Page 28

It wasn’t like I could glare any harder, but I tried anyway as the King of Dusk smirked down at me, as infuriating as he was arousing.

“She’s not wrong, you know.” Jules slunk forward and leaned back against the door to hold it open. “She’ll come twice as much as us, and that might make her the winner tonight.”

Luc looped his arm around my waist. “I get to watch her beg every time she comes. Therefore, I win.”

Tingles sparked along my spine at the touch. “You don’t even know me.”

“People don’t need to know each other to fuck, lovely.”

More heat flooded my cheeks. “But…”

“We have an eternity to learn everything about you.” The King of Dusk led me from the room with a firm hand on my lower back. “Tonight, the only thing I wish to know is how best to make you scream.”

I almost stumbled. Oh, my fucking godstars. My heart thundered at that terrifyingly confident statement.

I will not cry. I will not scream. I will not let these monsters seduce me.

I didn’t even believe myself.

I kept my head held high as we walked into the fading sunlight shining into their bedchamber, Titus at our heels. When I’d looked around the apartment earlier, I hadn’t imagined one of the three massive doors within their bedchamber led to my future residence. But it shouldn’t have surprised me. I was their pet, their possession. To get to the Mortal Bride, an intruder would have to go through the Conqueror and the Butcher first.

The rich, buttery scent of freshly baked bread filled the air, warm and inviting. I’d smelled it countless times drifting from the bakery near Books & Bows , but fresh loaves had never been in my budget.

All my focus went to the small table, now laden with steaming platters and a silver case. When Maire said the kings had summoned me for dinner, I thought I was the meal. I hadn’t expected food. I hadn’t expected a seat. But a gilded stool with a soft red cushion sat waiting for me. They wouldn’t expect me to kneel at their feet again.

But I didn’t care where I sat, so long as I got to eat.

My last meal had been yesterday before the harvest feast. My stomach clenched at the sight of the spread. The dark-gold skin of what looked almost like roast chicken crackled under a thin layer of juices. The vegetables—carrots and something leafy I didn’t recognize—glistened with melted butter. A small wheel of pale, soft cheese sat beside thick slices of crusty bread, its scent tangy and rich.

It was a verifiable feast… to me. The thralls had thrown out five times this much food from a single banquet table this morning in the Abyss.

Luc guided me to my seat, but I’d have found my way there even without his touch. I plopped down onto the stool in front of the only empty plate. The chains dug into my ass, but I ignored them, too busy salivating. I leaned forward to inhale.

Luc settled into the chair at my side and poured brandy into his goblet. “Eat.”

I stared at him for a second. Was this a test? They were the Imperium. Deidre had always made us wait until my father started eating and that same deference had to apply here. But Luc didn’t have a plate, and Jules wasn’t even sitting. He stood beside me, just within my periphery.

“That was an order, Nessa,” Luc said. “I won’t have you passing out on us tonight.”

I bristled at the command—and the implication.

I picked up the fork and stabbed a carrot. I raised it to my mouth, holding the Conqueror’s gaze.

His pupils dilated slightly, shadow expanding to devour the silver. It was a stupidly dangerous game to challenge these vampires. Luc’s grip tightened around his goblet, but he didn’t move, didn’t speak. He just watched as I slowly, deliberately plopped the carrot in my mouth—

Flavor exploded on my tongue.

Fuck. This was delicious.

How had they made a carrot taste this good?

I hadn’t realized my eyes had closed, my face slackening as I savored the taste until Jules sighed, his breath brushing the top of my head. “We’re going to break so much furniture, aren’t we?”

It took me a second to process his words. I straightened in my seat—

A sharp flare of pain stabbed through my core. I twitched. Damn. I had hoped the kings’ venom and the nap would have kept my illness at bay longer. But my desire had awoken it, luring it back to ruin my life.

The kings’ attention snapped to me, sharp and assessing. Jules froze midway through unscrewing the first of the two tins Maire and Riona had left behind. Luc’s scrutiny settled on me like a weight, pressing tight around my ribs. I forced myself to breathe through it, but the nerves only fed the ache.

After a moment of waiting silence, Luc said, “You’re in pain again.”

