Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

Chapter 226: Sebastian’s frustration

Like standing outside a room with warmth and light spilling under the door and knowing you were not inside it yet.

Soon, Sebastian told him.

Rhen said nothing.

Nicholas killed the engine.

Ans he watched as Lilith climbed off the bike and her eyes found him immediately. She had always done that. Always found him in a room faster than she found the others. He had never said anything about it but he had noticed every single time.

She looked at him with those dark eyes that saw more than she let on.

He made himself look at Nicholas instead.

The brothers looked at each other for a long moment.

Nothing said, but everything said.

"She is mine," Nicholas said through the link, in a way that sounded more like a threat than a declaration.

"I know," Sebastian replied back. "But she is also mine. And you know that."

Nicholas held his gaze for one moment.

Then looked away.

Sebastian looked back at Lilith.

Her eyes went to his face and he watched her try to read him the way she always tried to read him.

He made his face as neutral as he could make it.

"You’re back," he said instead.

"Yes," she said.

He nodded, looked at her mark one more time.

The he looked away and went inside before he did something none of them were ready for yet.

***

He went straight to the training room.

It was the only place that made sense right now. The only place where he could put his body to work hard enough that his mind had to focus on something other than the pull in his chest and Rhen pressing and the image of Lilith’s face when she looked at him from the bottom of those steps.

He worked for two hours.

Weights first. Then the bag. Then sparring drills against the wall pads until his knuckles were raw and his shoulders burned and he was breathing hard enough that he had to stop.

It didn’t help.

He stood in the middle of the training room with his hands on his knees catching his breath. Rhen pacing in circles inside him like a wolf in a too-small cage.

He thought honestly. Clearly. Without the filter of Nicholas’s logic or his own attempts at patience.

He could not do this much longer.

He had known it for weeks. Had said it to Nicholas. It’s only a matter of time. Nicholas had looked at him with those calculating silver eyes and told him that he knows the rules. Like rules were the thing that governed what happened between mates.

Rules.

As if Rhen cared about rules.

As if the bond cared about rules.

As if the thing that happened in his chest every time Lilith walked into a room could be managed with rules.

He straightened up.

Reached for the water bottle on the bench.

Drank half of it without stopping.

"You need to go to her," Rhen said.

"I know." Sebastian replied,

"Not later. Now!" Rhen snaped

"I know." Sebastian replied.

"Sebastian." Rhen’s voice was different now. Not demanding. Not pressing. Just honest. The way Rhen was always honest even when Sebastian didn’t want him to be. "She felt you this morning. When she came back. I felt her feel us. She doesn’t know what it is yet but she felt it."

Sebastian went still.

"She felt us?" He asked.

Yes, Rhen said. The bond is already there. It has always been there. We just "haven’t claimed it yet."

Sebastian set the water bottle down.

Stood there for a moment in the quiet training room with sweat cooling on his skin.

He thought about the first night she was sent to them.

The way she had smelled. Something underneath the fear and the exhaustion. Something clean and warm and entirely her own that had hit him like a physical thing.

He thought about the marking. About Nicholas’s hand around her throat and the sound she made and the way he had moved without thinking. Had been ready to put himself between them should Nicholas spiral out of control. Had been ready to fight his oldest brother without even a moment of hesitation.

He thought about holding her while she cried.

Her face pressed into his chest and her whole body shaking and how she had grabbed his shirt with both hands like he was the only solid thing available.

Nicholas needed to lead. That was how it had always worked. Nicholas first. Then Sebastian. Then Lucian. The order of things. The way the three of them had navigated the world since they were old enough to understand their own dynamic.

But Lilith was not the world.

Lilith was their mate.

And the order of things did not apply to mates.

***

He found her in the kitchen.

He had not planned to go to the kitchen. He had planned to shower and then go to his office and find some piece of work that needed doing that would occupy his hands and his mind for the next several hours until he had gotten himself back under control.

But his feet took him to the kitchen anyway.

She was sitting at the counter with both hands wrapped around a mug of tea. Her dark hair still slightly damp. Her eyes a little distant. The look she got when she was thinking hard about something.

She looked up when he came in.

He went to the kettle.

Made himself a coffee with his back to her. Taking longer than necessary. Buying himself a moment to arrange his face into something that was not what he was actually feeling.

Then he turned around and leaned against the counter across from her.

They looked at each other.

"Did you sleep?" he asked.

"No," she said.

"Neither did I."

A complicated emotion flashed across Lilith’s face. "Sebastian...."

"Don’t," he said quietly. "Don’t apologise. Don’t explain. Lilith"

Lilith closed her mouth, and looked down at her tea.

He looked at her, then at the mark on her throat. At the dark circles under her eyes. At the way she was sitting. Slightly different from how she used to sit. The way she looked more settled somehow. Like something had shifted in her center of gravity overnight.