Chapter 4 Is That Jealousy?

DESIREE

The triplets were still the center of every eye. Eyes were following them to see the direction they would enter.

And I was still pressed against my locker, trying to remember how to breathe.

Then the crowd shifted and parted, and it was obvious to everyone…..that they were walking toward me!!

All three of them.

"No," I whispered. "No, no, no!!"

I have never had this much attention in my life. I wanted to enter the ground and get swallowed.

Jaden with his angel wings slightly spread was almost cornering me, cutting a swath through the students.

Jaxon with his blue glow intensifying with every step. Jett’s sexy silver eyes locked onto mine like he could see through to my soul.

They stopped right in front of me. Three monuments of impossible beauty, surrounding me completely.

I almost peed my pants. Too much attention for one day!!

Jaden spoke first. His voice was deep, rich and sugary. "Hello, mate."

The words sounded foreign and the hallway went dead silent. You could have heard a pin drop in the stratosphere.

Jaxon stepped closer, his electric aura crackling. "We've been looking for you."

"Looking for m…" I couldn't finish because my voice was gone.

First, Lysander rejects me, then Chloe bullies me, then I get struck by lightning , then I get my Elf, then my parents write a letter…gosh. What's next? I wake up in an apocalypse?!

Jett moved to my other side. He didn't speak. He just reached out and touched my cheek. His fingers were cold, but not uncomfortably so. It felt more like winter air on warm skin. It seemed like he'd been waiting his whole existence for permission to do exactly this.

Then the silence shattered.

"No! It can't be!" A bitter girl said from the crowd.

"That's Desiree! The human! She is a nobody! How dare she get mated to the James’ triplets?"

"It's a lie! They're just using her for clout!"

"She doesn't even have powers—well, not real ones!"

"Those ears are probably fake. She probably did it to get attention."

"Someone check if she's wearing a skin paint. These jealous bitches will do anything for attention. Wow!! Glad to see that I'm stepping on these bitches neck!"

The whispers were filled with envy and malice.

I didn't even care because Jaden was touching my hair now, running his fingers through it like it was spun gold instead of ordinary chestnut waves.

"These are softer than I imagined," he murmured. “What's the name of your shampoo?”

“Ummmm….”

Jaxon grabbed my hand. His grip was warm, electric, sending little shocks up my arm. "Her energy is incredible. Can you feel it, Jett?"

Jett nodded, his cold fingers still on my cheek. "I've been able to feel her since we walked in. She has this certain warmth to her. Her light also seems like she burns like a star in the spectral realm."

I found my voice. Barely. "What… what is happening?"

Jaden laughed, and the sound was beautiful—even prettier than Lysander's. "You don't know? You can't feel it?"

"I feel…" I stopped. What did I feel? The scent was overwhelming now—sandalwood, lilies, daisies, chocolate, all wrapped into one intoxicating package.

My skin tingled where they touched me. My heart was racing.

"I feel like I'm dreaming," I finished weakly.

Jaxon grinned, and his vampire fangs glinted. "You're not dreaming, little mate. You're ours."

Ours. Not mine. Ours. I belong to the three of them.

The crowd was losing its collective mind. Girls were crying and sobbing!

I mean, actual tears were streaming down their faces. One girl near the front looked like she was calculating murder in her eyes. Several others were gripping each other, pale as ghosts themselves.

"She doesn't even go here—I mean, she does, but she's nobody!"

"How dare they choose her?"

"Those ears are definitely fake, even a blind man can tell!"

I rolled my eyes. This was getting old.

"I heard she was dating Lysander until recently. Lysander! A hot werewolf? And now she gets triplets? She doesn't even have any special powers. Unlike me, I can bend ice!! Make it make sense!"

Brittany appeared at the edge of our circle, phone already out. Her eyes were wide, ecstatic, like she'd just won the lottery.

"Oh my gods! Oh my GODDESS! Desiree! You're their mate! I knew it! I totally knew it when I saw him looking at you! This is going in the school magazine! This is going on every platform on the internet! Desiree, smile! No, wait, don't smile, look mysterious, like you totally expected this—"

"Brittany, please—"

But she was already snapping photos, narrating to herself. "The J triplets find their mate and it's my new best friend Desiree! Wait until my mom hears this! Wait until the whole supernatural world hears this!"

Jaden turned to me, ignoring the chaos completely. "What's your name, beautiful?"

"Desiree," I breathed.

"Desiree." He tasted the word like fine chocolate. "Perfect. A name that promises wanting. And we want you, Desiree. Very much."

Jaxon pulled my hand to his chest. I could feel his heart beating through his shirt. It was fast. Faster than I expected from someone so composed. "Can you feel that? That's what you do to me. What you do to all of us."

Jett finally spoke. His voice was distant and….nonchalant. "I've been dead for nineteen years. Born and died the same day. Brought back by magic, stuck between worlds and I've never felt so warm. Not even once…." He leaned closer, his cold lips brushing my ear. "Until you walked into this hallway."

I was going to pass out. I was definitely going to pass out. Was I, Desiree, the shy and ugly girl, getting complimented?

"This isn't real," I muttered to myself. "I got struck by lightning. I'm in a coma. This is a coma dream."

Jaden chuckled. "This is no coma, little mate. It is just fate."

The boys in the crowd were different from the girls. They weren't crying. They were watching with something between respect and disbelief. A few were already placing bets—I heard "a week max" and "she's too plain, they'll get bored."

But the triplets didn't look bored. They looked hungry, they looked lustful and….kinda horny.

"We should take you somewhere quieter," Jaxon suggested. "Somewhere we can talk properly."

"Yes," Jaden agreed. "The hall is no place for a first meeting."

Jett's cold fingers traced down my jaw. "She stays with us tonight."

I should have objected. I should have said no, I had homework, I had parents coming home, I had a life that didn't involve three supernatural hybrids touching me like I was precious. But my voice was still missing, and my body was betraying me, leaning into their touches like it had been starved for them my whole life.

"We don't even know her last name," someone in the crowd muttered.

"Don't care," Jaden said without looking away from me.

"This is so unfair," a girl sobbed nearby.

"Life isn't fair, sweetheart," Jaxon called out, still grinning. "Get used to it."

Brittany was still filming. "And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the moment everything changed for my girl Desiree. The triplets are obsessed already!! Mark my words, there will be mating marks by graduation—"

"Brittany!" I hissed.

"What? It's true! I'm your official documentarian now! You need someone to capture this for posterity!"

The triplets laughed. All three of them. And the sound was beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

Jaden draped an arm over my shoulder. Jaxon kept holding my hand. Jett stayed close, his cold presence a constant at my back. They were surrounding me, claiming me, and the whole school was watching.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I could only feel—their touches, their scents, the impossible reality of this moment.

Then a voice cut through everything.

"Leave her alone."

The crowd parted. Mira—Chloe's friend, the one who'd joined her to bully me, stormed toward us, face red with fury. She pointed at me, then at the triplets, then back at me.

"Leave her alone," she repeated, louder this time. "She already has a boyfriend."

The hallway went dead silent again.

Jaden's eyebrow arched. "She does?"

Jaxon's grip on my hand tightened. "Does she now?"

Jett's cold presence at my back went colder. Almost icy.

I opened my mouth to explain, to say that Lysander wasn't my boyfriend anymore, hadn't been since a week now and that he had never really been mine at all.

But Mira wasn't done.

"Lysander! The werewolf alpha's son! They've been together for months! Everyone knows it! She's his! So whatever game you're playing with her, stop. Find your own mate. She's taken."

The triplets looked at me. All three of them. Their eyes were on my face and the whole school held its breath.