Fated to the Alpha–And His Triplet Brothers novel Chapter 295

Chapter 295: Speak

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She freed us, and then she let us outside.

But it turns out... the place was not it.

The longer we stayed there, the more wrong it felt—not in the way danger announces itself, but in the way emptiness does. No pull. No echo. No trace of Aurora’s presence. Just silence pretending to mean something.

Alice was the first to say it.

"This isn’t it."

The words fell heavy.

"But it feels hidden," Caspian argued.

"Yes," she replied, slowly folding the map, "but it feels empty. Aurora leaves marks. Even when she hides."

My chest tightened. I knew she was right.

We were about to turn back when the fog shifted.

And then we saw her.

An old, crooked woman stood at the edge of the trees, bent over a wooden staff. Her back was hunched unnaturally, her hair long and gray, dragging almost to the ground. Her eyes—cloudy, pale—locked onto us the moment we noticed her.

"Well," she croaked, lips splitting into a toothless smile, "travelers."

None of us moved.

"You look lost," she continued, shuffling closer. "This forest eats the unprepared."

Caspian stepped forward cautiously. "We’re just passing through."

She laughed. A dry, wheezing sound. "No one just passes through Varian’s outskirts."

Outskirts.

That word made my blood run cold.

"I have shelter," she said, tapping her staff against the ground. "Warm fire. Food. You look like you’ve been walking for days."

Alice glanced at me. I shook my head slightly.

"We’re fine," I said. "We don’t need—"

"You do," she interrupted sharply, her smile vanishing for just a second. Then it returned, wider. Hungrier. "And night is coming."

The sky, as if on cue, darkened.

Against our better judgment, exhaustion won.

We followed her.

Her hut sat crooked between two massive trees, stitched together with bones, vines, and rotting wood. The moment we stepped inside, the air changed. Thick. Sweet. Wrong.

She offered us stew.

None of us touched it.

"You don’t eat?" she asked, eyes narrowing.

"We ate earlier," Alice lied smoothly.

The woman hummed, circling us slowly. "Such pretty souls," she murmured. "So much power packed into fragile bodies."

That was when the door slammed shut on its own.

Caspian reached for his weapon.

Too late.

The floor pulsed.

Magic snapped tight around our ankles like chains. The woman straightened suddenly—no longer hunched, no longer weak. Her body elongated unnaturally, bones cracking, skin tightening.

Her eyes cleared.

Sharp. Predatory.

"Did you really think," she said, voice no longer frail, "that I take in travelers out of kindness?"

She raised her staff—and the fire flared green.

"I feed on alphas," she hissed. "On witches. On Crescent blood."

The walls began to close in.

Alice cursed.

Leon struggled against the bindings, rage pouring off him in waves. "We’re not dying here."

The woman laughed. "Oh, you won’t die immediately."

Before the words could finish settling in the air, her laughter cut off.

She froze.

Then she collapsed. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Her body hit the floor with a sickening thud, the green fire snuffing out instantly as if it had never existed. The chains around our ankles shattered and dissolved into ash.

Silence.

We all stared.

"What the—" Leon started.

Then the shadows at the far end of the hut shifted.

Someone stepped out of them.

Slow. Calm. Unbothered.

Gabrielle.

She looked exactly the same and yet not at all. Her presence alone pressed against the room, heavy and sharp, like standing too close to a blade. Her eyes flicked briefly to the old woman on the ground, then back to us.

"You guys really need my help," she said flatly.

Caspian blinked. "You think?"

Leon scoffed. "We literally told you to help us."

Alice crossed her arms. "Multiple times."

Gabrielle raised a brow, unimpressed. "And yet here you are. Almost dead. Again."

A beat passed.

Then Leon laughed. "Wow. You disappear for gods know how long and this is the energy you return with?"

"I saved your lives," she replied.

"Bare minimum," Alice muttered.

For a moment, it almost felt normal. Familiar. The tension cracked just enough for that strange, ridiculous warmth to slip through. But Gabrielle didn’t join in. She remained still, distant, her gaze unfocused, like she was only half there.

Caspian noticed first.

"You’re not okay," he said quietly.

Her jaw tightened.

"I don’t know where exactly she is," Gabrielle admitted. "Not anymore."

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