I clenched my jaw. “I’m fine.”

Luc arched a brow. “You aren’t.”

“It’s just a little pain.” A cold snout touched my arm as Titus huffed at my side. Even the hellwolf was concerned for me. I gave him a quick scratch behind the ears. “You barely noticed it.”

“Our bond is new.” Luc held out his hand, palm up on the table. “I can’t feel your pain like it’s my own yet, but I see no reason to make you suffer it when the solution is simple.”

With a short exhale, I hesitantly lowered my left hand to his. That didn’t stop me from spearing another carrot with the fork. Luc traced a rune onto my forearm with slow, precise strokes. This one was more elaborate, layered, but my brain still interpreted it as Soothe . Intriguing.

When he finished, the rune flared with burning shadows before settling into my skin. Warmth spread through me, easing my aches and banishing my waking illness back to slumber. Neither king visibly reacted, but Titus let out a satisfied huff and curled up at Luc’s feet, his massive head dropping onto his paws.

I tried to pull back my arm, but Luc tightened his grip on my wrist.

Swallowing my food, I said into the silence, “You altered the rune.”

“This one will last longer.” His thumb brushed absently over the new mark. “I see no need to recast it tonight or tomorrow morning.”

“Why not make it constant? I’ll always need it.”

“Not all pain is bad,” Jules said. “It’s your body telling you something is wrong and sometimes you need to listen.”

“Says the Butcher.”

“Exactly. Pain is my specialty.”

I exhaled sharply, but a different thought nagged at me. “Then how do you know I’ll need it tomorrow morning? My pain doesn’t happen every day. Just most of them.”

Luc arched a brow. “You’re untried, are you not?”

Heat rushed to my cheeks.

Oh.

Because my cunt would be sore, he meant.

I tore my gaze from Luc, only to land on Jules. The King of Dawn had remained standing, lowering the first unscrewed tin to the table beside me. Inside was… silver dust? The same shimmer Luc wore on his neck and jaw.

Not what I had expected.

I frowned. “What is that?”

“Edible body glitter.”

The blush burned its way down my neck. “ Edible body glitter?”

“Mh-hmm.” Jules dipped a finger into the dust. “There’s a reason Luc and I don’t have a plate, wife. We don’t want to fill up before the main course.”

I almost dropped the fork as my heart stopped. For once, not at their promises to fuck me.

He had called me wife .

“I thought you said this was a fake marriage.”

“That was before you triggered a bloodborne soulbond on us and made it real.” Jules pushed aside the thin chain strap of my top. But unlike at the ceremony, he didn’t push it entirely from my shoulder. Just… aside. He trailed his finger along my collarbone to my neck, drawing a glittering line directly to my pounding pulse.

“I didn’t trigger anything.” My voice came out tight. Did I? The soulbond might have been cast on me, but I hadn’t known. Hadn’t asked for it. “And I’m not your wife.”

“Except under our laws, you are,” Luc said. “ Wife .”

A shiver ripped through me at the deep, steady rumble of his voice. “There are different levels of soulbonds, aren’t there? You’re companions. Maybe I’ll be that for you, too.”

Even as I said the words, they felt wrong. Flickers of the dream came back to me, slipping just out of reach. I grabbed for them, but they were hazy.

Jules dipped his finger in the second tin of gold dust and traced another line on my skin. Mapping the paths he planned to lick . “Azarasian soulbonds can settle at different intensities because they’re formed in the womb. But when the soulbond is cast on those with grown souls, they can only be blended in their entirety.”

I paled. That meant… Luc and Jules weren’t just my soulbound.

They were my heartmates .

The strongest of soulbonds.

My stomach churned. Estrella and Tristan were heartmates. I had seen the way they moved, effortless and synchronized, acting in perfect tandem without a word. They never had to speak, never had to guess what the other was thinking. They simply knew.

Their wills weren’t just aligned. They were fused , one thought and one purpose.

I wasn’t like them. I couldn’t be like them.

I didn’t want to be swallowed whole.

My hands clenched into fists. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear at my skin until this thing inside me was gone.

