Rejected By My Mate; Claimed By Lycan Quadruplets Chapter 176

Third person POV

The afternoon sun slanted through the curtains in Lisa’s bedroom, washing the floor with pale golden stripes. The house was unusually quiet, except for the faint scuffle of small feet padding down the hallway.

Elias, Aria, Kael, and Lyra had been playing hide and seek, but like most of their games, it had quickly turned into something else entirely. Elias, the self-proclaimed leader, tiptoed ahead, his tousled dark hair bouncing with each step.

“Shhh, you guys are too loud,” he whispered, turning around dramatically with his finger pressed to his lips.

“We’re not loud, you’re loud,” Aria shot back, crossing her tiny arms. She always had that stubborn tilt to her chin, just like Lisa did when she was determined to win an argument.

Lyra, the smallest and most observant of the four, tugged Kael’s sleeve and pointed to the slightly open door of their mother’s room. “Look. Mommy left the door open. That never happens.”

The statement alone was enough to draw all their attention. Mommy never left her room untidy, much less with the door ajar. Elias’s eyes gleamed with the thrill of an adventure.

“That means treasure,” he announced.

Kael raised a skeptical brow—though at five, his skeptical brow mostly looked like a scrunched-up face. “Or trouble. Remember last time we touched her lipstick?”

Lyra giggled at the memory. They’d looked like painted clowns for hours until Lisa had walked in, gasped, and chased them straight to the bathroom.

“This time it’s different,” Elias insisted. “We’re spies. We need to investigate.”

Without waiting for permission, he pushed the door wider and slipped inside. The others exchanged glances—half nervous, half thrilled—then followed.

Lisa’s room smelled faintly of lavender and books. On the dresser, neatly stacked jewelry boxes glittered, but it was the drawer slightly pulled out at the bottom of the bedside table that caught Aria’s sharp eyes.

“There,” she whispered, pointing. “Something’s sticking out.”

Sure enough, the corner of a leather-bound book poked out from the drawer. Elias darted forward and tugged it free, his little hands struggling with the weight.

“It’s Mommy’s diary!” Lyra gasped, covering her mouth with both hands.

“We shouldn’t read that,” Kael said immediately, shaking his head. “It’s private.”

Aria tilted her head. “But what if it has secrets? Grown-up secrets. Like… like where she hides the cookies.”

Elias grinned and flopped onto the bed, opening the book without hesitation. “Then let’s find out.”

The first few pages were filled with Lisa’s neat handwriting, but what really caught their attention were the photos tucked between the pages. One slipped free and fluttered to the floor. Lyra picked it up carefully.

The photo showed a man with sharp, regal features and piercing eyes. Elias leaned over her shoulder. “Whoa. Who’s that?”

Aria plucked another from the book—this one of a man with a softer smile but the same unmistakable strength in his build. Then another photo appeared, and another.

Soon the bed was scattered with four photographs, each of them portraying a different man: Alpha Enzo, Beta Ash, Gamma Kael, and Delta Atlas.

The children stared in stunned silence.

Aria blinked first. “They… they look like us.”

Kael frowned, staring hard at the photo of Atlas. He touched his own nose, then the picture. “Wait. That’s my nose! Look at it! It’s pointy just like mine.”

Lyra gasped and clutched the photo of Ash. “This one has my smile. See? His mouth is like mine when I do the smiley thing.” She stretched her lips wide, mimicking it until the others giggled.

Elias snatched Enzo’s picture, holding it up beside his own face with great seriousness. “Look at the eyes. They’re the same. Totally the same. That means this guy is my dad.”

Aria pointed accusingly. “No fair! If you get him, then who do I get?” She snatched Atlas’s picture from Kael. “This one has my hair. It’s all wavy like mine. So he’s my dad.”

Kael looked outraged. “But I already claimed him! You can’t just steal him!”

Aria smirked. “Finders keepers.”

