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"Here's another mention of shadow entities," I said, tapping the page. "But this one describes them as servants, not independent beings."

Neither of my companions responded. I glanced up to find Callum still seated beside me. He'd finally let go of my hand so we could work faster. His green eyes were scanning his own text, while across the circular table, Rowen stood with his back to us, examining a shelf of particularly ancient-looking scrolls.

My gaze lingered on the ruler of the underworld. His broad shoulders were tense beneath his black shirt, the powerful muscles of his back rigid with concentration. Or frustration. Since that morning, since my nightmare and the breaking ofmy heat, he'd been strangely distant. Present but removed, as if keeping himself carefully walled off.

I couldn't help but compare his demeanor now to the raw intensity he'd shown during my heat. When his obsidian eyes had burned with possession, when his hands had claimed every inch of my body with desperate need. The memory of it sent a flush of warmth through me that had nothing to do with the primal biological urge that had driven us then.

My heat might have broken, but my desire for him, for all of them, remained, transformed into something deeper and more complex.

Right now, I didn't much care for it.

Callum's fingers wrapped around mine once again, as if sensing the direction of my thoughts. I turned to find him watching me, a knowing smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Getting distracted?" he murmured, his voice pitched low enough that only I could hear.

I felt my cheeks heat. "Just... thinking."

"About Rowen?" His smile widened slightly. "Or about Archer? Or perhaps about me?"

"Conceited much?" I returned, but there was no bite in my words. "If you must know, I was thinking about all of you."

And that was the truth. In the aftermath of my heat, I'd found myself taking stock of my feelings for each of my mates. It was still strange to think of them that way. As my mates. Three powerful, ancient beings who had somehow become mine as much as I had become theirs.

With Callum, things felt the most natural. From the beginning, not that it had been that long ago, he'd been my protector, my guide. His possessiveness was tempered by a genuine desire to see me happy. His sharp wit and sharper tongue hid a tenderness that still surprised me at times.

Archer was more of an enigma, the shadow assassin who moved through darkness with lethal grace. He was the newest of my bonds, and in many ways still the most mysterious. But there was a vulnerability to him that called to something protective in me.

And then there was Rowen.

My eyes drifted back to the demon king. The first to find me, the first to leave me. The one whose abandonment had hurt the most. I still hadn't fully forgiven him for that, for walking away with no explanation, leaving me to believe he'd merely used me and discarded me.

Yet I couldn't deny the pull I felt toward him. Couldn't ignore the way my body responded to his mere presence, the way my heart seemed to recognize something in him that my mind didn't fully understand.

"You're frowning again," Callum observed, interrupting my thoughts.

I sighed, closing the book in front of me. "Just frustrated. We've been at this for hours, and we're no closer to identifying what attacked me."

"We will," he assured me, raising my hand to press a kiss against my knuckles. The casual intimacy of the gesture made something in my chest flutter. "It's just a matter of time."

Across the table, Rowen made a sound of frustration, drawing both our gazes. He was holding an ancient tome bound in what looked like bronze, its pages yellow with age.

"More useless conjecture," he growled, snapping the book closed with enough force that dust plumed from its pages. "Nothing concrete, nothing we can use."

His tail had materialized again, lashing behind him in agitation. I watched as he set the book aside with barely controlled violence, then reached for another, his movements sharp and precise.

Hours passed this way, the artificial light outside the library's windows shifting to mimic the passage of time in the world above. My eyes grew tired from the strain of reading, and my back ached from sitting in the same position for so long. But I persisted, driven by the need to understand what had invaded my dreams.

Servants brought food at some point. Fruit, bread, and something that resembled meat but which I suspected came from no creature I'd ever heard of. I ate mechanically, barely tasting any of it, while continuing to scan the texts.

It was during one of these moments, when my concentration had begun to waver, that I heard a particularly vicious curse from Rowen's direction. I looked up in time to see him hurl a book across the room. It hit the far wall with a loud thud before falling to the floor, its pages splayed open like broken wings.

"Rowen," Callum admonished, but there was understanding in his tone.

The demon king ignored him, bracing his hands on the table, his head bowed. His tail whipped back and forth with increasing agitation, and I could see the tips of his claws extending, scraping against the ancient wood.

Without conscious thought, I rose from my seat. Callum made a small sound of surprise as I pulled my hand from his, but he didn't try to stop me as I rounded the table and approached Rowen.

I moved slowly, instinctively cautious. Not because I feared him, I'd never truly feared Rowen, even when common sense said I should, but because the raw frustration emanating from him was almost palpable.