Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

It was always the first one that was the worst.

Lucian felt his bones restructuring, his jaw locked against the sound that tried to come out of him.

”Lucian.” Finn called his name but Lucian couldn’t answer.

The warmth was in his shoulders now. His spine. The restructuring coming fast and not gently the way a controlled shift came, this was Zev taking what he wanted regardless of what Lucian could manage, the wolf’s body making the decision the man was trying to refuse.

His back arched away from the wall.

The wrist chains pulled taut.

”Hold him,” Nicholas said. Somewhere to Lucian’s right.

Finn’s hands came down on Lucian’s shoulders.

Not to hurt. To anchor. To give Lucian’s body something to press against that was not the wall, not the chains and definitely not the direction Zev was trying to take him.

Lucian pressed back.

The warmth reached his legs. His jaw. The bones of his face beginning to shift, his vision started changing....the room going sharper, the shadows resolving into detail, the smells in the room becoming something vast and specific and overwhelming.

He could smell her.

Even here. Even this far away. He could smell her through the stone and the distance and the two floors between them.

Lilith.

Asleep. Warm. His.

Zev lunged.

The chain on his left wrist snapped taut and held.

The chain on his right wrist snapped taut and....cracked.

Not broke. Cracked. A sound like a gunshot in the stone room.

”The right chain is compromised!” Callum said immediately. He was already moving toward Lucian.

Finn threw his full weight against Lucian’s right side.

”Lucian.” Nicholas’s voice. Right in his ear now. ”Listen to me. She is safe. Callum’s man is at her door. She is safe and she is asleep and she does not know any of this is happening.” A pause. ”You do not want to frighten her. You know that. You know Zev does not want to frighten her.”

Lucian heard it.

Some part of him heard it.

The part that was still Lucian and not Zev, that small cold clear part that had been shrinking for the last twenty minutes heard it and held onto it with every strong will he could hold on to at that moment.

Zev heard it too.

The lunging slowed, It did not stop. But it slowed down

”She is safe,” Nicholas said again this time he said it calmly ”She is safe and she is ours and she will still be there in the morning. She is not going anywhere.”

The warmth in Lucian’s bones began.....very slowly, very grudgingly.....to recede.

Not a retreat, but more like a pause.

Zev pausing at the edge of what Lucian was showing him.

”She will still be there in the morning,” Lucian said to him. Repeating his brother’s words. ”She is not going anywhere. She is ours and we are keeping her and she will still be there.”

Zev went silent.

The chain on the right wrist held.

Finn didn’t move his weight from Lucian’s side.

Lucian’s back came back to the wall slowly.

The warmth in his bones pulled back to his hands. His wrists. His fingertips.

He was still midshift, something that had never happened to Lucian before.

Outside the pack ran and the sound of wolfs could be heard.

The howls came in waves....close and then receding and then close again.

The fire threw orange light against the sky that was visible even through the small high window of the lower room.

Nicholas sat against his wall and kept his eyes open and counted.

Kael pressed against the anchor of the bond. Not trying to break it. Just trying to make it known that he was still present.

Sebastian had not moved.

His face was still pressed against the fabric in his hand. His breathing steady. His eyes still closed. Every time a howl came from outside his jaw tightened slightly and then released.

Rhen was in there.

Running the inside of Sebastian’s chest the way a caged animal ran a cage....the same circuit, over and over.

Lucian was the stillest of all of them now.

His half-shifted hands on the chains. His eyes open but not entirely focused on anything in the room. Zev still present in every line of him but no longer lunging.

Finn had not moved from his side.

The night outside peaked and began to turn.

The howls started coming less frequently.

The fire light against the sky dimmed slightly as the pack began returning to themseves, the sounds of a community coming back from something and finding their human shapes again.

Nicholas watched the moonlight column on the floor move past the centre.

Move toward the far wall.

The moon was descending.

Kael felt it.

The pressure in Nicholas’s chest did not lift entirely, the curse did not work that way, did not simply turn off, but it eased. The way a hand loosened its grip. Still there. Still present. But not the crushing weight of the peak.

He looked at his brothers.

Sebastian had lowered the fabric from his face.

Was sitting with his head back against the stone and his eyes open, but his breathing was almost normal. His hands still on the chains but the knuckles no longer white.

He turned his head and looked at Nicholas.

”Is she is still asleep?” Sebastian asked

Nicholas checked the bond.

Lilith’s unique warmth....distant, quiet. She had not stirred. Had not woken. Had not felt any of this.

”Yes,” Nicholas replied

Sebastian exhaled and looked at the ceiling.

”Good,” he said.

Nicholas looked at Lucian.

Lucian was looking at the window.

At the moonlight that was no longer a column on the floor but a patch climbing the far wall as the moon descended.

”Lucian,” Nicholas called out

Lucian turned his head and looked at Nicholas.

His eyes were his own again.

Golden. Not the blown feral gold of Zev. Just Lucian looking exhausted.

”I am here,” Lucian said.

”Good,” Nicholas said.

Finn exhaled quietly beside him.

The three of them sat in the stone room as the moon continued its descent and the sounds of the pack outside settled into the sound of people finding their way back to ordinary things.

Nicholas looked at the cracked chain on Lucian’s right wrist.

Looked at Finn.

Finn caught the look.

”Get that replaced tomorrow,” Nicholas said through the mindlink. ”All six sets. I want them all checked and any weakness replaced before next month.”

”Yes Alpha,” Finn replied.

Nicholas pressed his head back against the stone and closed his eyes.

Let himself have one moment of something that was not quite rest but was the closest thing to it he had felt in hours.

And above them, two floors up, through stone and distance and the fading pull of the full moon, their mate slept on undisturbed and safe.

Because they had chosen that.

Because it was the only thing tonight that had looked like love and they had chosen it anyway to keep her safe from them.