Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

Sebastian loosened his arm after Lucian left.

Lilith stood then turned to face him.

He looked up at her from the chair with those dark eyes and that expression she still didn’t have a complete name for.

”Your theory about your father,” he said. ”You’re right. Nicholas thinks so too.”

”He didn’t say that.” Lilith replied.

”Nicholas doesn’t say things until he understands them completely, ”He’ll come to you when he knows more.”

She looked across the room.

”Alpha Nicholas.”

He looked up.

”Thank you,” she said. ”For taking it seriously.”

”It affects this pack,” Nicholas said. ”Of course I take it seriously.”

She smiled and moved toward the door.

”Lilith.”

She stopped and turned back.

”Your instincts are good,” Nicholas said. ”Trust them.”

She stood in the doorway for a moment, the she nodded and walked out of the office.

***

*Something was wrong with the brothers*

She noticed it on the third day after the meeting.

Not wrong exactly. Wrong wasn’t the right word. More like.....shifted.

It started with Sebastian.

She’d been in the library after breakfast, cross-legged in one of the deep armchairs with a book she wasn’t really reading, when he came in. He did that sometimes....appeared in whatever room she was in without apparent purpose, found somewhere to sit, worked through papers or read or just existed in the same space. She’d stopped questioning it after the second day.

But this time he didn’t sit across the room.

He sat on the arm of her chair.

Not in it. Just.....perched on the arm, one foot on the floor, close enough that his knee was level with her shoulder. He opened his folder of papers and started working through them like this was completely normal.

She looked up at him.

He didn’t look down.

Then she went back to reading her book.

Ten minutes passed. She turned a page. And then she realised he’d stopped working....his pen had gone still, his papers forgotten....and he was just sitting there with his face turned slightly toward her. Not looking at her. Just....oriented toward her. Like a compass finding north without meaning to.

”Sebastian.”

”Mm.”

”What are you doing.”

A pause. ”Working.”

”You haven’t moved in ten minutes.”

Another pause. Longer. ”I know.”

He picked up his pen and started writing again.

She watched him for a moment, then she went back to her book.

***

Lucian was worse.

He found excuses to touch her that she couldn’t quite object to, his hand at the small of her back when they passed in a doorway, his fingers brushing hers when he handed her coffee, sitting close enough at dinner that their arms pressed together. All of it casual. All of it deniable. All of it adding up to something she couldn’t name.

The third time he pressed his face briefly to her hair when he passed behind her chair she turned around and looked at him directly.

”What,” he said. Golden eyes wide. Completely innocent.

”You keep doing that.”

”Doing what.”

”Smelling my hair.”

”I’m not....” He stopped. Considered. The innocent expression shifted into something more honest. ” It’s just that your hair smells different.”

”Different how.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Frowned like he was reaching for a word and couldn’t find it. ”I don’t know,” he said finally. ” It’s Just..... different. Good different.” He paused. ”Really good different.”

She stared at him.

He looked genuinely puzzled. Which was unusual for Lucian....he was many things, but puzzled was not typically among them.

”You’re serious,” she said.

”Why would I joke about your hair.”

She turned back to her dinner.

***

Nicholas she almost missed entirely.

Because Nicholas’s version of shifted was so subtle that she nearly wrote it off as her imagination. He stood closer than usual....not close enough to touch, just inside the boundary of what was comfortable, like he’d breached the acceptable distance between them without noticing he’d done it.

He always looked at her longer before looking away.

That was it. That was the thing. Nicholas always looked at her....those silver eyes tracking her with that evaluating attention as if he was studying her body....but he always looked away first as if looking at her for a long time is something he shouldn’t be doing

But now he looked at her and held it two or three seconds longer than he used to before turning back to whatever he’d been doing.

Like something was pulling his attention back to her against his intentions.

She noticed it at breakfast on the fifth morning. He was at the head of the table with a report open beside his plate, reading and eating simultaneously the way he always did, and she looked up from her coffee and found him already looking at her.

He didn’t look away, even when she raised an eyebrow.

Something moved through his eyes, then he looked back down at his report.

But thirty seconds later she felt it again....that feeling, like a hand on her shoulder....and when she looked up he was reading his report with complete focus and hadn’t moved at all.

She put her coffee down.

”Is something wrong with me,” she said.

All three of them looked at her.

”What do you mean,” Sebastian said carefully.

”The three of you keep....” She gestured vaguely. ”You’re all acting strange. Stranger than usual. Is there something....” She paused. ”Is there something wrong with me.”

The look that passed between the three brothers was fast and complex and completely illegible as if they were hiding something or trying to hide something from her, Which doesn’t make sense at all.

”No,” Nicholas said.

”Then why does Sebastian keep sitting directly on top of me and Lucian keep smelling my hair every time and you keep....”

”I haven’t been doing anything,” Nicholas said.

Lucian made a sound that was almost a laugh.

Nicholas looked at him with an expression that ended the sound immediately.

”Your scent has changed,” Sebastian said. He said it carefully....like he’d been deciding whether to say it and had finally concluded she deserved to know. ”Over the last few days. It’s....different, you smell different”

”Different how.” She heard herself echo Lucian’s words back.