Page 23

I didn’t know how long I had kneeled at the base of the kings’ throne.

I let time blur around me, sinking into myself. If I focused too hard on reality, the pain in my knees, in my core, in my soul, went from a low rumble to a stabbing ache. If I let myself listen to the conversation around me, every word from the kings made me think of another pair of dead human eyes.

éamon.

The man from the harvest feast.

Fergus.

A fresh wave of sickly heat rolled through me, sudden and burning. Then, just as quickly, I felt cold, a slow, creeping chill. My body couldn’t decide which way to go. Not good.

I clenched my hands in my lap, nails biting into my palms. Breath, idiot. Ignore it.

I leaned into the fog.

My response wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal. It was my mind’s way of handling trauma, shutting down and curling inward to protect itself. I had done it before, but at least then I had a book to distract me.

Without one, I could only drift for so long.

“We’re nineteen, Your Majesty.” A light, female voice reached my ears. “It’s our twentieth birthday in a few days.”

The joy in her tone settled in me like rocks and dragged me down to my body. The constant hum of pain I ignored clawed its way back to the forefront of my mind. I dug my nails into my legs and let the sensation of it shoot through my skin.

I twisted slightly to glare at the fuckers at the base of the steps.

Two beautiful, dark-skinned vampires, a golden-eyed female and a silver-eyed male, stood hand in hand, her left arm tied to his right with a crimson sash. They looked so young. Almost innocent. Only a year older than Aislin.

“We wanted to have our heartbonding before we enlisted,” said the man.

My glare turned into a frown. Heartbonding. Was that the Azarasian version of a wedding?

A wave of dizziness hit me, disrupting my thoughts. I almost swayed. I fought it, forcing my breaths even. I couldn’t be weak. Not here. Not now.

The woman curled into the man’s side, as if she could get even closer than being literally bound to him, body and soul. “That and in time for the Red Queen’s Rising tonight.”

My brow furrowed. They must have called the Blood Star the Red Queen. Their celebration was tonight? A night of revelry, excess, and debauchery, no doubt. My stomach twisted at the thought. I hoped the kings wouldn’t make me attend.

But I knew they would.

“Will you stay bound until the Red Queen graces our skies with her full court?” Luc asked. He sounded like he cared, but from where I sat at his feet, his agitation almost hummed beneath his skin. His finger tapped slowly against the throne’s black armrest.

“We plan to, Your Majesty,” the man said. “It would be a great blessing to our bond.”

“That it would.” Luc smiled without a hint of arrogance, the practiced grin of a politician. “May you and your heartmate’s love last an eternity.”

“Yes, an eternity,” Jules echoed, not bothering to hide how bored he was. Legs crossed, he fidgeted as he used his curved dagger to pick under his nails.

Luc pinched Jules’s thigh, the movement hidden from the watching High Courts by my shoulders. Jules didn’t flinch but I did, imagining the sensation on my flesh.

The King of Dawn turned on his own charm. “Fate has given you a gift most Azarasians will never know. Your bond is already more than blessed.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” the woman replied, her fear almost disguised. It didn’t help that Jules waved his dagger around as he spoke.

The Butcher’s own citizens feared him and rightly so. Anyone who passed through the front gate saw his handiwork.

His art .

But then, just for a breath of a second, something flickered beneath his jovial cruelty.

The way he noticed their fear, the way he always noticed. How it clung to him, inevitable, unshakable, like a shadow cast too long ago to ever fade. And he had done it to himself. Better they fear him than think him less, a stain of a soulbound on the Azaras heir—

His gaze dropped to me, like he had heard the thought. Or, more likely, spotted me staring at him.

I didn’t duck my head. I didn’t fucking care. The exhaustion was getting to me.

Jules grinned, sharper than his blade, and flicked a speck of dirt from his dagger’s tip. “That will be all for today.”

Luc arched a brow at him before he followed his soulbound’s gaze to me. “A wonderful idea, Julien.”

My knees and spine should have rejoiced at their decision. The sooner their public audience came to a close, the sooner I could stop kneeling at the base of their throne, stiff-backed. The sooner I could climb into a bed to cry and scream into a pillow.

But I might have to cry and scream into a pillow for a very different reason first.

Luc looped his hand through my collar’s handle at my nape.