But I couldn’t undo it. I couldn’t escape it.

It wouldn’t happen all at once. Even in The Soulborne Queen , months had passed before Karra stopped feeling like herself. But the bond was inside me even now, putting roots in my soul.

Growing like ivy until I was covered in them .

Forever.

I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Well, I’m Maboni. Maybe I don’t recognize your laws.”

“And what exactly are Mabon’s laws?” Luc asked. “You have to have a ceremony binding yourselves together? We did that.”

“You made me your sacrifice, not your wife,” I muttered. “And that’s just one part of it.”

Luc tilted his head, studying me. “And what’s the other part? That we have to consummate the marriage?”

“That’s…” not what I meant. But the words couldn’t leave my lips.

Because they were true.

The only two requirements in a Maboni marriage were the ceremony and consummation. A couple was married in front of a church patriarch, then escorted to a bedchamber to seal the union.

The silence stretched.

Jules smirked. “That’s what?”

I stiffened. “Fuck you.”

Jules sighed dramatically. He extended the gold and silver lines around my shoulders. “Isn’t that what we’re talking about?”

I gaped for a second. I wanted to be upset. I should have been upset.

But my heart raced more with anticipation than fear.

Maybe it was time to admit to myself I wasn’t petrified. Of the sex, at least. Not the whole soulbound-to-the-Imperium thing. If my first two experiences were any indication, the kings weren’t over-promising when they said I’d be orgasming hard tonight.

Luc’s lip curled at me, but he dropped his gaze back to my wrist. His finger pressed to my flesh, right above the soothing rune, and started tracing another. Heat prickled along my skin.

I wanted to watch, magic still enthralling despite all I’d witnessed the last week, but Jules dropped to a crouch at my side. He traced spiraling lines of dust along the curve of my hips, down the side of my thighs.

Their every touch burned.

I only just resisted a shudder.

I cleared my throat, scooped some maybe-chicken onto my plate, and tried to ignore the writhing energy beneath my skin. “What spell are you drawing?”

“This one is a guardian runespell,” Luc explained, layering rune after rune on top of each other. Alert. Relay. Locate. Glamour. “Jules and I both have them. The Imperial Guard will now sense your location and if you’re in danger. If you rub your finger against the runemark, you can communicate with them across short distances.”

“Is my life fueling these spells, too?”

“Our power is,” Luc said. “The spells would drain your entire lifeforce under prolonged attack.”

“But the covenant won’t?”

Luc repeated the guardian runespell a second time, then pulled back just before the markings settled into a tiny black mark on my wrist. Within a blink, it faded from sight. “You’re the covenant’s home, not its primary power source.”

Jules reached my calves and looped around to the inside of my thigh. His fingers dusted gold in looping patterns, dangerously close to where I ached most. He hummed lightly as he worked.

My heartbeat kicked up. “Can I even carry the covenant if I’m your soulbound?”

“You still have a lifeforce it can use.” Luc traced his fingers to my elbow and started another rune. Prevent. Cleanse. “It’s simply a little more… permanent than we’d prefer.”

I repressed a flinch. Of course it was more permanent than they wanted. I was meant to be their human sacrifice, not their human wife.

“What’s this one?” I asked quickly, desperate to banish the thought. It wasn’t personal. I had no reason to be offended if the Conqueror and the Butcher didn’t want me.

I didn’t want them.

Physically, sure, but not romantically.

Luc didn’t look up as he finished the final rune. Nullify. Regulate. “A contraceptive runespell.”

My body clenched with need while my heart wrenched with something far uglier. “Oh.”

Jules stopped humming, his pout deepening as he flicked a look at Luc. “Boo, Lucey. You’re ruining all our fun.”

Luc arched a brow but didn’t dignify it with a response. He kept working, his fingers tracing precise strokes, while Jules trailed his own patterns in dust, absentminded and slow.

“Fine, you’re right.” Jules sighed, long-suffering. Then his nostrils flared as he dragged in a deep inhale. Lips curling, he winked at me. “Unless you disagree. If you want me to put a baby in you, all you have to do is ask.”