The argument quickly spiraled into all four of them comparing features, pointing out similarities that may or may not have been real. Elias claimed Enzo’s serious frown was exactly like his when he was mad about bedtime. Lyra insisted Ash’s soft eyes were hers because they both looked like they were always about to laugh.

Kael, unwilling to give up Atlas, declared that Atlas’s jawline was the same as his when he chewed too hard on candy. Aria, not to be left out, argued that she and Atlas both tilted their heads the same way when they were thinking.

“Okay, okay,” Elias said, trying to regain control. “So that means… these men are our dads.”

The room went quiet at the bold declaration. Four pairs of wide eyes blinked at each other.

Lyra whispered, “All of them?”

Elias shrugged, looking very proud of himself. “Why not? Maybe we each have one.”

“But Mommy never told us,” Kael said slowly, his voice almost a whisper. “Why wouldn’t she tell us about our dads?”

Aria, always the dramatic one, gasped. “What if they’re enemies? What if Mommy’s hiding us so they don’t fight?”

Lyra’s little mouth dropped open. “Like in those stories where the knights fight for the princess!”

The four of them scrambled closer together, excitement bubbling now that the initial shock had worn off.

Elias nodded seriously. “Then it’s our mission to make them stop fighting.”

“But how?” Kael asked. “They’re grown-ups. Grown-ups don’t listen.”

Aria bounced on the bed, her pigtails flying. “We make a plan! We can do sneaky things. Like… lock them in a room together until they become friends!”

Lyra clapped her hands, delighted. “Yes! And we can give them cookies so they don’t get mad.”

Elias rubbed his chin the way he’d seen adults do when plotting something important. “We’ll need to spy on them first. See how they act around Mommy. Then we can figure out who likes her the most.”

“Wait,” Kael interrupted, frowning. “What if Mommy gets mad at us for snooping?”

The thought made them all pause. Mommy rarely got truly angry, but when she did—like the lipstick incident—they remembered it clearly.

“We won’t tell her,” Aria decided firmly. “It’s a surprise. We’re helping her.”

Lyra looked down at Ash’s photo and whispered, “I just want Mommy to be happy.”

The words softened them all for a moment. They stared at the pictures again, the childish excitement giving way to a deeper longing they couldn’t quite name.

Elias cleared his throat and puffed his chest. “Then it’s settled. Operation Mommy-and-Daddies begins now.”

“Operation what?” Kael asked, confused.

“It’s the code name,” Elias said proudly. “All important missions have code names.”

Aria rolled her eyes but smiled. “Fine. But I’m the one who makes the rules.”

“No way, I’m the leader,” Elias shot back.

“Nu-uh, I’m the oldest girl so I should decide,” Aria argued.

“You’re the bossy one, not the leader!” Elias countered.

While the two bickered, Lyra quietly gathered the photos back into the diary, her small hands careful not to bend the corners. She tucked the diary under her arm and looked at Kael, who seemed less interested in arguing and more interested in the mission itself.

“What do we do first?” she whispered.

Kael’s eyes lit up. “We watch. We find out which one visits Mommy the most. Then we tell the others. And then…” He trailed off, a mischievous smile spreading. “Then we trap them.”

“Trap them where?” Lyra asked, half nervous, half thrilled.

Kael’s grin widened. “In the kitchen. With cookies.”

Elias and Aria stopped bickering long enough to burst out laughing.

“That’s the worst trap ever,” Elias said between giggles. “But… also kind of genius.”

The four of them dissolved into laughter, the kind that made their bellies ache and their eyes water. For a moment, they forgot about the secrecy of the diary, forgot about the possibility of being caught. They were just children, giddy with a new secret and the belief that they could fix the world with plans and cookies.

When the laughter finally subsided, Elias clutched Enzo’s photo close to his chest. “Don’t worry, Mommy. We’ll help you. We’ll make sure you and our daddies get along.”

The others nodded solemnly, sealing their pact with wide-eyed determination.

Outside the room, the sun dipped lower, shadows stretching long across the floor. The diary lay closed again, hiding its truths within, but in the hearts of four little children, a mission had already begun.