Chapter 702

Sacrifice
​”I’m so, so sorry…” she kept apologizing.

​But Lennox wasn’t listening to her anymore. His ears twitched, his eyes snapping toward the entrance door. “Something is wrong,” Lennox growled, his muscles bunching to shift. “The air… it’s heavy.”

​The front door didn’t just open; it was shoved off its hinges with a violent, magical force. Stepping over the threshold was a man who looked nothing like their father. His face was sharp, scarred, and framed by matted dark hair. This was Neon’s real face.

​Lennox roared and attacked, but halfway through the air, he hit an invisible wall. He crashed to the floor, his limbs hurting. Behind him, Levi and Louis tried to shift, but their bones groaned as if pinned by a mountain.

​”I can’t… I can’t move my light!” Olivia gasped, her hands trembling as she tried to spark a teleportation circle. A shimmering, oily barrier was absorbing her power before it could even manifest.

​Neon let out a low, mocking whistle. “Did you really think the ’Special’ girl could just pop in and out of my traps? I’ve waited ten years to get the Trinity in one room without their army.” He looked at Selene with pure disgust. “You were the perfect bait, my love. I knew they’d run straight to the only person who knew the truth.”

​”Neon, please!” Selene screamed, crawling toward him. “This is enough! Just let them go!”

​”Shut up!” Neon barked, kicking her hand away. “I tried to give us a kingdom, a life where we weren’t scavenging like rats in the dirt, but you didn’t want it. You grew soft. You grew ’guilty.’ If you won’t reign with me, you’ll die with them.”

​Neon pulled out something that looked like a charm wrapped in red cloth. He opened the cork and poured a liquid out of it, and suddenly, fire erupted. This wasn’t normal fire; it was alchemist’s flame, green and hungry, licking up the walls in seconds. The smoke began to fill the room, but the brothers and Olivia were still frozen, pinned by Neon’s dampening spell. Neon stood in the center of the chaos, a transparent, shimmering wall protecting him from the heat.

​”You’re going to watch your family burn, Lennox,” Neon sneered. “And when you’re ash, I’m going back for your sons.”

​”No!” Selene’s voice shifted. The cowardice was gone, replaced by a mother’s final, desperate act to save her sons. She looked at her three sons—the boys she had failed for a decade—and then at Olivia’s pregnant belly.

I know this spell. Neon learned it from the Outlands. It requires blood to hold the seal.” Selene whispered, her eyes meeting Lennox’s.

​”Mother, don’t!” Louis choked out, struggling against the invisible weight.

​”I loved you,” she lied, or perhaps finally told the truth, as she lunged out from behind the barrier and threw herself directly into the heart of the green fire.

​The moment her body hit the flames, a high-pitched, glass-shattering sound echoed through the cottage. The invisible weight vanished. The dampening field evaporated.

​”Now!” Lennox screamed, grabbing Olivia. Olivia grabbed the brothers. Just as the roof began to collapse onto Neon’s protective shield, the space where they stood folded in on itself.

​In a flash of blinding light, they were gone, leaving the cottage—and their mother—to the fire.

​In the blink of an eye, they arrived at the master suite in the mansion. Lennox hit the ground first. His knees gave out, and he fell hard. He did not even try to stand up. He stayed on the floor, breathing fast and staring at his shaking hands. The smell of burned hair still clung to his clothes. It reminded him of the woman they had just left behind.

​Across the room, the bond between the three brothers pulsed with a heavy pain. Their mother was gone. Even after her betrayal and all the lies she had told for ten years, she was still the woman who gave birth to them. And she had just burned alive so they could escape.

​”She’s gone,” Lennox whispered. His voice cracked.

​He didn’t have to say her name. They all knew who he meant. The room felt empty, like something important had been torn away.

​Olivia hurried toward them. Her strength was almost gone from forcing the teleport. She dropped to her knees beside Lennox and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She pulled his head gently to her chest. At the same time, she reached out her other hand toward Levi and Louis.

​The three Alpha brothers looked like broken boys sitting on the bedroom floor.

​”She chose you in the end,” Olivia said softly, her voice full of emotion. “She broke the spell. She gave her life so you could live.”

​For a few minutes, no one spoke. The only sound in the room was their heavy breathing. But the quiet did not last long. The Alpha inside Lennox would not allow it. He slowly pulled away from Olivia and wiped a tear from his dirty cheek. His face grew hard, and his eyes filled with anger.

​”How?” Lennox demanded, looking at his brothers. “How did Neon get power like that? He doesn’t even have a wolf. He’s a rogue with nothing. No wolf. No pack. No land. So who is helping him? Which sorcerer is behind this?”

​Levi leaned against the bedpost. His face looked pale. “He must have made a deal with someone from the Outlands,” Levi said slowly. “No pack witch would ever dare to betray us by working with him.”

​Louis stood up and began pacing across the room like a restless beast. He walked to the window and stared out at the forest far away. “And we can’t believe the fire killed him,” Louis said in a low voice. “He had that clear shield around him. It was still holding even when the roof started falling. I don’t think Neon is dead, Lennox. A man who plans something for ten years doesn’t get trapped in his own plan.”

​”He’s not dead,” Lennox agreed. His eyes flashed with anger. “We have to find him.”

​Levi shook his head, looking at his hands. “I can’t believe our father died ten years ago and we didn’t feel it. We are his sons. We should have felt his soul leave this world.”

​Lennox looked at him with a dark expression. “Neon must have done something. He used that dark witch to hide the truth. They used magic to mask his death so the bond wouldn’t snap. We trusted what we saw, not what we felt.”

​Lennox stood up, his body straight and his voice strong again. The grief was still there, but his duty to the pack came first.

​”Levi, go now,” Lennox commanded. “Pass the message to everyone in the pack. Every warrior, every staff member, and every family needs to know the truth. Tell them the man they thought was our father—the man we banished—was an impostor. Our real father, King Damon, was murdered ten years ago.”

​Just then, someone knocked on the door.

A female staff member’s voice came from outside.

“Luna… please, you need to see this.”