Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

Sebastian nodded. ”We’ll see you tonight.”

She turned toward the door, but Lucian’s voice stopped her. ”Lilith.”

She glanced back.

”Thank you,” he said simply.

She held his gaze for a moment, then nodded once before stepping out into the corridor. The door closed softly behind her.

She stood there for a moment, alone in the hallway, letting herself feel everything she’d been holding back inside that room...the fear, the fragile hope, the strange warmth Lucian’s touch had left behind. She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling her heart still racing beneath her palm.

Three days. Then Blackwood. Then whatever came after that.

She started walking, back toward the kitchens, back toward the last few days of the only life she’d ever known.

***

Behind her, in the room she’d just left, the brothers remained quiet for a long moment after the door closed.

”She said yes,” Lucian said, almost like he needed to hear it out loud to believe it.

”She said yes,” Nicholas confirmed.

Sebastian looked toward the window, toward the morning light filtering through. ”Now we have three days to make sure she doesn’t regret it.”

Nicholas’s jaw tightened faintly. ”Three days,” he repeated. ”And then the lie stays buried until we’re far enough from here that it doesn’t matter.”

None of them said anything else. But the weight of that statement settled over the room like a shadow none of them could quite shake.

***

The morning air was cool as Lilith made her way toward the medical wing, her mind still lingering on everything that had happened in Nicholas’s room. She’d told Dora she needed a few minutes before reporting for breakfast duties, and Dora had let her go without question, though her sharp eyes had lingered a moment too long, like she already sensed something had shifted.

Lilith was passing the courtyard fountain when she heard her name called out.

”Lilith!”

She turned to find Emma jogging to catch up, her uniform straightened this time, her braid neat and pinned. Emma fell into step beside her, glancing at her with obvious curiosity.

”Where are you headed?” Emma asked. ”I thought you’d be at breakfast prep by now.”

”To see my mother,” Lilith said. ”Before the day gets away from me again.”

Emma hesitated only a moment before adjusting her path to match Lilith’s. ”I’ll come with you. I was on my way to the assembly anyway, but I have a few minutes.”

Lilith glanced at her, grateful in a way she didn’t have words for. ”You don’t have to.”

”I know I don’t,” Emma said simply. ”I want to.”

They walked the rest of the way together in comfortable quiet, the kind that only existed between people who’d known each other long enough not to need constant conversation. When they reached the medical wing, the same night healer was just finishing her shift, nodding at them both as she passed toward the exit.

Cassandra looked the same as always...still, peaceful, breathing slow and even beneath the thin blanket. Lilith pulled the chair close and sat, and Emma took the small stool on the other side of the bed, reaching out to gently touch Cassandra’s hand.

”Hi, Mrs Cassandra,” Emma said softly. ”It’s Emma. I don’t know if you remember me, but Lilith talks about you all the time.”

Lilith felt her throat tighten watching Emma speak so gently, so naturally, to a woman who couldn’t respond. She reached for her mother’s other hand, holding it the way she had the night before.

”I told her,” Lilith said quietly, glancing at Emma. ”That I’m leaving in three days.”

Emma nodded slowly, her eyes soft with a sadness she wasn’t hiding anymore. She looked down at Cassandra’s still face, then back at Lilith. ”I’ve been thinking about that since you told me. About what happens to her while you’re gone.”

”I don’t know,” Lilith admitted. ”The brothers said they’ll cover everything...the doctor, the medicine, all of it. But that’s not the same as someone actually being here. Someone who knows her. Someone who’ll notice if something changes.”

Emma was quiet for a moment, still holding Cassandra’s hand. ”I’ll check on her,” she said. ”While you’re gone. I’ll come by whenever I can, after my shifts, on rest days. I’ll make sure she’s not just another patient to whoever they assign here. I’ll talk to her the way you do. I’ll tell her about you.”

Lilith’s eyes filled with tears she didn’t try to stop this time. ”You don’t have to do that, Emma.”

”I know I don’t,” Emma said again, echoing her own words from moments before, a small, sad smile pulling at her mouth. ”But she’s important to you. That makes her important to me too.”

Lilith reached across the bed and squeezed Emma’s hand, unable to find words big enough for what she felt in that moment. Emma squeezed back, and for a while neither of them said anything at all, just sat there together in the quiet, keeping vigil over the woman who couldn’t know how loved she still was.

Eventually Emma glanced at the window, noting the climbing sun. ”We should get to the assembly. Dora will have both our heads if we’re late two days in a row.”

Lilith nodded, though she lingered a moment longer, brushing her fingers over her mother’s forehead before standing. ”I’ll be back again before I leave,” she murmured to her mother. ”I promise.”

They walked to the assembly hall together, the compound already stirring with the early business of another Summit day. The hall was filling when they arrived, omegas taking their usual places, the low hum of tired conversation filling the space. Dora stood at the front as always, clipboard in hand, running through the morning’s duties with brisk efficiency.

The briefing moved quickly....kitchen assignments, cleaning rotations, a reminder that the Elders would be touring parts of the compound later that day and everything needed to be immaculate. Lilith listened halfheartedly, her mind still partly back in the medical wing, partly in Nicholas’s room, partly three days into a future she couldn’t quite picture yet.

When Dora dismissed the group, omegas dispersed toward their stations in twos and threes. Lilith hung back, waiting until the hall had mostly emptied, until Dora was gathering her papers alone near the front.

”Dora.” Lilith’s voice came out quieter than she meant it to. ”Can I talk to you for a moment?”