Sacrificed To The Triplet Alpha Kings

Selene moved further into the room and picked up one of the books Victoria had been reading. She flipped to a specific page and held it out to Victoria.

"This is what you’ve been researching, yes? Standard mate bonds. The kind created by the Moon Goddess to connect compatible souls. The kind that can be severed with the right rituals and enough power."

"Yes," Victoria said.

Selene set the book down. "That’s not what Lilith has."

"Then what does she have?"

Selene met Victoria’s gaze directly. "A soul bond."

The words hung in the air like a death sentence.

Victoria felt her breath catch. "No, That’s impossible."

"Is it?" Selene asked.

"Soul bonds are legends," Victoria said, but even as she said it, doubt crept into her voice. "They’re theoretical. Something that might have existed millennia ago but hasn’t been documented in centuries. They’re...."

"Real," Selene interrupted. "Rare, yes. Almost extinct. But real. And your niece has one."

Victoria sat down hard in her chair, her legs suddenly unable to support her weight.

Soul bonds.

She had read about them in the oldest texts. In stories passed down through the Morvaine bloodline. In legends that most modern witches dismissed as myth.

Soul bonds were different from mate bonds. Deeper. More permanent. More absolute.

Where mate bonds connected compatible souls for a lifetime, soul bonds connected the same soul split across multiple bodies.

Where mate bonds could be severed with enough skill and power, soul bonds were impossible to break without destroying the souls themselves in the process.

Where mate bonds ended at death, soul bonds persisted beyond it, following the connected souls through whatever came after and binding them together across lifetimes.

"How do you know?" Victoria asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Because I’ve seen them before," Selene said. "Twice in my three hundred years as a Guardian. Both times it was unmistakable. The way the magic moves between the bonded individuals. The depth of the connection. The absolute permanence of it."

She moved to where Lilith’s things were laid out on Victoria’s dresser, the clothes she had been wearing when she collapsed, now cleaned but still carrying traces of her magical signature.

Selene placed her hand over the fabric and silver light pulsed from her palm.

"Feel that?" Selene asked.

Victoria moved closer and extended her own magical senses.

And gasped.

The bonds connecting Lilith to the three Alphas were visible to anyone with magical sight, three threads of golden light stretching from Lilith’s heart toward wherever Nicholas, Sebastian, and Lucian were in the estate.

But what Victoria had always assumed was just the strength of three complete mate bonds was something else entirely.

The threads were not three separate connections.

They were three parts of the same connection. Three strands of a single rope. Three facets of one diamond.

And underneath the golden light, underneath it was something else. Something deeper. Something that pulsed with the same rhythm as Lilith’s heartbeat and the Alphas’ heartbeats all synchronized together.

One soul. Split four ways. Connected across four bodies.

"Oh gods," Victoria breathed.

"Yes," Selene said quietly.

Victoria pulled her hand back and stared at the clothes like they had betrayed her. "How is this possible? Soul bonds only form when..." She stopped.

"When the souls choose each other before birth," Selene finished. "When they’re connected so deeply that they literally cannot exist as complete individuals. When they’re meant to find each other across lifetimes and stay together through death and beyond."

"But Lilith didn’t know the Alphas before she came to the estate," Victoria said. "They weren’t....they didn’t choose each other before birth. They’re not...."

She stopped as the implications hit her.

If Lilith and the Alphas had a soul bond, that meant their souls had been connected before this lifetime. Meant they had found each other before. Maybe multiple times. Maybe across centuries.

Meant they were literally incomplete without each other.

"If you try to sever this bond," Selene said gently, "you won’t just be breaking a connection. You’ll be tearing apart a soul. And that...." She shook her head. "That kills. Instantly. Painfully. With absolute certainty."

Victoria felt her last hope crumble to ash.

She had been planning to use Henrik. Had been preparing to perform the bond severance ritual the moment she figured out how to do it safely. Had thought that if she could just separate Lilith from the Alphas, the curse would have nothing to anchor to and would dissipate.

But if severing the bond would kill her....

"Then how do I save her?" Victoria asked, and her voice broke on the last word.

Selene’s expression was infinitely sad. "I don’t know."

"There has to be a way!" Victoria stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. "There’s always a way! Loopholes in prophecies, exceptions to curses, technicalities in divine law.....there has to be SOMETHING!"

"Perhaps," Selene allowed. "But I don’t have those answers. The Moon Temple’s archives might. Other Guardians who are older than me might. But Victoria...." She caught Victoria’s arm gently. "You’re running out of time. Lilith has hours left. Maybe a day. You can’t research your way out of this fast enough."

"Then what do you suggest?" Victoria demanded.

"Find someone who already has the answers," Selene said. "Someone who understands soul bonds and divine curses better than you or I do. Someone who might know a way to break this that we haven’t thought of."

Victoria laughed....bitter and broken. "And where exactly am I supposed to find this mythical expert? Soul bonds are so rare most witches think they’re legends! Who would even know..."

She stopped.

The witch.

The witch who had given Nicholas the necklace. The witch who had created a charm powerful enough to slow a divine curse. The witch who Victoria had suspected was probably not a low level ranked witch.

If anyone would know about soul bonds, about ways to break unbreakable curses....it would be someone like that witch.