Page 44 of Red River

Igor blinked, before shouting, "I don’t need care!"

"Really? The alpha boot camps are full of boys who said exactly the same thing."

The silence was heavy.

Then Igor snapped, "Fine! I’ll keep my mouth shut, but don’t expect me to join my brothers in their joyful adoration of Archer!"

"Like I said, I only expect basic respect."

Igor turned, yanked the door open, and stormed into the house. He walked past his brothers, who stared at him with wide eyes, and headed upstairs without grabbing anything to eat.

River was shaking, but followed him inside.

Oliver, who had just finished making breakfast, set a plate on the table and looked at me questioningly.

"Should I take this plate up to him? Let him cool off?"

"No. In this house, we all eat at the same table. If Igor wants to eat, he needs to come down here. Rule number one."

Oliver tilted his head. As a beta, he probably didn’t understand this the same way I did. "The kid’s hurting."

I turned my eyes toward him, and our gazes met.

"The plate stays downstairs."

Oliver immediately looked away—an instinctive behavior for betas. They avoided the alpha's gaze; it was in their nature.

River stayed silent, not commenting. I could see his hands were still shaking. The other boys watched us over their plates, but to my surprise, I didn’t sense any disapproval from them. Instead, they seemed relieved, like they needed someone to restore order.

Soon, they were talking about the lake, swimming to the small islet visible in the distance, and making a trip to the dense forest on the other side.

It felt like they were tired of Igor’s erratic attempts to dominate, which they didn’t accept. River, however, was a more difficult case. He stood by the kitchen counter for a moment.

"River, join us. This breakfast is too good to let it go cold," I said.

He did, and although I could see he had trouble eating, he finished his portion.

"Now, boys! In my house, everyone exercises. I have a gym, but for you, there’s not much equipment. At your age, youshould mostly be doing bodyweight exercises. So, after school, we’ll do short warm-ups, runs, some squats, push-ups, pull-ups, and stretching."

Van looked up at me with excitement. "Cool! I always thought our family didn’t work out enough. And I could use more stretching; it’s good for bouldering. I want to learn how to do a full split!"

"I can give you some pointers." I winked.

"Can you do a split?!" Van’s eyes went wide.

"Van, I’ve practiced martial arts since I was thirteen. I wouldn’t do high kicks without it."

"Wow! So cool!" Van exclaimed, staring at me almost with admiration.

But then something flickered across his face, and he leaned in slightly, almost conspiratorially. "Will Igor be exercising too?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

To lighten the mood, I smiled. "He better! Since he’s the oldest, he’ll be jogging with me every day at 6:30 am."

Aiden chuckled. "Good luck with that. Igor hates exercising! He always skipped PE, and when our dad wanted to send him to corrective exercise classes because his back was getting round from sitting at the computer, he’d hide in the bathroom and play on his phone."

River looked at him. "Really? I thought he liked those classes!"

Aiden puffed out his chest, pleased to know something the rest didn't. "Yeah, he even filmed some of his videos then. He says his most popular short, where he eats house spiders and lets them crawl on his face, was shot when he was skipping those classes."

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