Offered to the Triplet Alphas

[Asher]

The numbers on the screen of the laptop before my eyes blurred into meaningless shapes. The voice of my cabinet members sitting around the round table faded into a distant noise.

I was supposed to focus on the budget plan, the foundation for the pack's next financial year - a matter of irrefutable importance, especially with the impending celestial trying to break into our realm every day. We had to put extra monetary focus on tightening the pack's security.

Yet, my mind had abandoned the conference hall entirely.

It was just my body in this room. My everything else was with Xanthea.

Since last night, Xanthea had been sitting motionless on the cold marble floor, staring at the forget-me-nots with sunken, dead eyes, watching the last of blue blossoms wilt and droop in the flowerpot.

And I had been staring at her in the back of my mind, waiting patiently, desperately trying to understand what it could mean for her to watch the flowers die.

Was she waiting for her own death?

Was it a timer for something?

I tried to care about anything that was being discussed. But no matter how badly I tried to focus on the cabinet meeting, Xanthea's silence and the depth of her hollow gaze overshadowed everything. And then I heard her voice echo in my mind. A soft, trembling whisper that barely reached me, but it was enough to end my longing.

I finally heard her beautiful voice.

Not her screams, her sobs, or her cries. But her tranquil voice - the voice that breathes life into my very soul.

I took a deep breath, my heart pounding a few beats faster as I sat straighter in my chair, loosening my tie.

"How could you?" she murmured.

I squinted, sharpening my focus on her voice.

"How could you... so casually... wield your curiosity... as such a cruel weapon against so many innocent people?"

Her words sliced through the noise of the meeting, absorbing me wholly. I shut my eyes.

Her hands trembled as they pulled the flowerpot close and cradled it to her chest, her tears dripping on the parched soil, damping it dark.

"Mom..." she whispered.

And then it happened. The moment I had been waiting for.

It happened so suddenly, so explosively, I felt its impact with a physical jolt as adrenaline flooded my veins, the tips of my fingers tingling as they dug into the armrest of my chair.

"I HATE YOU, MOM!"

Her scream tore through my mind with such force that my eyes snapped open as she hurled the flowerpot across the room.

The sharp sound of shattering clay merged with the thunder cracking in the dark sky. The flowers, leaves, dried soil and broken shards scattered on the black marble in a mess around Xanthea as she glared into nothingness, panting badly, her hands clenching her chest.

My chair scraped loudly against the floor as I shot to my feet. The abrupt movement startled everyone in the cabinet, their murmurs ceasing in an instant.

All heads turned toward me. Bewilderment and alarm stunned their expressions. Everyone abruptly rose to their feet, disoriented.

"What happened, Alpha?" Draknor took an alarmed stance, his tone wary, as though he was bracing himself for a war or an invasion.

Without wasting another second, I strode out of the conference hall.

'Draknor. Take over the meeting,' I commanded through the mindlink.

'Alpha, what could be more important than the budget meeting at a time like this?' he asked, his voice a mix of concern and confusion.

'My wife,' I replied, breaking into a sprint as the corridor stretched endlessly ahead.

***

My shadows twisted and folded the air around my body as I ran forward. The corridor walls dissolved into a void of swirling darkness and light. My steps came to a halt as the void collapsed and reshaped around me into the familiar hallway outside my penthouse.

I gazed at the door, knowing that my Xanthea was just beyond it.

I took a deep breath, bracing myself as I strode toward it, but stopped, my hand lingering over the handle as I shut my eyes.

To isolate Xanthea from the rest of the world, I had turned my house into a prison. No one could enter, leave, or even teleport here without my permission - not even me.

With all my faith, I entrust myself to you.

Please save me...

Please... help me...

Just when my determination wavered, Xanthea's words anchored me. Steeling myself, I unlocked the door and stepped into the foyer.

My legs grew heavier as I neared the bedroom. The door was slightly ajar; the room buried in darkness and a biting cold silence.

Shards cracked beneath my shoes as I entered. Xanthea knelt in the center of the room, her head held low, her figure a shadow against the towering windows that framed the storm brewing in the red sky.

Streaks of blood-red raindrops pattered against the glass, the sound suffusing with Xanthea's heartbeats creating a resonating hypnotic melody as though nature had embraced her pain because I could not. Soothed it because I could not. I stopped in front of her. Kneeling on one knee, I picked up the last surviving forget-me-not from the floor and got up.

Thunder rumbled in the twisting clouds as lightning flooded our bedroom in fleeting bursts of light. For a moment, it felt as though the storm didn't just invade our bedroom - but it raged between us.

The light faded, leaving us cloaked in shadows once more.

Cadence had programmed Xanthea's psychology in the most self-destructive manner.

