Chapter 428: Can We Fix It?

"Her power," Sebastian said. "Something’s wrong with her power."

Lilith pressed her hands to her chest and tried desperately to get control.

But the power kept surging. Kept flooding through her like a dam had broken and there was no way to stop the flow.

Through the bonds she could feel Sebastian and Lucian’s alarm. Their concern. Their.....

Wait.

The bonds.

Lilith focused on the connections linking her to Sebastian and Lucian.

They had always been there. Constant. Steady. Three points of light in her chest that connected her to the three Alphas.

But now....

Now there were only two.

Two bonds blazing bright and strong and almost painful in their intensity.

And one that was....

Not gone. Not exactly.

More like an echo. A ghost. A wound that had not quite healed.

Where Nicholas’s bond used to be, there was now just....absence. A hole. An empty space that throbbed with phantom pain every time she breathed.

"Oh god," Lilith whispered. "I can feel it. I can feel where he used to be."

Sebastian’s arms tightened around her. "I know. We feel it too."

"It hurts," Lilith said. "The bonds. They feel stronger but it also hurts because....."

"Because one is missing," Lucian finished. "The bonds are trying to compensate. Trying to hold onto you through two connections instead of three. And it’s...." He stopped. "It’s not working quite right."

Lilith looked at him and saw pain written across his face. "You feel it too? The wrongness?"

"Every second of every day since you woke up," Lucian said. "The bonds are stronger. More intense. But they also feel incomplete. Like we’re trying to hold up a structure that was designed for three support beams with only two."

"Can we...." Lilith stopped. "Can we fix it?"

"I don’t know," Sebastian said honestly. "The bonds were never designed to lose a piece. We don’t know what happens when part of a triple bond is destroyed. We’re in uncharted territory."

Lilith felt her power finally starting to calm. The surge was fading. Pulling back. Settling into something that was still too large but at least manageable.

"What was that?" Lilith asked quietly. "That wasn’t normal. My power has never felt like that before."

Sebastian and Lucian exchanged looks.

"We don’t know," Sebastian said carefully. "We think something changed when you came back from the Veil. Something about your magic is different now."

"Different how?" Lilith asked.

"We’re not sure yet," Sebastian said. "But when you woke up and screamed, you shattered every window in this wing of the estate. That’s not normal Morvaine power. That’s something else."

Lilith looked down at her hands.

They looked normal. But the power underneath....

That was not normal at all.

"I’m scared," Lilith admitted quietly. "I’m scared of the bonds being broken. I’m scared of...." She stopped. "How do we keep going when everything feels wrong? When part of us is missing and nothing works the way it used to?"

The question hung in the air.

Neither Sebastian nor Lucian had an answer.

Because there was no good answer.

They had lost Nicholas. The bonds were broken. Lilith’s magic was changed in ways they did not understand. And all they could do was keep breathing. Keep moving forward. Keep trying to survive in a world that had fundamentally changed.

"I don’t know," Sebastian finally said. "I don’t know how we keep going. But we do. Because the alternative is giving up. And Nicholas didn’t die so we could give up."

Lucian moved to sit on the other side of the bed. "We take it one day at a time. We figure out the bonds. We grieve. And we keep living. Together."

Lilith looked at both of them.....these two men who were just as broken as she was but still trying to be strong.

"Together," Lilith repeated quietly.

She did not know if it would be enough.

Did not know if they could actually survive this.

But together was all they had.

So it would have to be.

***

*THE NEXT DAY*

Morning came too quickly.

Lilith woke to pale sunlight streaming through her window and the immediate realization that she had fallen asleep between Sebastian and Lucian sometime in the early hours.

They were both still there, Sebastian on her left with one arm draped protectively across her waist, Lucian on her right lying on top of the covers like he had been keeping watch and only recently dozed off.

For a moment, Lilith just lay there.

Breathing. Feeling their warmth. Listening to the sound of their steady breathing and the morning sounds of the estate waking up beyond her window.

Real. Alive. Home.

But Nicholas was still gone.

The bond where he used to be still ached like a phantom limb.

And Lilith still felt like she was walking around in a body that did not quite fit anymore.

She needed to move. Needed to do something other than lie in bed drowning in grief and guilt and the overwhelming wrongness of being alive when Nicholas was not.

Lilith carefully extracted herself from between the two Alphas and sat up.

Immediately, both of them woke.

"Lilith?" Sebastian’s eyes opened and focused on her with the kind of alertness that came from years of combat training. "What’s wrong? Are you okay?"

"I’m fine," Lilith said. "I just....I need to get up. I need to move. I can’t lie in bed anymore."

"You should rest," Lucian said, sitting up and running a hand through his disheveled hair. "Your body is still recovering from...."

"From dying and being resurrected, I know," Lilith interrupted. "But I can’t just lie here. I’ll go insane if I spend another minute staring at these walls."

Sebastian and Lucian exchanged looks.

"Alright," Sebastian said finally. "But we’re helping you. You’re still weak even if you don’t want to admit it."

Lilith wanted to argue. Wanted to say she could manage on her own.

But the moment she tried to stand, her legs nearly gave out.

Sebastian caught her immediately, one arm around her waist, steadying her.

"Easy," he said quietly. "Your body has been through hell. Give it time to remember how to work properly."