Page 26

“That explains how she left the apartment, at least,” Cédric said into the silence growing thick in the Council Chamber. My brother’s brows had raised, but curiosity burned in his gaze. “It’s keyed to your soul, not your blood.”

Sabas massaged his temples and leaned back into his chair, looking on the edge of a meltdown. “That’s the only thing it fucking explains. How did a human survive a soulbond with the Imperium? Your power alone should have crushed her, never mind the obvious soul incompatibility.”

“Given she’s alive, they’re obviously not that incompatible,” Roxiana mused into her full goblet.

Sabas shot her a glare. “They’re so fucking incompatible, they didn’t even realize it was a soulbond until she nearly died."

Luc arched a brow at our Crown Enforcer’s tone from where he stood by the windows overlooking Montaurère, his hair gleaming blue-black in the afternoon sun. “It’s not like either of us has ever experienced a new soulbond. It’ll take time for it to settle and feel like our previous bond.”

“And it’s only a little past noon.” I said the words lightly, even as my thoughts spun. “Didn’t take us that long.”

I had known something was… not wrong, but different the second I woke on Nessa’s soft stomach from the deepest sleep in my life. I wanted to wake that way every morning, buried in her and Luc’s scents.

And I would.

The spell had affected all three of us, merging us together into one. Luc had always been mine, my soulbond, my companion, my lover. But now she was also mine, my soulbond, my… heartmate.

My heartmates.

I couldn’t believe it. Me, with heartmates. The vampire they called the Butcher. I had killed too much. Laughed too much while I did it. I took and I took and I took. Maybe I could play at devotion, but love? Real love? The kind Luc had once, the kind Nessa read about in that worn book of hers?

I hadn’t been built for it.

But that didn’t matter. Fate had handed it to me anyway.

Glee bubbled through me. My companion was now my fucking heartmate. We had a lovely, soft wife to share. And I would spend an eternity wrapped in them, the only two creatures in existence who would be mine, truly mine, forever.

The godstars really did love me.

Sabas’s voice droned on in the back of my awareness. “Only because she almost died and then you almost died.”

“I’m aware, Sabas,” Luc said, but his attention was on me. He arched one brow at the delirious grin on my face.

I winked at him, at my heartmate, my fucking heartmate—

Luc’s face flashed out of view, my entire world shifting, changing—

My other brow raised to join the first as Jules winked at me. Companions couldn’t feel their soulbound’s emotions like they were their own, but Jules’s whirled at the edge of my consciousness, stark against his easy sprawl at the council table. My soulbond loved to flirt, fuck, drink, and live, but this was different.

This changed everything.

We had been companions for centuries. Jules was my closest friend and sometimes lover, the only family I’d ever wanted or needed… but now we were three.

Three souls entwined.

Three souls changed.

He would always be my closest friend, but as our new bond settled, he would be my heartmate above all else.

If I weren’t controlling my pulse, my heart would be flitting around in my chest like Nessa’s whenever we approached her.

“Are you sure it’s a soulbond and not a lifebond?” Isabeau asked.

I reluctantly tore my gaze from Jules to watch our Crown General pacing between the table and the windows. Sitting during a crisis wasn’t in either of our natures.

I shook my head. “A lifebond may explain us nearly dying when she did, but it wouldn’t let us feel her pleasure and pain.”

I had felt the cold claws of death through the soulbond once before, when Jules was hunting Allegra after the massacre at Duskfell. That witch had almost succeeded in killing the both of us, the closest anyone had ever come. I’d never wanted to feel helpless again after Corinne, after my bloody succession. And then to almost die months later, Jules suppressing his pain but unable to hide his panic, I made myself a vow. One I had kept… until today.

But only for a second.

In the next, Jules and I had struck as one.

We had felt her dying, our soul fading with her, and knew.

“It’s a soulbond,” Jules said. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about our bride since we met her—”

“The standard attraction rune lure,” Cédric muttered.

“—but it’s a hundred times worse now that the bond is formed,” he continued, ignoring his brother. “If this weren’t a relatively serious problem, I’d have taken her back to the apartment instead of handing her off to Estrella and Tristan.”

The council all turned to me, as if expecting a similar proclamation. Nessa had occupied too many of my thoughts in the last week—and in most of them, she was naked beneath me, panting, legs spread wide, her pleasure-glazed eyes locked onto mine. She had made such beautiful little squeaks as I fucked her.

As Jules fucked her.

As we fucked her.

I had fantasized about every combination, as obsessed with sex as a starsdamed teenager. Even when she was awake, staring hesitantly at me with her wide brown eyes, I couldn’t banish the sounds of her cries.

My jaw clenched. The hunger worsened every day. Worse still when she was near. A lesser vampire would have taken her that first day on the ship, bent her over the table, and fucked her until she couldn’t stand.

Fucked her until she overflowed with cum.

Jules had joked about breeding her, but it wasn’t a joke anymore. The blood moons were coming, a little over a month away. Their urges had never clawed this deep.

The need to rut. To claim. To knot my fingers in her hair, drive her to her knees, and spill into her until she drowned in my scent.

I exhaled slowly through my nose, shoving the monster prowling behind my ribcage down. Its craving didn’t own me.

I was in control.

All I said aloud was, “It’s a soulbond.”

“Her eyes didn’t change color,” Cédric said, tapping his chin. “I’ve never met a non-Azarasian soulbound pair, but all the texts we have report that even demons get streaks of silver or gold in their eyes from a soulbond. The second glamour must be affecting her appearance, but what else is it hiding?”

“We might not be able to remove the second glamour from her, but we can try removing it from her blood,” I said. “Any clue could lead to the answers we seek.”

All gazes dropped to the small, runed vial in front of Cédric, filled with Nessa’s blood. It had nearly splattered against the floor when the witch almost killed my new soulbound, but Cédric had caught enough of it to examine more thoroughly. Traces of magic sparked in it still, from the covenant, from the soulbond, from old layers of spell.

“That might take a couple days,” Cédric said.

“Did you have other plans?” Jules asked dryly.

“Beyond tonight’s revelry? It’s Rosier’s bond rite tomorrow.”

“I’m aware.” Jules slithered to his feet and strolled to the bar cart. It was impressive he had lasted this long before joining Roxiana on her path to utter intoxication. “The ceremony doesn’t take more than an hour. Sabas can give Vérène’s parents the tour of your suite, his first official duty as a bonduncle.”

“I’ve been a bonduncle for six months.”

“Exactly,” Jules said, willfully misunderstanding him. “It’s about time for him to get in some practice.”

Sabas flipped him off.

The levity faded as I turned to Cédric, cutting straight through the humor. “You’ll make time, Cédric. Whoever cast this spell on our bride must have known the soulbond wouldn’t stay secret for long. They’ll make their next move soon.”

“And what is your next move?” Roxiana asked.

Jules raised his golden eyes to mine.

Then, my heartmate grinned.

“We have a wife to claim.”