Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

Dora looked up, something in her expression sharpening immediately. the particular attentiveness of a woman who’d spent years reading the omegas under her care, who knew when something was wrong before it was even said. ”Of course. What is it?”

Lilith glanced around, making sure they were alone enough. ”I’m leaving,” she said. ”In three days. With the Blackwood alphas.”

Dora went very still. She set her papers down slowly on the nearest table, her sharp eyes studying Lilith’s face like she was searching for something....confirmation, maybe, or the truth beneath the words. ”Leaving,” she repeated. ”As in — permanently.”

”Yes,” Lilith said. ”They told me I’m their mate. All three of them.”

For a long moment, Dora said nothing at all. Something moved across her face....not quite shock, Lilith realized, but something closer to recognition, like a suspicion finally being confirmed.

”I wondered,” Dora said finally, quietly. ”The way they watched you at every meal. The way that youngest one nearly shifted over that incident at the formal dinner. I’ve overseen enough omegas over enough years to recognize the signs, even when I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing.” She shook her head slowly. ”I told myself I was imagining it. That no fate could be cruel enough to make Victor Thorne’s daughter mate to Alaric Blackwood’s sons.”

”I know how it sounds,” Lilith said softly.

Dora reached out and took both of Lilith’s hands in hers, an uncharacteristic gesture from a woman who rarely allowed herself softness in front of the omegas she supervised. Her grip was firm, grounding. ”Listen to me,” she said. ”I have heard things about those brothers. Things that would make your blood run cold. Nicholas Blackwood is not a man known for mercy. Sebastian charms his way through rooms other alphas can’t survive in. And Lucian...” She paused, her jaw tightening. ”Lucian’s temper is spoken of even outside Blackwood territory. I am not telling you this to frighten you needlessly. I am telling you because I need you to walk into this with your eyes wide open.”

”I already have,” Lilith said quietly. ”I made that decision this morning.”

Dora studied her for a long moment, something like grudging respect passing over her features. ”Then I won’t waste breath trying to talk you out of something already decided.” She squeezed Lilith’s hands once before releasing them. ”But know that I have watched over you since the day you were brought down here, stripped of everything you used to be, and I have never once regretted taking that responsibility seriously. That doesn’t change because you’re leaving. If anything happens to you out there, if they hurt you, if they break whatever promises they’ve made, I want you to find a way to get word back here. Do you understand me?”

Lilith’s eyes stung. ”I understand.”

”And your mother,” Dora continued, her voice softening further. ”I’ll see to it myself that she’s cared for properly. I don’t care what arrangements the Blackwoods make from a distance....I’ll be checking on her personally, making sure whoever attends her is doing right by her. That’s not a promise I make lightly.”

”Thank you,” Lilith whispered, her voice breaking slightly on the words. ”For everything. Since the day I got here. You didn’t have to look out for me the way you did.”

Dora’s expression softened into something almost maternal, a rare crack in the brisk efficiency she carried like armor. ”You were a beta’s daughter thrown into an omega’s life overnight, with a mother in a coma and a father’s crime hanging around your neck like a noose. Of course I looked out for you. Anyone with a conscience would have.”

She reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Lilith’s ear, an oddly tender gesture that made Lilith’s chest ache.

”You’ll be an alpha’s mate soon,” Dora said. ”Not just one alpha’s....three. That is not a small thing, Lilith. Whatever else happens, you carry more strength in you than you know. You survived four months of a life you were never trained for, and you did it with more grace than most people twice your age could have managed. Whatever waits for you at Blackwood, you’ll survive that too.”

Lilith nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat.

”Now go,” Dora said, her voice returning to its usual brisk efficiency, though her eyes remained soft. ”Before the kitchens fall apart without you. And Lilith...” She paused as Lilith turned to go. ”Come find me again before you leave. Properly. Not just a rushed goodbye between duties.”

”I will,” Lilith promised.

She left the assembly hall with her chest full of things she didn’t have words for.....gratitude, grief, the strange comfort of being cared for by someone who’d never owed her anything at all. She thought of her mother lying silent in the medical wing, of Emma’s promise to visit her, of Dora’s promise to watch over her personally. Two women who had no obligation to her whatsoever, who had chosen to care anyway.

Maybe that was its own kind of family, she thought, walking toward the kitchens where the day’s duties waited. Not the one she’d been born into, and not the one she was about to marry into, but something quieter, built in the spaces between....earned rather than given, chosen rather than assigned.

She held onto that thought as she stepped into the noise and heat of the kitchens, three days stretching out ahead of her like a bridge between everything she’d known and everything still waiting on the other side.

***

The summons came just after midday, delivered by one of the Council’s own guards rather than a Shadowmere messenger. Garrett was pulled from a meeting with the visiting alphas of the northern territories, the guard’s message brief and impossible to refuse.

High Elder Aldric requests a private audience. Now.

Garrett excused himself as gracefully as he could manage, though his stomach had already begun to tighten before he’d even left the room. He followed the guard through the compound toward the guest wing, running through every possible reason Aldric might want him alone. None of the possibilities sat well.