Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

Chapter 144: You Don’t Belong To Shadowmere Pack Anymore

He moved toward her, and his intensity was suffocating. "You don’t belong to Shadowmere Pack anymore. You belong to us."

Nicholas raised his hand. "Brother." One word, but it carried the full weight of alpha authority, the full force of command. Lucian stopped, his body rigid, his eyes still blazing gold. He shook his head, frustrated, desperate. He turned away, his jaw clenched so tight his whole face seemed carved from stone.

Nicholas stepped forward. His presence filled the space between them like gravity itself had shifted. "We would give you till tomorrow morning," his voice controlled, deliberate, measured like a judge delivering a sentence. "To give us your response."

He paused, and in that pause was the weight of everything, the full moon, the curse, the desperation.

"We leave for Blackwood Pack in three days’ time," he continued. "And you are coming with us."

"I haven’t agreed to that," she said, her voice trying to be strong, trying to be defiant. But there was fear beneath it, seeping through the cracks. "I never accepted that I will be going back with you. I never said yes to that."

Nicholas looked straight into her eyes. His silver gaze was cold, And there was no room for negotiation in that look. There was no room for choice. There was only his absolute declaration.

"It has been decided," he said quietly. "You are coming with us. You are our mate. So you should stay wherever we are."

A bitter smile played at her lips. She looked away, unable to hold his gaze any longer. "So are you saying I don’t get a choice in this?" Her voice was hollow, haunted. "I can’t even decide what is going to happen to me again? I can’t even decide my own fate?"

The question carried the weight of every choice that had been taken from her. The blood debt. The contract. The months of being powerless. The way her entire life had been decided by other people’s needs, demands and other people’s judgments.

Sebastian stepped forward. His voice was warm, persuasive, gentle in a way that almost hurt. "He’s saying it for your own good, Lilith," he said. "Come with us. Let us show you what having us as your mate looks like. Let us show you what being loved by an alpha...by three alphas....actually means."

His hand reached out, offering comfort. Offering possession. Offering a future she didn’t know if she wanted but was beginning to understand she couldn’t refuse.

She moved back from all of them. The space between her and them seemed to grow, but she knew it was an illusion. There was nowhere to go. There was no escaping this.

She looked at Nicholas. "I will give you my response tomorrow morning," she said, her voice steady now. Resigned. Accepting of the inevitable.

"Go ahead and think about it," Nicholas said, his voice almost kind. Almost gentle. "But know that the decision has been made already."

He paused, and the weight of that settled over her like a blanket she couldn’t throw off.

"I suggest you start saying your goodbyes from this evening," he continued, his voice dropping lower. "And most especially to your mother. Visit her. Spend time with her. Tell her whatever you need to tell her."

The implication was clear. After tomorrow, everything changes. You leave. You don’t come back. Not the same way. Not ever the same way.

She looked at him. She knew that arguing would not yield any result. That resistance was futile against their absolute certainty. That fighting them was like fighting the tide, inevitable and exhausting and ultimately pointless.

She bowed, the gesture coming naturally, the product of months of being told her place in the world. Submission. Acceptance. Defeat. "Yes, Alpha. I’ll do that."

She turned and walked away from them. Walking toward the door. Walking away from the weight of their gazes. Walking toward her last few nights in Shadowmere.

The door closed softly behind her.

The brothers remained. Staring at the closed door. At the space where she had been standing. Understanding that they had just set something in motion. That they had just claimed what was always meant to be theirs.

Lucian was the first to speak, his voice raw. "She’s going to see her mother."

"She needs to," Nicholas said, and there was something almost tender in his voice. "She needs to say goodbye. She needs to understand that this isn’t a punishment. It’s her destiny."

Sebastian was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was thoughtful. "We lied to her about the investigation. We both know we can’t clear her father’s name."

Nicholas didn’t respond immediately. He walked to the window, looking out at the Shadowmere compound stretching below them. "The lie will hold until she’s bonded. Until she’s ours completely. Then the truth won’t matter. We’ll be her world. We’ll be all she needs."

"And if she finds out?" Sebastian asked. "If she discovers we manipulated her with that promise?"

Nicholas turned from the window, his silver eyes cold and certain. "Then we will deal with it. But she belongs to us. She’s our mate. Nothing else matters."

Lucian growled low, his eyes still gold, still wild. "The full moon is in eleven days."

"We know," Nicholas said. He looked at both his brothers, and in his gaze was the weight of everything they were about to do. The claiming. The bonding. "We’ll leave in three days. We’ll complete the bond at Blackwood on the full moon."

"She won’t be ready," Sebastian said.

"She doesn’t have to be," Nicholas replied. "She’s ours. She was always ours. She just doesn’t understand it yet."

The brothers fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts. Outside the window, Shadowmere was beginning to settle into evening. Somewhere in the compound, Lilith was walking toward the medical wing. Toward her mother. Toward the last few goodbyes she would be making to the life she’d known, because she doesn’t know the next time they would allow her to visit Shadowmare again.