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“Do you need for anything, Prime Minister Adriana?” asks the middle of the three. They all have shaved heads and wear the fighting robes of the species.

“I am going to take a shower in the royal chambers. If they come out, please tell them I would like some privacy until I leave.”

“Of course, Prime Minister. Would you allow us to escort you to your ship when you are done?”

“I would.”

It might be my imagination, but there is the tiniest hint of a smile of pride on his lips at my answer. I realize it must be an honor, to guard the fiancée of the alien princes.

“The shower is the third door to the left of the main entrance,” says the squire, and I walk down the corridor to their bedroom.

Three huge empty beds, and their little table. It looks so lonely, so bare, but then I realize that my own tiny chambers on my ship are the same, utilitarian with nothing to show that I lived there.

Nothing but the heels from Virelia I’m wearing, the only trace of my individuality tucked away, hidden in my closet. I find the door and open it, and there is a large room with threeclear glass cylinders. The Aurelian triad really does everything together, sleeping in the same bedroom, showering just a few feet from each other.

I guess once you share a mind, there’s not much in the use of privacy.

“Water, 20 degrees,” I say, and from the ceiling of the high middle shower, water rains down. I strip and enter it, wanting to feel cool and refreshed.

The water rushes over my body, cleansing me of the scent and seed of the triad, but deep down, I know there’s a deeper imprint on my soul. Something inside me has changed. I walked into that pleasure room not knowing what would happen, not knowing if I had the strength to resist…

Not knowing if I wanted to.

I flirted with the Bond when I told them to take the rings off. I needed to see them, as they were, and I needed to feel how they would make me react. And though the intensity of it all was nerve-wracking, it felt sorightto be with the three of them, to see them inflamed with beastly lust, fighting against the bonds that I create with my mind alone, so close to their ultimate goal of linking me to them forever.

I let my hair out, the water washing through it, and I sit down on the shower floor, exhausted. “Warm,” I say, and the waters increase in temperature, washing me clean of their seed. It drips down my body and into the drains, so much of it. I shiver as I remember their cocks pulsing, stiffening, unleashing torrent after torrent, so much more than any human man. I can’t imagine how it would feel with them inside me, the intense pressure that would be so overwhelming pleasurable it would drive me to the absolute limit of what I could handle.

That’s all they crave. To unleash inside me, to take me, and make me theirs, forever.

It makes me shiver, it makes me smile. I thought my life was crazy since I left Virelia. More has happened in the last week alone than an entire year as Prime Minister.

“Dry,” I say, and the water shuts off, and I am blow dried in every direction.

When I’m fully dry, I get up, my legs trembling slightly, and go to the counter where I placed my dress. It’s rumpled, stained and darkened by Aurelian seed.

I could ask the squires for a change of clothes…

But I don’t care. My servant will have already gossiped. Rumors spread like wildfire on a closed ship. My staff has had nothing to do for the last week, forbidden to leave the ship and mingle with Aurelians. It was a restriction placed to avoid any diplomatic scandals if something were to happen between a triad and one of the women on my ship.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some had tried to sneak off.

I look at myself over the counter that I can barely see over. Everything is built to the dimensions of the giant species. I’m in their world, but I’m still torn.

The three of them made me feel things I didn’t know were possible. I’m already craving it again. The lust and hunger as they are driven insane by the Mating Rage, that growing anticipation of pure, perfect surrender when I finally give in, when I open my legs to the triad, and they take me, one after another.

The thought of the cool black rings enters my mind, and I bite my lip in uncertainty. I’m still not ready to face the Bond. Sex with the three of them while they wear those rings would be intense, but I can remember what Titus said about copulating with women who did not have the scent of a potential mate.

Friction. Bodies, moving together. No matter how good it would feel, it could never be as deep as truly giving in, opening my body to the triad while nothing severed the link between us.

The smile creeps up my lips as I smooth my hair. It’s nice to know that even with the rings on their fingers, the three of them still look at me like I am the only woman to exist in the world. I would have always wondered if they were attracted to me because ofme,or because of the vision that told them I am the one woman in the universe who can bear their sons.

I stop trying to tame my messy hair, and leave the showers in the now wrinkled dress. The three squires are standing proudly in the bedroom, hands near their weapons.

The first opens the door and strides out. I follow him, and the other two squires take their position behind me, forming a protective wall as they walk out proudly past the guards, excited to be escorting such an important person through the ship.

It’s strange. They look like they are not yet twenty, but they’ve lived so much longer than me.

They stop when we get to my ship, and the bay door opens for me, the walkway extending. I enter my ship past the guards stationed inside my ship, who both can’t stop quickly glancing from my messy hair to my crumpled dress.