Fated to the Alpha–And His Triplet Brothers novel Chapter 131

Chapter 131: Young Lilith III

*~Young Lilith’s POV~*

I woke up with my heart racing. My chest heaved like I had been running for hours, but I was lying down. The ceiling above me was familiar, too familiar..the same pale shade, the same little crack I had stared at countless nights when sleep refused to come. My room. My bed.

For a second, I thought it was all a nightmare. The cave. The witches. The blood. My father’s cold eyes. It must’ve been a dream. A cruel one, yes, but still just a dream.

I pushed myself up on shaking elbows—except my body betrayed me. My arms trembled violently, and before I could even sit all the way, my legs gave out. The room spun, and I hit the floor with a dull thud.

Panic set in immediately. Why couldn’t I stand? Why did my head feel like it had been split open, stuffed with fog, and stitched back together crookedly?

The door burst open.

"Lilith!" My mother’s voice, sharp and high-pitched, filled the room. In the next heartbeat, she was kneeling beside me, hands frantic on my shoulders as she tried to pull me up. "What happened? Why are you on the floor? Saints above, child, you’re ice-cold!"

Her hands were warm, grounding, but my body felt foreign, stiff and useless. She dragged me carefully back onto the bed, her eyes darting over my face as though searching for clues.

And then her question landed like a blade in my gut.

"Where were you last night?"

My breath hitched.

It all came back at once.

The carriage. My father’s restless eyes. The endless ride out of New Orleans. The smell of witches in the air, thick and heavy. The cave. The red-haired girl sobbing, blood at the corner of her mouth. Wolves, tied up like cattle. The cloaked figure. The blood bowl. The boy’s lifeless body after the arrows struck.

And my father—walking away. Leaving me there.

I choked on a sound that was part sob, part laugh. My mind screamed at me that it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. But the phantom sting on my palm said otherwise.

Almost in a daze, I pulled my hand from the blanket and stared at it.

The cut....A deep, ugly slice stretched across my palm, still red and angry. The skin around it was swollen, tender, as if the wound had been fresh.

My stomach dropped.

My mother followed my gaze, and then she shrieked. She grabbed my wrist with trembling hands, turning it this way and that, her own eyes wide in disbelief. "Lilith...what is this? Who did this to you?"

I couldn’t answer. I just kept staring at it, the wound glaring back at me like proof carved into my skin. My throat locked up, words stuck behind the lump swelling there.

The image of the cloaked figure’s knife slicing across my hand flashed behind my eyes, and I swore I could still feel it—the sting of the blade, the warmth of blood spilling, the way the bowl seemed to drink it greedily.

I yanked my hand back from her grip, clutching it to my chest.

"I..." My voice cracked. "I don’t—"

But I did. Oh, I remembered everything now. Every drop of blood. Every scream. Every betrayal.

Especially my father’s....My mother hovered, confusion and fear written all over her face, but my mind wasn’t in the room anymore. It was still in the cave, trapped with the smell of death, with the memory of wolves tied and broken.

And the worst part? I had no idea if they were still there. Or if I was the only one who had made it out alive.

The moment my mother’s scream shattered the air, I froze.

"Aric!" she yelled, her voice slicing through the silence of the house. My father’s name.

My blood turned to ice. I wanted—no, I needed—to stand, to run after her, to demand answers. But my body refused me again, weak and trembling, as if the very marrow of my bones had been stolen in that cave. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

I heard hurried footsteps. Then muffled voices. My mother’s fury—raw, unrestrained—clashing with my father’s deeper tone. Their words blurred together, but her anger was clear. She was shouting at him, demanding something. Accusing him.

And then—

A shriek.

A sudden thud that rattled the walls of my chest.

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