Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

”I’m going to be okay, Mama. I’m going to be stronger than you ever had to be, because that’s the gift you gave me, the ability to survive things that shouldn’t be survivable. Papa gave me that too, with all his talk about the Moon Goddess and special things and not being broken when the world said I was.” Her voice steadied slightly. ”I’m carrying both of you with me to Blackwood. Every time I’m scared, I’m going to remember Papa telling me I’m special. Every time I want to give up, I’m going to remember you fighting to keep our family together even when the pack was tearing us apart.”

She sat there in silence for a long moment, just holding her mother’s hand, just breathing, just being present in a way that felt important even if her mother couldn’t acknowledge it.

It was the soft knock on the door that pulled her back.

”Come in,” Lilith called, wiping quickly at her eyes and trying to compose herself.

Doctor Reeve stepped inside, her bag in hand, her expression shifting to gentle concern the moment she saw Lilith’s tear-stained face. She had her iron-gray hair pulled back in a practical braid and on her her face was the kind of presence that came from years of managing the impossible parts of healing, the patients you couldn’t save, the families you had to watch break under the weight of loss.

”Oh, sweetheart,” Reeve said softly, immediately moving to check Cassandra’s vitals with practiced efficiency. Her hands were gentle as they moved across the monitors, adjusting something here, noting something there. ”What’s happened? Are you alright?”

”I’m leaving tomorrow,” Lilith said, her voice small. ”With the Blackwood alphas. I wanted to see Mama one last time before I go.”

Doctor Reeve’s hands stilled for a moment before she continued with her checks. When she finally turned to face Lilith, her expression was carefully composed, though something sad moved behind her eyes.

”Leaving,” she repeated. ”For how long?”

”I don’t know,” Lilith admitted. ”I don’t know if I’m coming back at all, or if I am, how often that would be.”

Reeve came around the side of the bed and sat down in the chair beside Lilith, keeping her professional distance but her tone warm and personal. She reached out and covered Lilith’s hand with her own, a gesture of human comfort rather than medical authority.

”I need you to listen to me,” Reeve said quietly. ”Your mother....she’s in a very delicate state. The body can endure sleep for a long time, but the mind needs stimulation. It needs reasons to come back.” She squeezed Lilith’s hand gently. ”Every time you come here and talk to her, every time you share pieces of your life with her, you’re giving her a reason to fight her way back to consciousness. I’ve seen it happen, patients who shouldn’t have woken up, waking up anyway, because someone they loved kept talking to them.”

Lilith’s throat tightened. ”So if I leave...”

”If you leave and never come back, it might take longer,” Reeve said, her voice honest and kind. ”But if you come back, if you keep coming back and keep talking to her, keep telling her about your life, your love, your struggles....then you’re giving her something to wake up for.” She released Lilith’s hand and stood, moving back to adjust something on one of the machines. ”You need to promise me you’ll come visit her. Often, if you can. Even if it’s only a few times a year, even if the distance is great. Can you promise me that?”

”I promise,” Lilith said immediately, without hesitation. ”I promise I’ll come back. I promise I’ll tell her everything.”

Reeve nodded, satisfied, and finished her checks. When she turned back to Lilith, there was a small, tired smile on her face. ”Your mother is stronger than you might think,” she said. ”She’s survived four months of this state when many wouldn’t have made it past the first week. That’s not weakness. That’s a woman fighting to hold on, even if we can’t see the fight from the outside.”

She moved toward the door, then paused in the doorway, looking back at Lilith.

”Take care of yourself, wherever you’re going,” Reeve said. ”And come back to her. That’s all the medicine she needs... her daughter’s voice, her daughter’s life, her daughter’s love. That’s stronger than any medicine I could give her.”

Then she was gone, closing the door softly behind her, leaving Lilith alone with her mother once more.

Lilith sat there for a long time after that, not speaking anymore, just holding her mother’s hand and listening to the machines, listening to her mother’s breathing, listening to the quiet hum of the medical wing around them. She thought about what Reeve had said, about the fight her mother was waging somewhere beyond consciousness, about the ways love could reach people even when they couldn’t respond to it.

She thought about her father, and the way he’d always made her feel seen, even when the rest of the world looked through her.

She thought about the wooden bird in her pocket, about Emma’s promise to visit her mother every week, about Dora’s fierce protectiveness, about the Elder’s blessing.

She thought about Nicholas’s silver eyes and Sebastian’s careful hands and Lucian’s desperate need to protect her.

She thought about all the pieces of her life that were being packed into a carriage tomorrow morning, all the people and places she was leaving behind, and all the unknown things waiting for her in Blackwood territory.

”I’m going to be okay, Mama,” she whispered one final time. ”And I’m going to come back to you. I’m going to tell you all about it.”

She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her mother’s forehead, the same way she had so many times before. But this time it felt different. This time it felt like a promise rather than a goodbye.