Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

Lilith woke up slowly, dragged out of darkness by something pulling at her chest. Not pain exactly. More like an ache. A hook lodged beneath her ribs tugging insistently, demanding her attention.

Her eyes felt heavy and her mouth was dry and everything hurt in a distant fuzzy way that told her she had been unconscious for a long time. She blinked against the light filtering through the curtains and tried to remember where she was.

Nicholas’s room. She was in Nicholas’s bed.

But why?

She tried to sit up and immediately a hand was there, warm and careful on her shoulder.

”Easy. Don’t move too fast.”

Sebastian.

Lilith turned her head and found him sitting in the chair beside the bed, still holding her other hand like he had been there for hours. He looked exhausted...dark circles under his eyes, his hair disheveled, his shirt wrinkled. But when he met her gaze his whole face transformed with relief.

”You’re awake,” he breathed. ”Thank god you’re awake.”

”What...” Her voice came out hoarse and broken. She swallowed and tried again. ”What happened?”

Sebastian didn’t answer immediately. Instead he reached for the glass of water on the nightstand and helped her drink, one hand supporting the back of her head while she took small careful sips.

When she was done he set the glass aside and she saw him close his eyes briefly and reach for something she could not see. The mindlink. Calling his brothers.

”Sebastian?” Lilith tried to sit up again and this time he helped her, adjusting the pillows behind her back until she was upright. ”What happened to me?”

”What do you remember?” he asked carefully.

Lilith closed her eyes and tried to sort through the fragments in her head. ”I was... I was sleeping. In my room. And then I was walking. But I wasn’t awake. I was dreaming but also not dreaming and there was a voice and....”

The memories scattered like smoke the moment she tried to hold onto them. She remembered the forest. Standing stones glowing silver in the darkness. A voice calling her name but she could not remember whose voice or what it said.

”I don’t know,” she whispered. ”It’s all jumbled. I remember the woods. I remember being cold. But I don’t remember how I got there or why.”

”You walked out of the estate in the middle of the night,” Sebastian said quietly. ”In a trance. Someone called you. Compelled you. We found you six miles into the forest lying unconscious in a clearing.”

Lilith stared at him. ”Six miles?”

”Yes.”

”But I don’t...” She pressed her hands to her face and tried to breathe through the panic rising in her chest. ”I don’t remember any of that. I don’t remember leaving. I don’t remember getting there. I just remember fragments and dreams and nothing makes sense.”

Sebastian took her hand again and squeezed gently. ”It’s okay. You’re safe now. You’re here. That’s what matters.”

The door opened and Nicholas walked in with Lucian right behind him. Both of them looked like they had not slept either, Nicholas’s jaw was tight and his silver eyes were shadowed, and Lucian’s whole body was vibrating with barely contained tension.

”Lilith,” Nicholas said, and his voice was rough with relief. ”How do you feel?”

”Confused,” she said honestly. ”And scared. And I don’t understand what’s happening.”

Nicholas moved to the other side of the bed and sat on the edge, close enough that she could feel the bond between them humming warm and steady. It was the only thing that felt solid right now. The only thing that made sense.

Except there was something else.

Lilith’s hand went to her chest where the ache was still pulling at her, and then her fingers drifted up to her throat. She touched the mark Nicholas had left weeks ago.....healed now but still sensitive. And then her fingers found the second mark.

She froze.

The mark was on the opposite side of her throat from Nicholas’s. Fresh. Still healing. And the moment she touched it the ache in her chest flared sharp and insistent and she gasped.

”What...” She looked at Sebastian with wide eyes. ”What is this?”

Sebastian’s expression was pained. ”I marked you.”

”When?” she asked.

”Last night. While you were unconscious.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together tightly. ”You were trapped in the dream. You were dying. The pack doctor said we needed another bond to pull you back. So I marked you.”

Lilith’s fingers were still on the mark and she could feel it now....the bond trying to form, incomplete and aching and pulling at her in a way that was different from Nicholas’s completed bond. This one felt wrong. Unfinished. Like a conversation cut off mid-sentence.

”Why does it feel like this?” she whispered. ”Why does it hurt?”

Sebastian’s jaw tightened. ”Because you rejected it.”

”What?”

”I tried to complete the mark while you were unconscious. But your body or whatever is inside you, rejected it. You wouldn’t let me claim you while you couldn’t consent. So the bond started but it didn’t finish.” He met her eyes and she saw fear there, raw and desperate. ”It’s incomplete. And it’s going to stay incomplete unless you choose to let me finish it.”

Lilith pulled her hand away from the mark and pressed both hands to her chest where the incomplete bond was aching. ”I don’t... I don’t understand. What am I?”

A moment of silence passed across the room.

She looked between the three brothers and saw them exchange glances, having some silent conversation she was not part of.

”Tell me,” she demanded, and her voice broke. ”Please. What is happening to me?”

Nicholas reached for her hand and she let him take it. ”We don’t think you’re entirely wolfless, Lilith. Something else is happening to you. Something we don’t fully understand yet.”

Lilith felt her chest tighten. ”Does this have to do with the cracked floor and the shattered window I saw when I woke up after you marked me?”