Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

Chapter 178: The Three Months Deadline

Sebastian and Lucian found Nicholas exactly where they expected, behind his desk, though he hadn’t moved from that position since the night before, judging by the state of the room. The curse documents were still spread across the polished surface, exactly as he’d left them. The whiskey glass sat empty beside them, and a second, half-full, suggested he’d poured himself another sometime in the early hours.

The fire had burned down to embers, casting the office in dim orange light despite the morning sun trying to filter through the curtains he hadn’t bothered to open.

Neither of them said anything as they entered. They didn’t need to. Nicholas’s stillness told them everything, the particular quality of his silence that meant something significant was about to be discussed.

Sebastian took the chair across from the desk. Lucian remained standing, arms crossed, gold eyes already sharp with the residual tension from the day before.

"You wanted to see us," Sebastian said.

Nicholas’s silver eyes moved between them slowly, and when he finally spoke, his voice carried the particular calm that meant he’d spent hours preparing exactly what he was about to say.

"We wait," he said simply. "That’s my decision. We do not accelerate the timeline. We do not mark her before she is genuinely ready."

Lucian’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing, waiting for the explanation he knew was coming.

"We owe her that much," Nicholas continued. "The choice to bond with us needs to be genuine. Not driven by whatever the mate bond is doing to her body, to her instincts. She doesn’t even fully understand what’s happening to her yet, the pull she feels, the confusion, the way her body responds to us even when her mind is telling her to be afraid. That’s not choice. That’s biology working against her better judgment."

He paused, his gaze settling on Sebastian specifically, though there was no accusation in it. "What happened yesterday in the library, that wasn’t her choosing you. That was the bond overwhelming both of you simultaneously. If we mistake that for genuine willingness, we’re lying to ourselves about what she actually wants."

Sebastian’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue.

"I don’t blame her for her hesitation," Nicholas continued, his voice quieter now. "I don’t blame her for the fear that still lives underneath everything else she’s feeling. We didn’t treat her right the first time she came to us. We took what we wanted and called it payment for a debt, and we broke her in the process." His silver eyes hardened slightly. "She has every reason not to trust us completely, and rushing this because our control is failing isn’t going to fix that."

The room fell into silence. Outside, the morning continued its ordinary business. birds calling in the gardens, the distant sound of estate staff beginning their day. But inside the office, something heavier had settled over the space, something that made even Lucian’s restless energy still for a moment.

"If there’s anything I understand about the curse," Nicholas said finally, "it’s that our mate must be willing. Genuinely willing. There has to be real connection, real trust, real..." He paused, searching for the word, though all three of them knew what he meant. "Real love. Or else the curse remains."

He looked between his brothers, his expression unreadable. "And we do not have time to waste."

He opened his mouth as if to continue, then stopped himself, his jaw working silently. Something passed behind his silver eyes, something that looked like hesitation and calculation.

Sebastian caught it immediately. He leaned forward in his chair, his dark eyes narrowing. "There’s still something you aren’t telling us, brother." His voice was quiet but firm. "So please. Talk."

Nicholas was silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice carried a weight neither of his brothers had heard from him before, not the calculated calm of strategy, but something rawer, something that suggested he’d been holding this alone for far longer than either of them realized.

"Two years ago," he said slowly, "I had a discussion with Father. It was the night of our birthday, the last conversation we had about the curse before he died." He paused, his eyes distant, clearly reliving the memory. "He’d been drinking more than usual that night. More reflective than I’d ever seen him."

Lucian’s restless energy was stilled completely now, and he leaned forward, his full attention locked on his brother.

"He told me something," Nicholas continued. "Something he said he should have told us years before, but he’d been putting off because he didn’t want to burden us with it before it became necessary." He took a slow breath. "He told me that if we ever found our mate, we would need to mark her and complete the bond within three months of finding her."

He paused, letting the words settle in the room like smoke.

"Or else we’ll start going feral."

The silence that followed was absolute.

Then Lucian shot out of his chair with such force that it scraped hard against the floor, the sound sharp in the quiet office. He stood directly in front of Nicholas’s desk, his gold eyes blazing, his entire body radiating disbelief and fury.

"What?" His voice cracked on the single word, raw with shock.

Sebastian was on his feet a moment later, his composure cracking for the first time since he’d entered the office. "Yes..." His voice was tight, controlled fury bleeding through every syllable. "Yes, brother. What the fuck did you just say?"

Nicholas raised his eyes slowly, meeting first Lucian’s gaze, then Sebastian’s, moving between his brothers’ faces with the kind of deliberate care that suggested he needed them to fully absorb what he was about to repeat.

"Father said if we do not mark and fully bond with our mate within three months of meeting her," he said, his voice steady despite the weight of the words, "the curse will start eating us up from the inside. Faster than it already has been. We would go completely feral within three months if we do not complete the bond."

He let that settle for a moment before continuing, his voice dropping lower.

"Completely feral. Not the partial loss of control we’ve experienced so far. Not four lost hours or a destroyed training dummy or a night locked in the cellar. Complete. Permanent. The wolf taking over entirely, with no path back to who we were before."

Nicholas stood then, moving away from his desk, his hands finding the pockets of his trousers as he walked toward the window overlooking the estate grounds. He kept his back to his brothers as he spoke, his voice carrying across the office with quiet finality.

"So we need her willing. We need her to accept us....genuinely, completely, without the fear and manipulation that’s defined everything between us so far. We need to gain her trust." He paused. "And then we complete the bond as soon as possible. But not before she’s ready. Not before it’s real."

Behind him, Sebastian dropped back into his chair, his elbows finding his knees, his face falling into his hands. When he spoke, his voice was muffled, disbelieving.

"So we’re not only facing the issue of winning back her trust and acceptance," he said. "We’re also facing a deadline. A freaking three-month deadline."