I gaped at him. Stars, why was the idea so arousing? It wasn’t even possible. “I don’t want you to put anything in me.”

Wait. Shit. My stomach dropped. The second the words left my mouth, I knew my mistake. Heat flared even hotter in my face, mortification curling tight in my chest.

The bond wouldn’t let me deceive them, not even with an offhand remark.

“Lying already, are we?” Jules’s grin sharpened. He dropped a hand on my knee and twisted me toward him. “What do you want more? My finger, my tongue, or my cock?”

I put my fork down with a deliberate click. “There’s no need to be so crude.”

“I’m sorry, lovely. I just can’t wait to fuck you tonight.” Jules lifted his hands, now dusted with gold and silver, and traced two thick lines from my hips to my waist to my stomach, his touch slow, lingering. “I haven’t decided how I’ll take you for your first time yet. On your hands and knees, perhaps.”

The heat of his words and fingers sent a shiver up my spine, but it wasn’t just the sensations. He touched a part of me I hated, soft flesh laid bare beneath the chains. My throat tightened, but I forced a frown to my face. “Well, you still have time to decide.”

Jules leaned in until his nose almost brushed my breasts. “Not that much.”

“You—” My words cut off as Jules slid his hands under the chains of my top and circled my nipples. I gasped, my eyes flashing open. The King of Dawn’s smile widened as he painted one silver and the other gold.

Oh, stars. The thought of them licking this glitter off my skin instantly lit the fire in my core to scalding.

Jules rose, stepped back, and surveyed his work. Like him and Luc, I was now covered in swirling loops of dust, though mine shimmered in silver and gold. A satisfied hum rumbled in his throat.

“Almost there,” he murmured, head tilting as he studied me. “But something’s missing.”

Before I could ask what, he reached out, his gold-dusted thumb dragging slowly across my lower lip. I shuddered. A faint sweetness bloomed on my tongue, rich and indulgent.

Jules smirked, admiring his final touch. “There. Now you’re perfect.”

My heart stuttered. Perfect . I was no such thing.

Luc stood behind me. Even if I wasn’t looking, it was impossible not to sense the tall vampire’s movements. Something clicked, perhaps the locks on the silver case that had remained untouched.

“Pull back your hair.”

My hands lifted automatically, gathering my loose waves before I even registered the command.

A pulse of panic tightened in my throat. I hadn’t thought about it. I hadn’t questioned it. I had just… obeyed. The soulbond wasn’t just making me crave them. It was making obedience feel natural, like they were something I didn’t need to resist. The realization slammed into me, cold and suffocating.

Before I could lower them, Luc reached around my neck and unclasped my collar. My pulse stuttered. The last time I’d watched Luc remove a collar, he’d killed éamon a minute later. But he wouldn’t kill me. I was his soulbound.

I rubbed at my too-bare neck and looked back at him. “What are you doing?”

Luc discarded the Mortal Bride’s collar on the table and pulled out a new one from the case. Unlike the first, this one wasn’t a simple strand of twisted metal. A flower made of silver and gold bloomed in the center, with a dangling sapphire and ruby glinting at its base. Two delicate chains drooped from the centerpiece and looped toward either side, connected by silverwork. Tiny sapphires and rubies dotted the metal, flashes of blue and red woven together in a hypnotic pattern.

Something this intricate must have taken weeks to commission. Who had they intended this collar for?

Something flickered. I squinted closer at the pattern carved into the metal. Runes. I could just make out their markings, buried in the ornamentation. Protect. Shield. The Mortal Bride’s collar had meant ownership, a claim stamped in metal. This one was different. This one was meant to protect me.

Luc fastened the new collar around my neck. The weight of it settled against my throat, heavier than the last.

“You’re more than our Mortal Bride now.” Luc’s voice was soft, almost reverent. “You’re our human soulbond.”

I reached out and touched the collar, my fingertips tracing along the metal and jewels. “Don’t you want to figure out who cast the soulbond before sharing that with your courts?”

“We do,” Luc said. “But assuming whoever cast this soulbond did so in order to kill us, you’re vulnerable to attack. You need more protective spells than the Mortal Bride’s collar provided.”