She didn't just heavily manipulated Xanthea's emotions through her diaries, but she had conditioned her mind in such a way that when Xanthea came across her mother's guilt, she instantly owned them as her own without reasoning or rationality.

Cadence never wanted a daughter. She wanted Xanthea to be her new vessel, to take her place and continue Cadence's life from where it stopped.

And I won't let that tragedy fall on my wife. Xanthea was meant for things far greater than Cadence could ever imagine.

Xanthea needed an external villain to battle and conquer before she could face and accept the darkness within herself and come into her own power.

She needed someone to blame, someone to hate, someone to channel her pain and rage toward - and it couldn't be herself, Ezra, or Raven. So, I will have to bear this burden until she realizes it herself.

I had witnessed her true potential in the darkroom, so I know that one day, my Xanthea will come to me and admit that she doesn't deserve any of this. Only then will she understand her true worth, embrace what she's meant to become, and accept both her weaknesses and her powers as her own, not her mother's.

Unfortunately, that day was not today.

Proffering the flower towards her, I asked her a question, fully aware that answering it might hurt her and tear her identity apart all over again. "Weren't they... your favorite flowers?"

Another distant lightning cracked in the sky and she finally lifted her head, her eyes meeting mine. Until now, she hadn't even noticed my presence. Tears flushed her eyes, her weary face brightening with hope.

"Asher..." my name trembled out of her parched lips as a relief.

Her body trembled with weakness as she tried to get up, but stumbled and fell on the floor again, bruising her knees.

I took back the step that my body had involuntarily taken towards her to save her from the fall, but I controlled myself right on time.

"Asher..." she took my name once, twice, again and again, as though chanting my name was the only way to clear the dark mental daze she had been stuck in for days.

I just stared at her with an impassive face. She winced, scrambling to her feet as she stood before me, peering at me with tears streaming down her eyes.

My gaze dropped to the floor where she stood, barefoot. Shards of glass were scattered all over her path, their sharp edges inches away from her feet. "Asher..."

She took a step, then another, trudging through the shards without a care for the pain they caused, or how her feet bled.

I gritted my teeth.

Fuck this!

I unclenched my fists. Shadows rushed out from my palm, spreading across the floor like a dark fog, sweeping the shards away from her path.

"I called for you so many times, again and again. Why didn't you come to me? I know I hurt you. I knew you were mad at me, but I needed you more than ever. But you?" She whimpered, lowering her bleary gaze.

"I thought I'd never see you again... I was so scared. How could you-" her voice cracked.

Her tone was tinged with suppressed rage, which abruptly shifted to a self-loathing tone.

"But it's ok. I'm not blaming you. I deserved it. Even so, I knew you'd come to me when the time was right. You were watching me. I could feel your gaze on me all the time."

She blushed, lowering her gaze shyly as she wiped off her tears, taking deep breaths.

"If you had to punish me... you would have isolated me in your dark room, not here, where I am surrounded by your comforting scent every second."

She chuckled, licking tears off her lips as she shook her head.

"No. Even if you confined me in the dark room, it wouldn't be a punishment. I would still be in your embrace, surrounded by our memories. I have made mistakes and I deserve to be punished."

She took another step towards me.

"But even with everything that's wrong with me, I knew you wouldn't abandon me or discard me like your other brides. Because I am... your Xanthea, right?" she looked at me with uncertain eyes, fidgeting with her fingers anxiously. Her emotions were all over the place and while I expected it, something... didn't feel right.

Winds howled outside, rattling against the glass and silence gripped us both, tightening its hold on us.

"Asher... you won't even talk to me now?" she asked, nibbling on her lower lips.

Swallowing hard, I averted my eyes, failing to endure the intensity of her emotions.

"Look..." Her eyes flickered to the floor, her gaze darting around as she tried to hide her frenzy. "This is what you wanted, right? For me to understand that I should hate my mother, not myself. So... I do. I hate my mother. Like I should. Like you want me to."

She was slowly slipping towards the edge of insanity, and the only thing that was keeping her grounded to reality was - me?

Even when I wasn't by her side?

My eyes widened in realization. Icifer, who had been clawing to take over me for the last five days, was now eerily silent.

'Xanthea didn't destroy the flowerpot because she finally understood she should hate her mother, not herself. No... she did it to lure us here. To end her isolation,' Icifer's voice echoed in my mind.

The forget-me-not slipped from my fingers, its petals scattering on the floor. In that instant, my danger sense spiked, paralyzing my mind and body. What have I done?

Did I push her too far?

Did I cross a line I shouldn't have?

I clenched my fists, my muscles tensing.

No. It can't be because right now she was the one playing with my mind.

