Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

He stepped aside without a word and she walked past him into the room. It was larger than hers, darker, with heavy furniture and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the forest. The bed was unmade, and there was a half-empty glass of whiskey on the nightstand.

Sebastian closed the door and turned to face her, leaning back against it with his arms crossed. "You should be sleeping."

"So should you." she replied, looking at him

"Rhen won’t let me."

"The bond won’t let me either." She wrapped her arms around herself. "It pulls at me when you’re this close but not close enough. I don’t know how to explain it."

"You don’t have to explain it. I feel it too." He pushed off the door and walked past her toward the bed, sitting down on the edge and running his hands through his hair. "Three more days and it will stop. The bond will complete and the ache will go away."

Lilith walked over and sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. "Are you scared?"

"Terrified."

She looked at him in surprise. Sebastian was always so controlled, so certain, and hearing him admit fear so openly made something in her chest loosen.

"Why?" she asked.

"Just because.....’’

He reached out and took her hand, threading his fingers through hers. "Come here."

He pulled her with him as he lay back on the bed, settling her against his chest with his arm around her shoulders. Lilith pressed her face into his neck and breathed him in....pine and smoke and something uniquely Sebastian.

They lay like that in silence for a while, just holding each other, before Lilith finally spoke.

"Tell me something."

"Like what?"

"Anything. I want to know you. Not just the Alpha, not just the bond. I want to know Sebastian."

He was quiet for so long she thought he was not going to answer, but then his hand started stroking slowly through her hair and he said, "What do you want to know?"

"What were you like as a child?"

He huffed out a quiet laugh. "Trouble. I was always in trouble."

"Why?"

"Because Nicholas was too serious and Lucian was too wild and I was stuck in the middle trying to keep both of them from killing each other." His fingers traced absent patterns against her scalp. "Nicholas was always the responsible one. The one who did everything right, who followed the rules, who made our father proud. Lucian was the chaos. He did whatever he wanted and dealt with the consequences later. And I was the mediator. The one who covered for Lucian when he snuck out and the one who got Nicholas to actually relax once in a while."

Lilith smiled against his chest. "That sounds exhausting."

"It was. But I wouldn’t change it." He paused. "Most of it anyway."

After a while Sebastian asked, "What about you? What were you like as a child?"

Lilith had to think about it. Her childhood felt like a lifetime ago, buried under years of struggle and loss. "Quiet, I think. My father was always working and my mother was always worried about him. I spent a lot of time alone, reading and wandering the pack lands.

"That must have been hard."

"It was." She traced her fingers over his chest absently.

"What did you want to be when you grew up?" he asked. "Before everything fell apart."

Lilith smiled at the question. "A teacher. I wanted to teach young wolves how to read and write. Help the ones who struggled the way I did."

"You still could."

"Maybe." She shifted slightly to look up at him. "What about you? Did you ever want to be anything other than an Alpha?"

"No. Being Alpha was always the plan. It’s what we were born for." He paused. "But sometimes I wondered what it would be like to just be Sebastian. Not the middle triplet, not the cursed Alpha, not the one responsible for an entire pack. Just... me."

"You’re just you right now," she said softly. "With me. No pack. No curse. Just Sebastian."

He looked down at her and something in his expression shifted, became softer. "Yeah. I guess I am."

"Tell me something else," she said. "Something good. A happy memory."

Sebastian thought for a moment and then smiled slightly. "There was this one summer when we were maybe twelve or thirteen. Lucian convinced Nicholas and me to sneak out past curfew and go swimming in the lake on the north border. Nicholas said no at first because obviously it was against the rules, but Lucian kept pushing and eventually I sided with him just to see Nicholas actually break a rule for once."

"Did he?" she asked.

"He did. We snuck out at midnight and ran all the way to the lake and jumped in fully clothed. The water was freezing and Lucian was being an idiot, splashing everyone and diving under to grab our legs. Nicholas was trying to pretend he was not having fun but he was laughing harder than I had ever heard him laugh." Sebastian’s smile grew. "Then our father found us."

Lilith gasped. "Oh no."

"Oh yes. He was furious. Dragged all three of us back to the estate dripping wet and made us run laps until dawn as punishment." He shook his head. "But it was worth it. That was the last time I saw Nicholas really laugh before the curse came."

"Do you think he’ll laugh like that again?"

"Maybe. When this is all over. When the curse breaks and we can just... breathe." His hand stroked through her hair again. "I want that for him. For all of us."

"You’ll have it," Lilith said firmly. "Three more days for you. Two weeks after that for Lucian. And then the curse breaks and you get your lives back."

"And what do you get?" he asked her.

She looked up at him. "What do you mean?"

"You came to us because you wanted to pay off your father’s death debt. You didn’t ask for any of this....the bond, the marking, three cursed Alphas who can barely keep themselves together. What do you get out of it?"

Lilith thought about it. What did she get? She got a bond she did not understand with three men who terrified and fascinated her in equal measure. She got a pack that did not fully accept her. She got secrets and danger and power she could not control.

But she also got this. Quiet moments in the dark with Sebastian’s arms around her and his heartbeat steady under her ear. She got Nicholas taking her to the waterfall when she was falling apart. She got Lucian looking at her like she was the only thing keeping him sane.

"I get you," she said finally. "All three of you, I get to clear my father’s name, and maybe that’s enough."

Sebastian’s arms tightened around her and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "You’re too good for us."

"Maybe. But you’re stuck with me now."

He laughed quietly. "Yeah. We are."

Somewhere around three in the morning Lilith’s words started to slur and her eyes kept drifting shut. Sebastian pulled the blanket over both of them and shifted so she was more comfortable against his chest.

"Sleep," he murmured. "I’ve got you."

Lilith fell asleep to the sound of his heartbeat and the steady warmth of his hand stroking through her hair, and for the first time in weeks she slept dreamlessly.

Sebastian stayed awake long after she was gone, staring at the ceiling with her weight warm and perfect against him, and counted down the hours until he could finally make her his.

Three days.

Seventy-two hours.

And then everything would change.

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