Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

Lucian stopped pacing and turned to look at Sebastian. "How long can you handle it?"

"I don’t know." Sebastian dropped his hand from his chest and clenched it into a fist at his side. "Days maybe. But not weeks. Not with the curse still active and the bond incomplete and her lying unconscious down the hall."

Nicholas felt the weight of that settle over all of them. Seven weeks until the three months deadline. Two incomplete bonds, one of them now half-finished and aching. And whatever had taken Lilith tonight was still out there.

"We need to talk about what happened," Nicholas said, straightening. "How she ended up six miles into the forest in the middle of the night."

"Victoria," Lucian said immediately. "It has to be Victoria. Who else could compel her like that?"

"Maybe." Nicholas walked around his desk and leaned against the front of it, crossing his arms. "The magic signature in that clearing was old. Powerful. Morvaine magic, certainly. But..."

"But what?" Sebastian asked.

"If it was Victoria, why did she leave Lilith there?" Nicholas looked between his brothers. "Think about it. Victoria hates us. She blames our family for what happened to Lilith’s father and her sister, If she had Lilith in her grasp....truly had her, why would she just leave her lying unconscious in a clearing for us to find?"

Lucian frowned. "You think it was someone else?"

"I don’t know what I think." Nicholas ran a hand through his hair. "From everything I’ve read about Victoria Morvaine, she’s ruthless and single-minded. If she got her hands on her niece, she wouldn’t let her go. She’d take her and disappear and we’d never find them."

"So what are you saying?" Sebastian’s voice was tight. "That Victoria wasn’t there?"

"I’m saying I don’t know." Nicholas pushed off the desk and walked to the map on the wall, staring at the markers he had placed tracking Victoria’s movements over the past weeks. "The magic was old. The compulsion was powerful enough to pull Lilith through our wards and out of the estate without anyone noticing. But the fact that Lilith was left there, alone and unguarded...that doesn’t fit what I know about Victoria."

"Then who?" Lucian demanded.

"I don’t know," Nicholas admitted. "But whoever it was, they did something to Lilith in that clearing. Something we don’t understand yet."

Sebastian’s jaw tightened. "She whispered a name. When we found her. She said ’Morvaine’ and then went unconscious again."

"Which means she knows something now," Nicholas said quietly. "Whoever called her showed her something. Told her something. When she wakes up, she’s going to have questions."

"Questions we can’t avoid anymore," Lucian added.

Nicholas nodded slowly. "We tell her the truth when she wakes up. Not everything....not yet....but enough. We tell her she’s not entirely wolfless. That something else is happening to her. That we need to look into her mother’s side of the family more than we have before."

"And if she asks about What took her?" Sebastian asked.

"We tell her we’re investigating. That we don’t have all the answers yet." Nicholas looked at both his brothers. "Which is true. We don’t know if it was Victoria. We don’t know what Lilith was shown. We don’t know what’s waking up inside her. All we know is that she’s not safe. Not here. Not anywhere. Not until we complete these bonds."

"Which brings us back to the problem," Lucian said. "Sebastian’s bond is half-finished. Mine isn’t started. And we have seven weeks before the curse takes us all."

"Less than that," Nicholas corrected. "We can’t wait seven weeks. Whatever took Lilith tonight could come for her again. And next time we might not get her back."

The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating.

"So what do we do?" Sebastian asked finally.

"We wait for her to wake up," Nicholas said. "We tell her what we can without overwhelming her. And then we ask her to complete your bond as soon as she’s strong enough."

"She’s too weak right now," Sebastian said immediately. "Dr. Aldric said she needs rest. Her body went through hell tonight."

"I know." Nicholas’s voice was firm. "Which is why we wait. But not long. A few days at most. Then we complete your bond. Then we move immediately to Lucian’s marking. We can’t afford to space them out anymore. We’re out of time."

"And if she says no?" Lucian’s question hung in the air like a blade. "If she wakes up and decides she doesn’t want this? Doesn’t want us because we couldn’t protect her?"

Nicholas felt something cold settle in his chest. "Then we respect her choice."

"Even if it kills us?" Sebastian’s voice was barely above a whisper.

"Even then."

Lucian laughed bitterly. "So we just let her walk away? Let the curse take us? After everything?"

"What’s the alternative?" Nicholas challenged. "Force her? Complete the bonds against her will? Keep her here through lies and manipulation and incomplete bonds that she never asked for?" He shook his head. "That’s not keeping her. That’s trapping her. And I won’t do that."

"Neither will I," Sebastian said quietly.

Lucian was silent for a long moment, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, before finally he exhaled roughly. "Fine. We tell her the truth. Or as much of it as we can. And we let her decide."

Nicholas nodded. "When she wakes up. We give her a day to recover. Then we have the conversation."

"And pray she doesn’t run," Lucian muttered.

"And pray she doesn’t run," Nicholas agreed.

Sebastian pushed off from the window and headed toward the door. "I’m going back to her room."

"Sebastian..." Nicholas started calling out to him but Sebastian cut him short.

"I can’t be away from her right now." Sebastian’s voice was strained. "The bond is pulling too hard. I need to be near her even if she’s unconscious. Even if she can’t feel it."

Nicholas understood. He had felt the same pull in the days after Kael marked Lilith, the desperate need to be close to her, to protect her, to make sure she was breathing and safe and his.

"Go," Nicholas said. "We’ll talk more in the morning."

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