Oh, fuck.

The pressure at my throat increased as Luc tugged me up. I clawed at the collar, but my fingers were useless against the silver-gold band. My ass hit the warm heat of the Conqueror’s strong thigh. My hand slammed into his velvet-trimmed doublet over hard muscle.

The moment I was settled, he loosened his grip, and I sucked in a breath. Sweet, precious air. But his hand remained on the collar.

“Meet us in the throne room,” Luc said.

What? I noticed Roxiana nod the second before my vision blurred.

I jolted, vision spinning and melting. I gave my head a hard shake, squeezing my eyes shut.

I opened them to an entirely different room.

My jaw dropped. Instead of the vast audience hall, I now sat with the kings on their throne in a smaller chamber. Afternoon sunlight streamed through tall windows, gold light dancing across another ceiling mural. This time, instead of the Second Godsfall, the Conqueror and the Butcher loomed over a battlefield of bodies and red-tinged snow, powerful and confident in black armor over hardened leather.

Unlike the audience hall, this room was empty.

The crowns atop the kings’ heads flickered, shadows curling and rising like smoke. The shadows drifted toward the throne, where the daemium drank them down like water on soil.

My skin tingled in warning. A lightning strike of pain lanced low in my gut, but I ignored it in favor of curiosity. My gaze dropped to the throne beneath me. “This isn’t a replica of the Abyss and audience throne, is it?”

I couldn’t help but try to delay the inevitable. It wasn’t hard to guess the kings’ wonderful idea. Their stomachs didn’t grumble like mine, but their hunger was almost tangible.

In the corner of my vision, Luc finally allowed a small smile. “It isn’t. They’re the same throne, spelled to be in multiple places at once. We have a second one in Duskfell, but there is only one throne in each of our cities.”

Jules jumped to his feet, ignoring our conversation. “Stars, that last hour was dull. I need a drink. ”

“Isn’t that why we’re here?”

I went stiff in Luc’s lap. There it was, the inevitable.

“She’s non-alcoholic.” Jules approached a small cart tucked into a nook beside the throne. He grabbed a decanter, raised it at Luc in silent question, but the King of Dusk shook his head. Jules shrugged, poured himself a glass of dark red liquid, and took a slow sip.

A finger traced one side of my neck to the tip of my chin. My head whipped back around, away from Jules.

“Your choice, bride?” Luc asked, breath against my ear.

I swallowed audibly. I knew what Luc meant instantly. Pleasure or pain. Agony or ecstasy. My head tilted back, just enough to see the dark-eyed beast behind me lazing on his throne.

It wasn’t a hard question. I was already in pain. I didn’t want to be in any more.

Burying my shame, I whispered, “Ecstasy.”

Luc nudged my chin, his fingers warm against my jaw. My neck stretched before him, exposing a long expanse of unblemished skin—

I had just enough time to inhale before fangs met my flesh.

Heat surged through me, racing from my neck to my tightening nipples, pooling between my thighs in a flood of raw need.

I gasped. Every ache faded, burned away by bliss. For once, my desire didn’t turn on me. I tried to squeeze my thighs together, desperate to ease the pressure.

But before I could, Jules was there, sliding a knee between my legs and pressing in. The King of Dawn’s lean, powerful body towered over us, black eyes fixed on me as I gasped and buckled against his soulbound’s hold. He had tied his blond hair back into a knot, keeping the wavy strands from his face.

Godstars, I wanted them to touch me. Right fucking now. I wanted those long, perfect fingers inside me. I wanted—no, I needed . I was hopeless, breathless, burning slow, the fire consuming me from the inside out.

I ground back against Luc’s hard length trapped between us, but that didn’t sate my ache at all. My own hand snaked between my legs. I usually couldn’t stand to touch the softness of my thighs, but I needed friction, needed something.

Jules caught my hand easily. “Uh-uh, bride. You’re ours now. No one will touch you unless we say so. And that includes you.”

A second later, an odd, warm sensation caressed my arms and knees. Wafting shadows from the daemium twisted around my limbs and pulled them taut. They pinned my hands to the throne, spreading my legs wide enough for Jules to kneel between them.

I couldn’t resist. I wasn’t even sure I tried. My head dropped back against the King of Dusk’s muscled shoulder.

