Bound to the Triplet Alphas
Chapter 126: The Price of Peace
CHAPTER 126: CHAPTER 126: THE PRICE OF PEACE
ARIA POV
"The choice is yours, Moon Alpha," the thing said. "But choose quickly. The Shadow Lords have found this place."
As if called by its words, the sound of screaming reached us from outside the Archive. The battle had followed us here.
I looked down at the book in my hands. All I had to do was open it, read the rite, and accept that the four of us would die to save everyone else.
It should have been an easy choice. The lives of four people against the lives of billions.
But these weren’t just any four people. They were my life. My heart. My soul.
"Aria," Lucien’s gentle voice came through the bond. "It’s okay. We love you. That’s enough."
I took a big breath and opened the book.
The moment my eyes touched the old words, fire exploded through my mind. Knowledge poured in like liquid metal, burning itself into my thoughts. I saw the ritual in perfect detail—every gesture, every word, every sacrifice needed.
And I saw something else. Something the creature hadn’t mentioned.
The procedure had a loophole.
"Oh," I mumbled, as understanding dawned
"What is it?" Kael asked anxiously.
But before I could answer, the Archive’s walls shattered totally. Shadow Lords poured in from all sides, their black eyes fixed on me and the book I held.
And standing at their head, smiling with cruel pleasure, was someone I recognized.
Someone who should have been dead.
"Hello, daughter," Alpha Darius said, his eyes now totally black. "Did you really think killing me would be enough to stop what I started?"
I threw myself sideways just as Darius’s claws raked through the air where my head had been.
"Too slow, daughter," he growled, his voice distorted by whatever Shadow Lord magic had brought him back from the dead. "Death has made me faster."
The old book flew from my hands as I hit the ground hard. It skidded across the broken stone floor, coming to rest near a pile of rubble. I rushed toward it, but Darius was already moving to cut me off.
"That knowledge isn’t for you," he said, his black eyes gleaming. "The Shadow Lords have plans for this world, and they don’t include a troublesome Moon Alpha ruining everything."
"The Shadow Lords are using you!" I shouted, rolling behind another fallen bookshelf. "Can’t you see that?"
"They freed me from death itself," Darius answered, stalking closer. "They gave me power beyond anything I had as a mere Alpha. Why would I care if they use me?"
Through the bond, I felt the triplets still trying to break through the magical barrier. But it was holding strong, and I was running out of time.
"Because they’ll throw you away the moment they don’t need you," I said, moving toward the book. "That’s what they do. They use people and then destroy them."
Darius laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "You think I don’t know that? I’m not stupid, Aria. I know exactly what they are."
"Then why—"
"Because being their tool is better than being nothing at all!" he yelled, lunging forward.
I dove for the book, my fingers closing around it just as his claws scraped against the stone where I’d been lying. The moment I touched it, the information from the Final Sacrifice ritual flooded back into my mind.
The gap. There was definitely a gap, but I needed time to figure out what it meant.
"Give me the book, Aria," Darius said, advancing slowly now. "Make this easy on yourself."
"Never," I said, backing away. "Too many people are counting on me."
"People who will be dead within the hour," he answered coldly. "The Shadow Lords are attacking every supernatural stronghold concurrently. Your precious union is crumbling as we speak."
My heart clenched. Through the pack network, I could feel distant echoes of fights raging everywhere. The vampires were fighting frantically. The fae were falling back. Even the dragons were battling.
"It’s over, daughter," Darius said softly. "Let me end this quickly."
But as he raised his claws to strike, something unexpected happened. The book in my hands began to glow with warm, golden light.
"What—" Darius stumbled backward, shielding his black eyes from the light.
The light wasn’t just coming from the book anymore. It was coming from me. Through the bond, I felt the triplets’ confusion as my power suddenly rose beyond anything I’d ever experienced.
"Aria?" Lucien’s voice came hurriedly through our connection. "What’s happening to you?"
I looked down at the book and gasped. The words on the page were changing, rewriting themselves in front of my eyes. The ritual was still there, but now there were new directions. A different way to perform it.