"Asher... I'm sorry..."

Her voice was heavy with guilt and pain. She stepped closer, but there was hesitation in her demeanor, like she wasn't sure if I would accept her.

"I'm sorry... for forgetting about us. But thank you for being with me in all my heats. I might not remember the time our souls spent together all these years as vividly as you do, but I remember."

I clenched my jaws, my eyes darkening. Her words twisted inside me, creating a bittersweet ache in my chest.

"I remember us," she said. "I remember you. And... I remember our love."

Her voice faltered, and those empty words hung between us with no emotions, no warmth. They were just as hollow as her eyes.

She was telling me exactly what I had yearned to hear from the moment I saw her.

And even if she remembered us, remembered me, it wasn't enough. Not when the pain behind her eyes said otherwise.

Still, as much as I tried to resist, a part of me longed to believe every hollow word she said.

The flower crushed beneath her bloodied feet as she stood at an arm's distance from me.

Her shivering fingers reaching out to touch my face grazed against my jaws when I turned my back towards her.

I was about to leave when she collided against my back, wrapping her arms around me from behind.

I stood there, frozen, feeling her heart racing faster, her warmth penetrating through my skin, teasing my heart with everything I had craved to feel for as long as I can remember.

It took me every last ounce of my strength to not pull her into my arms, kiss every inch of her body, surrender myself to her completely, even if it destroyed us both. Withholding myself from the very person whom I ached to give my entirety felt like the strongest thing I had ever done in my life, yet it just made me weaker.

Her body trembled against mine, her arms shackling me. Electrifying spark zapped through my body, weakening me more.

I could feel the disturbing possessiveness radiating from her, turning me on for some darkly fucked up reasons.

Why?

Why now, Xanthea?

Why did you say these words now of all time?

Why now when you don't mean them - when I can't accept them?

I tried to break free, to step away, but she held me tighter.

I could feel her obsession in her grip and I would have relished on it if she was using it to manipulate me. But she was using it to manipulate herself into using me as her coping mechanism. "Don't go! Don't leave me alone. Please. It's scary. Please..." Her voice, low and pleading, vibrated against my back.

Right now, if she held me any tighter, I knew I'd want to fall apart. So, for her sake, I held myself together. I held myself back.

I tore her hands away from me, tearing us apart.

"Asher!" she grabbed my wrist.

Freeing my hand in a blink, I grabbed her by her throat, pinning her against the wall.

Her breasts pressed against my chest as her chest heaved, panic gleaming her eyes.

"I know what you're doing. Don't do it. I'm warning you," I growled against her lips. "If I lose my control right now... you will fucking lose yourself."

Her gaze softened as she amorously wrapped her shaking cold palms around my wrist, her eyes locked with mine, filled with a dangerous blend of need and defiance.

"I need you... Asher..." her words came out as a command, her eyes dropping to my lips. "I need to lose myself in you. Am I not yours? Are you not mine?"

My grip on her throat loosened as she arched her body against mine.

Her intoxicating scent drugged my senses, fueling the fever that compelled every part of my body to hold her, to melt into her, to bury myself in her depths and forget about everything else. But I didn't. I couldn't.

I tightened my grip on her throat again.

"Ah!" she let out a choked gasp.

Still, a weak smile adorned her lips with a temptation that was enough to bring me to my knees.novelbin

"I want you, Asher..." she whispered, her voice breaking.

Her eyes held me captive as her hands gently slid over mine, making me grip her throat tighter, as though she wanted me to choke her harder.

"So, please hold me tighter, pull me closer, and never let me go."

Her face turned red, her eyes straining with pressure.

Her vulnerability cut through my defences like a blade. Gritting my teeth, I let her go, pushing myself away from her. And it was in that moment, I realized how fucked up we were.

She gasped for breaths; her gaze still lingering on me.

The only reason I didn't tell her we were fated mates was because I wanted Xanthea to find her strength, to rise from her ruins on her own.

I wanted her to become whole, to rebuild herself free from the influence of her mother or anyone else, so she would never have to endure the kind of pain she felt right now, ever again.

But she was trying to build her new identity around me. Trying to bury herself in the grave of love, using it to escape her pain.

Why don't you understand, Xanthea?

I can be your crutch, but I can never be your legs.

I can carry you in my arms and walk with you into the endlessness for eternity. But I can never take even a step on your behalf.

No matter how painful it gets, you'll have to walk for yourself, because when I am gone, you'll have to stand on your own two feet.

I shut my eyes, trying to gather myself, and then turned to leave.

And just when I thought our fate couldn't get any crueler; it did.

"Hate me all you want, Asher, but I love you. I always have. I always will."