Luc swallowed another mouthful of my blood, the pull at my essence, my lifeforce, muted beneath the white-hot surge of pleasure. I squirmed, whimpering. Fuck, why wouldn’t they touch me? The King of Dusk had fucked that thrall on the road, gripping her hips, dragging her down onto his cock without hesitation.

So why wouldn’t he take me?

I could feel the tension coiling in him, the rigid strain of his body beneath mine. He wanted. I knew it. I felt it.

So why wouldn’t he give in?

Luc traced his fingers up my body and unhooked my dress from my collar. The fabric slid down to my waist. My breasts heaved, my nipples sharp and aching.

Jules licked his lips at the sight.

Luc crawled his hand down my body, across my soft stomach, and slipped beneath my skirts.

Yes. No! Yes? My brain couldn’t settle on a response.

He slid his hand between my spread legs. I jolted as his fingers threaded through my curls, ever so slowly.

He rubbed his fingertips through my wet center and landed on my clit.

Pleasure shot through me. I forgot everything. I started panting at the soft touch.

Jules’s breathing turned harsh as he focused on the shape of his soulbound’s hand under my thin gown. “Is Luc touching your clit without my permission, lovely?”

I didn’t even try to answer. My muscles went slack, my eyes drifting half-shut. Luc lapped his tongue against my bloody skin, tugging at the tension between my legs. His fingers stroked it higher. I couldn’t hold back my moan.

With a final, deep swallow and a brush of his tongue across the puncture marks, Luc pulled an inch away from my neck. His breath tickled against my skin. “I don’t need your permission, Julien. You won her first, not forever”—Luc circled his fingers around my clit, and I choked on my breath—“so this is mine to do with as I please.”

“Is—Is—” I swallowed. “Is this a game to you both?”

“Yes,” Luc said without hesitation.

“I’m in the lead.” Jules sipped at his wine, those golden eyes flickering to me before returning south. He pushed my skirt up another inch, exposing Luc’s hand on my needy flesh. “Shall we give Luc a chance to catch up?”

Luc swiveled his fingers. The jolt made me forget the question. It made me forget my name . My lips parted, a pathetic whine escaping from them.

“I think she’s open to the idea,” Jules said with a chuckle. “Shh, there’s no need to answer. I can see it on your face. The bliss, the wonder, the surprise...” His gilded gaze sharpened. “How many times have you come in your life?”

Luc’s finger remained on my clit, but he went still. The sudden lack of movement left me aching, thrashing against the shadows around my limbs. “What?”

“It’s a simple enough question.” Luc’s lips brushed the side of my face, his breath dancing across my skin. “We’ll know if you lie.”

“Twice,” I said without hesitation. Anything to get those fingers moving again.

But wait. That wasn’t right. I had come on my fingers, Jules’s tongue, and then… then again after they bit me. “Or three times?”

I frowned. That answer didn’t feel right either. Why didn’t it feel right? Something was missing.

Then Luc’s finger moved again, and all that mattered was pleasure. “You don’t sound sure, little bride.”

“It was three.”

“Before last night, you had one orgasm in nearly thirty years?” His voice was smooth, but his silver eyes flickered, watching me too closely.

“That’s a travesty,” Jules said, his grin growing sharp. “Who made you come? Besides me, of course.”

What was this, a fucking interrogation? At my lack of reply, Luc slowed his finger again. “No one,” I gasped out quickly, the sound nearly shrill.

“So you came on your own fingers?”

“Yes.”

The King of Dusk cocked his head. “And never tried again?”

I looked away. He didn’t understand. He was a vampire, a perfect specimen of corded muscle and smooth skin. I was disgusting, broken. A wicked, sinful girl. “No.”

“Why?” Jules asked.

Luc sped the circles around my clit with each answer. My back arched, a moan escaping my lips. “I’m not—ah… There’s something wrong with me. It sometimes… oh, fuck… hurts. A lot.”

“How does it feel right now?” Luc asked, circling and circling.

I shuddered as bolts of pleasure shot through me. “You know how it feels.”

Luc’s smug arrogance all but radiated into me as I whimpered on his fucking finger. He increased his pressure ever so slightly. “I did, but I still want you to say it.”

I exhaled shakily, but managed to say, “Why do you even care?”

