the fact that he stole your future and left you holding the bag. There is a difference.”

Talia’s laugh came out brittle. “Future? Try present. I need five hundred just to keep the lights on until next payday. And the wedding’s in two weeks. Open bar, fancy venue, gift registry that looks like a Neiman Marcus catalog. If I show up alone, Paul wins. If I do not show up, I look pathetic. Either way, i am screwed.”

Nita tapped her glossy nails against the bar. “You need a plus-one. Someone who makes Paul choke on his own smug.”

“I need a miracle,” Talia muttered. “Or a sugar daddy. Preferably one who doesn’t embezzle.”

The phone buzzed again, this time a text in the family group chat. Paul’s message glowed like a neon accusation: can't wait to introduce Bella to everyone! Tally, let us catch up no hard feelings, right?

Her stomach lurched. No hard feelings. As if he had not forged her signature on the joint account withdrawal slip. As if the bank had not laughed when she tried to explain that her ex-husband had vanished with thirty-two thousand dollars and change.

Nita snatched the phone before Talia could hurl it across the bar. “that is it. We are going to Gerri.”

“Gerri Wilder? My neighbor Gerri?” Talia blinked. “The one who waters her orchids in six-inch heels and claims her grandsons are ‘a handful’?”

“Exactly.” Nita was already tossing cash on the bar. “She told me last week she is running a discreet matchmaking service. Shifters only. High success rate. And ” she grinned, “ she owes me for covering her shift at the salon when her ‘nephew’ turned out to be a werewolf with a grooming emergency.”

Talia followed her cousin out into the humid night, the city’s pulse thrumming under her sneakers. The bar was three blocks from the aging brick walk-up, which she could barely afford. Gerri’s apartment sat on the top floor, the only other unit on the landing. Talia had watered the woman’s plants, listened to stories about great-grandchildren with tails, and once helped carry a crate of imported bourbon that smelled expensive enough to pay her rent for a month.

Nita knocked. The door opened almost instantly.

Gerri Wilder filled the frame like a silver-haired hurricane in silk. Her hazel eyes were too sharp, knowing she scanned them both. “Talia Barça. You look like you have been chewing lemons and swallowing nails. Come in before you scare the ferns.”

The apartment smelled of jasmine and something wilder pine, maybe, or the ozone before a storm. Photos lined the walls: men with shoulders like linebackers, women with laughter in their eyes, all of them radiating a vitality that made Talia feel like a wilted houseplant.

Gerri poured bourbon into cut-crystal tumblers without asking. “Sit. Talk.”

The story spilled out in fits and starts Paul’s betrayal, the empty accounts, the wedding invitation that felt like a summons to her own execution. Talia’s voice cracked when she admitted she had asked Nita for a twenty just to buy tonight’s drink.

Gerri listened without interruption, her manicured fingers steepled. When Talia finished, the older woman’s smile was slow and dangerous.

“Paul needs a mirror held up to his mediocrity,” she said. “And you, darling, need to walk into that wedding like you own the room.” She rose, crossing to an antique roll-top desk. “I have two grandsons arriving tomorrow. Twins. Alphas. Unmated.” She slid two photographs across the coffee table.

Talia’s breath caught. The men were night and fire, both tall, one with ink-black hair and storm-gray eyes, the other sun-streaked and golden, but identical in the predatory grace of their smiles. Something electric hummed under her skin, like recognition of a song she had forgotten she knew.

“they are... overwhelming,” she managed.

Gerri’s laugh was rich. “they are shifters, dear. Overwhelming is the baseline.” She pressed two business cards into Talia’s hand thick cream stock, embossed with a simple paw print. “No obligation. But my instincts say you three will fit like puzzle pieces. At the very least, they will make your ex regret every life choice that led him to this moment.”

Talia stared at the cards. Her pulse thudded in her ears. “What if I cannot afford ”

“Money’s no object,” Gerri cut in. “Consider it a favor to an old woman who hates bullies.” Her eyes softened. “But Talia? When you meet them, wear the red dress. The one you hide in the back of your closet. Power looks good on you.”

Nita squealed, clutching Talia’s arm. “This is unsound. In the best way.”

As they stepped back into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind them, Talia felt the weight of the cards in her pocket like a promise or a dare.

Two weeks until the wedding. Two strangers who might be salvation or catastrophe.

For the first time in months, the ache in her chest felt less like drowning and more like the moment before a storm breaks: electric, inevitable, alive.