Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

Dr Aldric arrived twenty minutes after Lucian’s mindlink.

Silver haired. Broad shouldered. Thirty years of pack medicine behind him. He came down the corridor with his bag and his attendant behind him and looked at the three Alphas waiting outside the door.

Looked at their faces. At the tension sitting in all three of them.

Looked through the open door at Lilith on the bed.

He didn’t ask questions, he Just opened the door and went in.

***

The wait was the worst thing.

Nicholas stood at the window at the end of the corridor. Stared at the grounds below. Kael was still pushing at that wall....harder now, more insistent, like the closer he got to Lilith the more certain he was that something was there on the other side of it that he needed to get to. Nicholas let him push.

Didn’t try to stop him. Just stood there and let it happen and stared at the grounds and taking deep breaths to calm the wolf down.

Through the closed door he could hear movement. Agnes’s voice giving quiet instructions. The sound of water. The attendant coming in and out with fresh bowls of cold water....going in cold, coming out warm, over and over. Clean cloths. Sera’s voice.

In. Out. In. Out.

The bowls warm every time they came out.

Sebastian was pacing. Six steps one way. Six steps back. He’d stopped pretending he wasn’t pacing about fifteen minutes in.

Lucian had his back flat against the wall with his head tipped back and his eyes closed. Not calm. Just containing it. Zev right at the surface of his skin in a way that Lucian clearly didn’t have a full explanation for.

Nobody spoke for a long time.

Then Sebastian stopped pacing.

”She told me she was fine,” he said. To the floor. ”Three days ago. I asked her and she looked me in the eye and said she was fine.”

Nobody answered that.

Because there was nothing to answer. They had all seen it. All of them had watched her moving through the estate these past few days....quieter than usual, flushed, avoiding them in small ways they’d each noticed and none of them had pushed hard enough on.

”We all let it go,” Nicholas said.

Sebastian said nothing.

Lucian also looked at him and said nothing.

The attendant came out with another warm bowl. Exchanged it for a cold one from the stack at the end of the corridor. Went back in without looking at any of them.

Forty minutes passed.

Fifty.

An hour.

The door opened and Dr Aldric came out alone.

He looked at the three of them and Nicholas read his face in one second. Not confused. Not uncertain.

The pack doctor cleared his throat and he turned to look at Nicholas directly and said

”She’s stable. Her pulse is elevated but it’s holding. She’s dehydrated.....she’ll need fluids when she wakes up.”

”The fever,” Nicholas said.

”One hundred and four.” Dr Aldric paused. ”High. But not critical. Not yet.”

”Not yet,” Sebastian said.

”That depends on what happens in the next few hours.” He looked at all three of them. One at a time. Taking his time about it. ”I need to tell you what I found.”

”Then tell us,” Nicholas said.

Dr Aldric was quiet for one moment.

”I’ve been treating this pack for thirty years,” he said. ”I know fever. I know illness. I know injury.” Another pause. ”And I know heat.”

The corridor went very still.

”I have treated four heat cases in this pack in thirty years. I know every symptom. The temperature pattern. The pulse. The scent.” He looked at Nicholas. ”She has every single one. This is not a fever. This is heat.”

None of the brothers said anything for a full thirty seconds.

Sebastian found his voice first. ”She’s wolfless.”

”I know that.”

”She doesn’t have a wolf,” Lucian said. ”She cannot go into heat.”

”I know what she is.” Dr Aldric didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t shift. ”I examined her thoroughly. There is no wolf. I am not telling you she has a wolf. I am telling you that her body is doing something that only happens to she-wolves.” He looked between the three of them. ”I cannot explain how. I have never seen it. But I know heat and I am not wrong.”

The word sat in the corridor between all of them.

”Heat.”

Nicholas said nothing. Kael was pushing so hard at that wall now that Nicholas could feel it like pressure behind his eyes. Something on the other side. Something Kael was completely certain about and couldn’t reach and it was making him frantic in a way he’d never been in years of managing the curse.

”What does she need,” Nicholas said.

Dr Aldric looked at him steadily.

”You know what she needs,” he said. ”The same thing any woman in heat needs. Her mate.” He didn’t soften it. Didn’t dress it up. ”If the heat isn’t broken the temperature keeps climbing. A hundred and five. A hundred and six. It becomes dangerous. It can kill her.”

Lucian pushed off the wall.

Sebastian had gone very still.

”She’s been dealing with this alone for days,” Dr Aldric said. ”Running a heat she didn’t understand with nobody to help her through it.” He picked up his bag.

”I’ll be downstairs. Call me if the temperature rises above a hundred and five.”

He looked at the door to Lilith’s room one last time. ”Don’t make her wait any longer.”

He walked down the corridor.

Mara stepped aside to let him pass.

The three brothers stood there for a brief second, Nobody moved for a moment.

Then Lucian turned and looked at Sebastian.

Sebastian looked him and then back at Nicholas.

Nicholas turned to look at Lilith’s door.

Kael was still pushing at that wall. Harder than ever now. Something on the other side that he needed. Something being kept from him that he was more and more certain he had a right to.

Nicholas put his hand on the door handle and pushed it open.