“Despite what some human men think,” Luc said, “sex is far more pleasurable when your partners are enjoying themselves.”

“We’re not having sex. You’re...” My gaze went from Luc in my periphery to Jules, kneeling between my legs and watching his soulbound pleasure me with rapture. “He’s…”

Jules grinned madly. “It’s called foreplay, lovely girl. As Luc said, you’ll be a better fuck if you’re soaking wet and sobbing for it.”

I bit my lip to stop my mewl. Soaking wet and sobbing. I was already most of the way there. “Oh.”

“Mine was far more eloquent.”

“Fuck off, Lucey.”

Luc continued working my clit, luring me to the peak with slow, measured, maddening steps. “You didn’t answer me. How does it feel, bride?”

The words hovered on my tongue, but I held them there, trembling. Amazing. Life-altering. Transcendent. I never wanted to experience pain ever again. Just this intoxicating bliss.

“So stubborn,” Luc murmured.

Luc swirled my clit faster, faster. The touch remained light, a quick brush of his fingertip. Little gasps escaped my throat, embarrassing noises.

I didn’t care. His venom still rushed through my veins, muting my pain. Leaving me bathing in light and heat and perfection.

This was the way a body should’ve worked. Should’ve reacted. It didn’t even matter that it was the Conqueror fingering me. As long as he made me come. He lured me up and up with gentle strokes, higher and higher—

He pulled his hand away. “Julien.”

No! I almost cried out, but held the embarrassing noise in. But I couldn’t stop twisting in his grasp. I couldn’t move much, but my legs widened slightly. I glanced at the King of Dusk over my shoulder, ready to beg.

He smirked. “What a needy little creature you are.”

“Please,” I whispered. I didn’t even feel any shame at the question.

“Not yet. You haven’t earned it.” His silver gaze released me and flickered down. “Isn’t that right, dearest?”

I blinked away the fiery bliss and managed half a frown at Jules. He placed his half-full goblet on the throne’s arm and removed the jeweled gold rings from his right hand. “Hold these for me.”

The chill of the metal pressed into my trapped palm. I clenched my hand around them automatically. What was—?

Jules suddenly dropped lower. I gaped down my body and at the king crouching between my legs. When Jules exhaled, his breath brushed against my aching center. That single brush had me straining in Luc’s lap, battling the shadows around my limbs.

The King of Dusk’s hands dug into my hips, locking me in place, as golden eyes flickered to me. “Now, now,” Jules murmured. “You wouldn’t deprive a man his favorite meal?”

My mouth watered. “You… I… No?”

Jules grinned—and then locked his fangs into the soft skin of my mound.

The pleasure in me burst, like oil thrown on fire. Blood trickled down my skin, through my curls and over my clit.

Jules lapped his tongue through me, slow and hard.

I moaned, eyes slipping shut. His tongue piercing grazed against that sensitive nub and my moan turned into a yelp.

Luc’s hands caged my legs in place as Jules groaned into my cunt. It was a desperate, hungry noise, half male and half beast. Jules started sucking and nipping and licking my blood-soaked clit, burrowing into my body. Devouring me.

My eyes rolled back as waves of heat thrummed through me. Would Jules really fuck me with his tongue every day for the rest of my life? He got better each time, learning what made me whimper and applying each lesson like a dedicated pupil.

“Please.” I didn’t know what I was begging for, not exactly, but I needed more.

Luc chuckled, a deep rumble. “Please, what?”

“Please, Your Majesty. I need to come. Please make me come.”

“Not to me,” Luc murmured against my ear. He reached out and brushed a knuckle along Jules’s temple. “To him.”

I whimpered but obeyed. “Please, please, please—”

Jules had no objections. He slid his finger toward my soaked center. I gasped at the sensation. The King of Dawn circled the rim of my entrance until the pad of his finger dipped inside me.

I tensed, bracing for the pain. There was a tinge of discomfort, but the building heat washed it away. It didn’t turn to shattered glass, scraping at my insides.

My nipples tightened.

My breath spiked.

My nerves tingled.

My world narrowed to the pleasure between my legs.

Jules’s knuckles brushed my entrance as he sunk deeper. Deeper. Deeper. The side of his palm brushed my curls as he buried his finger as far as he could inside me.

