Bound to the Triplet Alphas-Chapter 49: The Price of Power

ARIA POV

I woke to screams and smoke. My head throbbed as I pushed myself up from the cold stone floor. Through the haze, I saw Lucien’s body, still and pale, with Kael and Jaxon kneeling beside him.

"He’s breathing!" Jaxon called out. "But barely."

Relief rushed through me, but it didn’t last long. A loud crash echoed through the chamber as part of the ceiling fell nearby.

"We need to get out of here!" Mira shouted, helping Elira to her feet.

But before we could move, a dark figure emerged from the swirling dust. Alpha Darius stood tall, his eyes burning with hate. In his hand, he held a blade unlike any I’d seen before—curved and old, with symbols that glowed an eerie blue.

"The Blade of Severing," Elira gasped. "Where did you get that?"

"I’ve had it all along," Darius growled. "Hidden for the day I would need to cut the final ties."

My blood ran cold. I’d heard stories of the Blade—a weapon that could cut magical bonds, even mate ties blessed by the Moon Goddess herself.

"Stay back!" Kael warned, stepping in front of me.

Darius laughed, the sound bouncing off the falling walls. "You think you can protect her? The rite has already begun to fail. Look around you!"

He was right. The room was changing. Where the altar had stood, a swirling vortex of energy now pulsed, getting larger by the second. The broken crystal pieces floated in the air, each shard shooting off sparks of wild magic.

"The curse is unraveling," Darius added, "but not breaking. Without control, it will destroy us all."

"What do you want?" I demanded, my voice stronger than I felt.

"A choice," he answered, pointing the blade at me. "Your life, or theirs."

Jaxon’s eyes flashed gold with anger. "We won’t let you hurt her."

"You won’t have a choice," Darius growled. "The curse I put on you was tied to your very souls. As it unravels, it will tear you apart from the inside—unless I cut your bond to her."

As if to make his point, Kael suddenly doubled over in pain. Red lines like cracks formed on his skin, glowing with dark energy.

"Kael!" I cried, running to him.

The same red lines began to show on Jaxon and even on Lucien’s unconscious form.

"See?" Darius said. "It’s already starting. Their Alpha power was never meant to be shared with a mate. My curse made sure of that."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked, trying to keep him talking while I thought of a plan.

"Power," he answered simply. "Your mother refused to share hers with me. She thought the Moon Goddess would protect her." He laughed bitterly. "Look how that turned out."

The vortex grew bigger, pulling loose stones and dust toward its center.

"I need your blood," he continued, "the blood of a true Moon Alpha female, to stabilize my power once and for all."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then I’ll take it anyway, after they’re dead." He pointed to the triplets with the blade. "Your choice is simple: surrender to me, or watch them die slowly."

I looked at Kael and Jaxon, their faces twisted in pain as the curse tore at them. At Lucien, still unconscious but getting paler by the second. The bond between us pulsed weakly, fading.

"Don’t listen to him, Aria," Elira said suddenly. "He’s lying."

Darius whirled on her. "You dare—"

"The Blade doesn’t work that way," she continued quickly. "It can’t save them. He just wants your power."

Darius lunged at her, but I jumped between them. The Blade missed my heart but sliced across my arm. My blood spattered on the floor, glowing with golden light.

"Moon Goddess blood," Darius whispered, his eyes wide with greed.

Something snapped inside me then. Rage, pure and strong, filled my veins. The cut on my arm healed instantly, the skin joining together with golden light.

"You will not hurt anyone else," I said, my voice resonating weirdly in the chamber.

Darius stepped back, shocked. "What are you doing?"

I didn’t know, but power flowed through me. I could feel the triplets’ pain through our bond, and I pulled on that link, drawing the dark energy of the curse into myself.

"Aria, no!" Kael yelled, understanding what I was doing. "It will kill you!"

"Trust me," I replied, not losing eye contact with Darius.

The red lines began to fade from the triplets’ skin, moving to mine instead. It burned like fire in my blood.

"Stop her!" Darius ordered, but an invisible force kept him from moving closer.

The vortex pulsed in reaction to my pain, growing brighter. The floating crystal bits began to spin faster around it.

"Mom," I whispered, "help me."

As if in answer, a ghostly figure appeared beside me—my mother, her face both sad and proud.

"The curse can only be broken by sacrifice," she said softly. "But it doesn’t have to be death."

"Tell me what to do," I begged as the pain increased.

"The Blade," she answered. "It can cut the curse from all of you, but only if wielded with love, not hatred." frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

I understood. I needed the Blade.

With a strength I didn’t know I possessed, I lunged at Darius. He swung the Blade at me, but I was faster now, strengthened by the Moon Goddess. I grabbed his wrist and twisted. The Blade clattered to the floor.

We both went for it. Our hands closed around the handle at the same time.

"Let go, girl!" he growled.

"Never," I answered.

We struggled, the Blade between us shining brighter. I could feel its magic reacting to me, to my blood.

"It recognizes the true Alpha," my mother’s ghost said.

With one final push, I wrenched the Blade from Darius’s hold. He stumbled backward, toward the spinning vortex.

"No!" he screamed as the edge of the tornado caught him. It began to pull him in, stretching his body like it wasn’t solid anymore.

"Help me!" he begged, reaching toward his kids.

None of them moved.

I turned away from his screams, focusing on the triplets. The curse’s energy now filled me fully, dark red lines covering my skin from head to toe. Each heartbeat was pain.

"Aria," Lucien whispered, his eyes finally opening. "Don’t do this."

"I have to," I answered, gripping the Blade tightly. "For all of us."

I raised the Blade high, feeling its power linking with the curse inside me.

"By the power of the Moon Goddess," I said, the words coming to me from somewhere old and powerful, "I cut these bonds of hatred."

I brought the Blade down, not on any of us, but on the threads of dark energy I could now see connecting us all to Darius, who was halfway into the vortex.

The Blade cut through the threads with a sound like thunder. Light burst outward from the cut bonds.

Darius screamed one final time as the vortex pulled him in fully and collapsed in on itself.

The chamber shook more strongly than ever. The roof was coming down around us.

"We have to get out!" Mira shouted.

But I couldn’t move. The curse’s energy, no longer linked to Darius, swirled inside me with nowhere to go. My view darkened at the edges.

"Aria!" Kael’s voice seemed far away.

I felt arms lifting me. The triplets circled me, their faces frightened.

"Stay with us," Jaxon begged.

"The curse," I managed to say. "It needs somewhere to go."

My mother’s ghost appeared one last time, pointing to the leftover crystal shards. "There," she said. "The crystal can contain it."

With the last of my strength, I raised the Blade again, this time cutting my own palm. My blood dripped onto the largest crystal shard, which glowed in answer.

"Take it," I mumbled to the curse inside me. "Go."

The dark energy began to flow from me into the crystal, which turned black as night. But something was wrong. The energy was taking something else with it—my bond with the boys.

I could feel our connection fading, the golden threads getting thinner.

"No!" I cried, trying to hold on to them.

The last thing I saw before darkness took me was the crystal absorbing the final thread of our bond, and the triplets’ faces contorted in pain as they felt it break.

The Moon Goddess had given us a link.

And now, to save their lives, I had lost it forever.