"The bond," I whispered, understanding rushing through me. "Luna Starweaver didn’t have what we have."
"What are you talking about?" Kael requested through the bond.
"She was connected to three mates, but it was a normal mating bond," I explained quickly, still keeping Darius at bay with the golden light. "We have something else. Something that’s never existed before."
"The curse," Jaxon realized. "When we broke the Blackwood jinx, it didn’t just disappear. It changed our bond into something new."
"Exactly!" I said, my excitement rising. "The Final Sacrifice needs one person to anchor the ritual while their life force burns away. But what if instead of one person holding all that power, we could share it between four?"
Through the bond, I felt Lucien’s brilliant mind working through the consequences.
"It could work," he said slowly. "If we spread the magical load equally, none of us would have to die. We’d all be weakened, maybe forever, but we’d survive."
"That’s impossible," Darius snarled, but I heard doubt in his voice now. "The rite was written in stone. It cannot be changed."
"Watch me," I said, opening my link to the triplets as wide as it would go.
Power flowed between us like lightning, and suddenly I wasn’t just me anymore. I was all four of us, our thoughts and feelings and skills merged into something greater than the sum of our parts.
Through Kael’s tactical mind, I saw exactly how to place us for the ritual. Through Jaxon’s street-smart instincts, I understood the time required. Through Lucien’s healing knowledge, I grasped how to keep us all living during the process.
"Now I see why they fear you," Darius said, and for the first time, he sounded truly worried. "You’re not just a Moon Alpha. You’re something totally new."
"We’re something new," I corrected him. "All of us together."
But even as I spoke, I felt a chill of doubt. The ritual would still take enormous sacrifice, even shared between four people. We might survive, but would we still be ourselves afterward? Would our bond stay intact? Would we even remember each other?
"There’s a problem," Lucien said quietly through the bond, and I knew he’d been thinking the same thing.
"What problem?" Jaxon asked.
"The ritual requires the caster to give up their most precious memories," Lucien explained. "It’s part of the price. Even if we share the magical load, someone still has to pay that cost."
My heart sank. Our memories of each other were our most precious asset. If I gave those up to power the rite, would I even know why I was fighting anymore?
"I’ll do it," I said instantly.
"No," all three triplets said at once through the link.
"Aria, those memories are what make you who you are," Kael said desperately. "Without them, you won’t be you anymore."
"But everyone else will be safe," I answered. "That’s what matters."
"Not to us," Jaxon said furiously. "We won’t let you sacrifice yourself like that."
"Then what do you suggest?" I asked, frustration bleeding through the link.
It was Lucien who answered, his voice quiet but resolved.
"We all give up our most precious memories," he said. "Not just yours. All of ours."
The idea hit me like a physical blow. If we all sacrificed our memories of each other, we’d survive the rite, but we’d be strangers afterward. We’d have no reason to stay together. No link. No love.
"That’s not living," I whispered. "That’s just existing."
"It’s better than dying," Lucien said softly.
Through the bond, I felt the triplets’ agreement, even though it was breaking their hearts just as much as mine.
"How touching," Darius said mockingly. "But you’ve forgotten something important."
I looked up at him, still holding the bright book.
"What?"
His smile was cruel and pleased. "The ritual has to be performed at a nexus point where different realms meet. The closest one is three hundred miles from here."
My blood went cold. "So?"
"So the Shadow Lords are already there, waiting for you," he said. "They know about the ritual too, Aria. They’ve known all along. This was never about stopping you from learning the Final Sacrifice."
"Then what was it about?" I asked, though I was afraid I already knew.
"It was about making sure you’d come to them willingly," Darius said, his black eyes gleaming with triumph. "You see, they need a Moon Alpha to perform the process too. But not to send them back to their dying world."
Understanding crashed over me like ice water.
"They want to use it to anchor themselves permanently in our world," I whispered.
"Exactly. And thanks to your unique bond with the triplets, you’ll be powerful enough to give them exactly what they need."
Through the bond, I felt the triplets’ horror as they discovered the truth.
We hadn’t found the weapon to beat the Shadow Lords.
We’d found the key to their final victory.
And we were about to hand it right to them.