Bound to the Triplet Alphas

Chapter 15: Chapter 15: Blood Bonds

ARIA POV

I yanked my arm away from Lucien and stumbled backward. My heart pounded so hard I could barely hear my own thoughts.

"What do you mean you’re the reason my parents are dead?" I asked. The forest seemed to spin around me.

Lucien’s eyes had returned to normal, the strange red glow fading. He reached for me, but I backed away again.

"Aria, please," he begged. "I need to explain."

"Then explain!" My voice cracked. The cut on my arm throbbed, blood seeping through the makeshift bandage.

Lucien looked around nervously. "Not here. We’re not safe."

As if to make his point, another howl echoed through the trees – closer this time. Kael was coming.

"Fine," I said, rage mixing with fear. "But I want answers. All of them."

Lucien nodded and led me deeper into the forest, away from the direction of the howls. We moved quickly, quietly, until we reached a small clearing with a stream running through it.

"Sit," he said, pointing to a flat rock beside the water. "Let me fix your arm properly."

I sat unwillingly, watching as he knelt by the stream and tore more strips from his shirt. He dipped them in the cold water and returned to me.

"This will hurt," he warned, removing the blood-soaked bandage.

I winced as he cleaned the bite marks. Four deep punctures where wolf teeth had broken my skin.

"Will I get a scar?" I asked, mostly to break the heavy quiet.

"No," Lucien answered softly. "You’re healing already. Faster than you should be."

He was right. The blood had almost stopped, and the edges of the wounds were already closing. Another sign of my Alpha blood.

"Now talk," I ordered. "What did you mean about my parents?"

Lucien finished bandaging my arm before sitting beside me on the rock. He looked tired, haunted.

"I was only five when it happened," he started. "Too young to understand what I was seeing."

"What did you see?"

"Fragments. Images." He stared at the moving water. "My father returning in the night, covered in blood. My mother crying. A silver necklace just like yours, being hidden away."

My hand went to the charm beneath my shirt. "You saw my mother’s necklace?"

"I didn’t know what it was then." He looked at me with sad eyes. "I only connected the pieces recently, when the mate bond started forming."

"That doesn’t explain how you’re responsible for my parents’ deaths," I said.

Lucien took a deep breath. "The triplet bond is... different from other sibling relations. We feel each other’s feelings, sometimes even share thoughts."

"I know that."

"What you don’t know is that our mother did something to us before she died. Something that binds us in ways that aren’t normal."

He paused, then pulled his shirt over his head. I gasped at what I saw.

In the middle of his chest was a strange scar – a perfect circle with three lines extending outward, like rays from a sun. The scar tissue was old, silvery-white against his tan skin.

"Kael and Jaxon have identical marks," Lucien stated. "Our mother put them there the night she died – the same night your parents disappeared."

"What does it mean?"

"It’s a binding spell," he said softly. "A powerful one. It keeps us linked, but it also makes us vulnerable."

"Vulnerable to what?"

"To control." His voice dropped lower. "Someone has been using the link to enter our minds. Mostly mine, because I’m the weakest of the three."

I remembered the red glow in his eyes, the strange voice that wasn’t his.

"That’s why you said those things in the library," I realized. "About the forecast ending. It wasn’t really you speaking."

He nodded. "I’ve been fighting it, but it’s getting stronger as the Blood Moon approaches."

"Who’s controlling you?"

"I don’t know," he revealed. "But whoever it is, they’ve been using me to spy on you. To learn what you find. That’s how Elira knew about the rite grounds – through me."

My mind raced. "But what does this have to do with my parents?"

Lucien’s hands trembled slightly. "The night they vanished, I had a nightmare. I saw a white wolf circled by enemies. I saw my father shift and attack. I woke up screaming."

"And?"

"And my father heard me," Lucien whispered. "He asked what I’d seen. I told him everything – the white wolf, the attack, all of it."

Horror washed over me as I understood. "You had a vision of my father’s death before it happened."

"And I told the one person who needed that information to make it come true." His eyes filled with tears. "If I had stayed quiet—"

"You were five years old," I said, the anger draining from me. "You couldn’t have known."

"But I should have realized later," he insisted. "When I started having visions about you – about a white wolf rising on the Blood Moon – I should have connected it sooner."

I reached out warily and touched the strange scar on his chest. "Does it hurt?"

The moment my fingers made touch with the raised tissue, the world around us vanished.

A woman with long dark hair stood in a stone circle, three small boys before her. Blood dripped from her hands onto their bare chests as she chanted words in an old language. Lightning flashed, illuminating tears on her face.

"Forgive me," she whispered. "This is the only way to protect you."

From the darkness, a figure watched – a man with cold eyes. Alpha Darius. But his eyes weren’t normal; they glowed with the same red light I’d seen in Lucien’s.

"The binding is complete," the woman said to the boys. "No matter what happens, you’ll always be linked. Always be strength for each other."

She put something around each boy’s neck – silver chains with small pendants. Moon images, like the one I wore.

"When the white wolf returns," she told them, "remember this night. Remember who you truly are."

Alpha Darius stepped forward, his face twisted with rage.

"Enough!" he roared.

The woman turned, her face defiant. "It’s done, Darius. The promise will come true, no matter what you do."

"We’ll see about that," he snarled, his hands wrapping around her throat.

I gasped, pulling my hand away from Lucien’s scar. We both stared at each other in shock.

"Did you see—" he began.

"Your mother," I whispered. "The binding ritual."

"She was trying to protect us," Lucien said, his voice shaking. "From my father."

"Not your father," I corrected, the pieces finally clicking into place. "Something controlling your father. The same thing that controls you sometimes."

Lucien’s eyes widened. "The red glow."

"It’s been there all along," I said. "Whatever it is, it’s been influencing everything – your father, you, the pack. And it wants to stop the promise from coming true."

"The Blood Moon is tomorrow night," Lucien said, worry in his voice. "Kael has called for the Blood Challenge. If we go to the ceremony grounds—"

"We have to go," I urged. "It’s the only way to end this. To find out the truth."

Lucien gripped my hands tightly. "Aria, if we go, one of us might die. The promise is clear about that."

"Then we’ll change the prophecy," I said with more certainty than I felt.

A twig snapped nearby. We both froze, listening. Footsteps approached – too heavy to be an animal.

"We need to move," Lucien whispered.

Before we could stand, a figure stepped into the clearing. Kael. His face was hard, his eyes cold as he stared at us – at Lucien’s bare chest, my bandaged arm, our joined hands.

"Found you," he said in a voice that chilled my blood.

But it wasn’t Kael’s eyes that made my heart stop. It was what he held in his hand.

My mother’s notebook – the one I’d found in the wooden box.

"Looking for this?" Kael asked, flipping it open. "It’s quite an interesting read. Especially the part about the true heir to the Alpha family."

His eyes met mine, and for a brief moment, I saw something spark there – pain, betrayal, and something else. Something dangerous.

"Did your precious Lucien tell you the best part of the prophecy yet?" Kael asked, his lips curling into a wicked smile. "About how only one of us can be your true mate? And how the other two must die?"