I exhaled in a long whine. Fuck, that felt… amazing. There was no blinding pain as my body turned against me. No curling into a ball as it radiated through my core. Only a warm wave of venom and tongue-induced pleasure, rushing through me.

“That’s enough, Julien.”

No, no, no. “Please, don’t stop.”

Jules glanced up, but his tongue and finger didn’t stop their tantalizing dance. Those shadowed gold eyes flicked from his silver counterpart to me, flushed and heaving against his chest. The King of Dawn smirked against my cunt.

With one last swirl around my blood-stained clit, he healed my skin and pulled back. I nearly sobbed.

But he didn’t stop rocking his hand back and forth as he licked his glistening lips. “My apologies, darling. I got carried away.”

Luc hummed. He released my hip… and returned his fingers to my clit.

I groaned, embarrassingly loud.

Both of their hands were now between my legs.

“That’s it, little curiosity,” Luc said. “Surrender to your kings.”

I had surrendered the moment Luc’s fangs pierced my neck. Earlier even. Last night. At the lake. In Corraidin. My body arched until my head rested against Luc’s shoulder, his sharp jawline, silver-rimmed shadow eyes, and tousled dark hair filling my entire vision.

The King of Dusk’s expression was almost bored… if I ignored how hot it was. It was the lazy confidence of a predator, secure in his claim on his prey.

On me.

The kings sped their pace, each thrust harder, each swirl around my clit faster. The strain pushed me higher into intoxicating heat. It spread through my chest, my lungs heaving. Stars, this was going to kill me.

They were going to kill me.

How dare they touch me like this, together, after doing such wickedly horrible things.

How dare I crave it.

“Are you enjoying our fingers, lovely?”

A breathless moan escaped my throat, as good an answer as any.

“Are you going to come for us?” Luc’s voice rumbled through his chest and into me, the sound satisfied and very male. I shuddered as it stirred the fire in my core higher.

Luc pressed hard against my clit. I shrieked at the burst of pleasure-pain. “Ye—ah, yes, Your Majesty. I’m going to… oh… going to come.”

“Good girl.” Luc rubbed faster and faster as Jules curled his finger. He brushed against a spot within me that made me jerk and mewl. “Come for us now.”

My body obeyed him.

My eyes rolled back.

“Oh, fuck, stars, fuck!”

I jolted as I came, my body jostling between the two vampires holding me down. My back arched, my head slamming against Luc. My hands clenched, wishing they could wrap around Luc’s thighs, my fingers wanting nothing more than to dig into his hard muscles. I bucked against them, their hand and their throne’s shadows, as their venom stretched the orgasm on and on.

When it finally released me, I slumped down in Luc’s lap and closed my eyes. I hadn’t even noticed Jules’s rings piercing my palm.

Was this what thralls went through every feeding? Stars. No wonder they became addicted.

I let out a soft, satisfied sigh. The pleasure still pulsed in my veins, hot and hazy, like the remnants of a fever. My skin tingled where their hands had been, my thighs trembling in the aftershocks. I should have felt relief. Instead, a slow, crawling awareness slithered down my spine.

The kings hadn’t spoken.

That should have been a blessing. It wasn’t. I blinked away the haze. Jules had gone completely still between my legs, one hand resting lightly on my thigh. Luc’s fingers splayed against my belly and hadn’t moved since I’d gone slack in his lap.

There was a tension in them, something barely restrained. They weren’t teasing, weren’t taunting, weren’t moving at all.

This was different. Heavier.

Heat crawled up my throat, thick and cloying. My thighs pressed together, as if I could somehow hide from the weight of their attention. I had done something wrong. I must have.

My gaze flickered down to their hands. The smallest trace of blood marred Jules’s skin, mixing with my desire.

Shame flooded me. I couldn’t know for sure, but I doubted it came from the bite. Would there ever be a time I wouldn’t bleed when aroused? Their venom had eliminated any discomfort, but my body still reacted.

Now that they knew about my pain and noticed my bleeding, did they regret choosing a broken bride?

“What?” I asked, voice shaking.

The silence deepened. But the kings finally turned their attention from me to each other.

“Did you…” Jules hesitated, his gaze flicking between me and his soulbound. His lips parted like he had something to say, but nothing came out.

The Butcher was speechless .

But Luc already knew the rest of the question. “Feel her come? Every second of it.”