Jules pulled me to my feet. “Besides, when we tell everyone, I don’t want them thinking we were treating our new soulbound poorly. That’s uncouth.”

I hesitated. “Even if I’m human?”

“Even so.”

Luc stepped closer until my back almost pressed against his chest. He reached out a hand to Jules, who passed him the silver dust. My mouth went dry.

Luc dipped his fingers into the glitter until it coated his skin. “We might receive a challenge since you’re human, but there won’t be more than one and after, they’ll accept you since you survived the bond.”

“After what—”

Luc’s hand curved around my hip. Slow. Deliberate. He slid it beneath the chains of my skirt. Every part of me went still.

His palm cupped my mound.

For a second, he just held me. His thumb brushed over the top of my curls, light and fleeting, as my pulse dropped between my legs. Then Luc pressed down, his touch firm and claiming, smearing silver dust over my most sensitive flesh.

My breath stuttered.

Jules’s eyes darkened, gold swallowed by shadow as he watched Luc paint me in silver. Marking me. Claiming me. I felt something slither against my senses. A flicker of satisfaction, sharp as a blade, and something deeper, a heavy, simmering hunger.

I didn’t think they were mine.

Then they were gone.

And Luc’s fingers were there instead, circling my clit. I gasped as the silver dust on his hand mixed with my wet need. The stress, the tension, the fear all melted out of me. If Luc weren’t standing behind me, my weak knees would have dropped me to the floor.

He stroked me once, twice—

Luc pulled back. Cold air rushed in where his heat had been. I bit my lip to hold in a whimper. The King of Dusk had all but promised I’d beg him tonight. I didn’t see the need to prove him right immediately.

I pushed off him and stepped away, putting space between myself and the vampires who owned my soul.

Catching my gaze, Luc slowly, deliberately, licked the glittering damp from his fingers and groaned.

Fuck. My cunt was doomed.

“You shouldn’t have, Julien.”

Jules grinned brightly at Luc. When he spotted my raised brows, he said, “Your silver dust is chocolate-flavored, Luc’s favorite. He has a very sensitive tongue. It’s quite talented, too.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” I muttered before my brain caught up with my mouth. My eyes widened. What the fuck was wrong with me?

“You certainly will,” Jules purred.

“One more finishing touch,” Luc said. “Lean over the table.”

I nearly choked on my next breath. “What?”

Luc pulled the silver case closer. Inside, my new collar had taken up most of the space, but four cones of silver and gold remained inside. The smallest was no wider than my pinkie. The largest—my wrist. They gleamed in the low light, smooth except for the single rune carved at each tapered end.

Jules plucked the smallest out. Rubbed his thumb over a runespell. Glide. Heat. Soothe . A flash of black pulsed beneath his touch before it faded.

It looked no different.

Jules turned the piece in his hand and passed it to Luc with a flourish. “The honor is yours, darling.”

I swallowed. “What are you doing with that?”

“It’s for your ass.”

I stopped breathing. Every part of me locked. “ Excuse me ?”

I knew what anal was. The Church would have preferred we stay uneducated about sex, but the Azarasians set our curriculum. I couldn’t imagine how anyone found it pleasant.

Luc’s lips twitched. “You’ll wear it throughout the revelry. Lean over the table, bride.”

For a moment, I didn’t move. The air felt too thick to breathe. How had this become my life? A dress of chains, a collar, and a plug . But before my brain could settle on a decision, my body made it for me. I stepped closer to the table, placed my hands on the surface, and leaned forward. The chains of my skirt shifted, sliding forward.

My ass, already dusted in silver and gold, was laid bare to the kings.

What was I doing? The kings had a pretty collar and matching butt plugs ready to go at a moment’s notice. I should have had questions. Complaints. Something.

Luc’s warm hand spread my cheeks apart and pressed—

I flinched as his fingers caressed my second hole. Fuck. Nope. I couldn’t do this. I tried to pull away, but Jules was suddenly there, pinning me in place. My wide eyes met his but he only smiled back, heat in that golden gaze.

“Relax, bride.” Luc pressed the tip of his finger into my ass. A small intrusion, just a whisper of pressure, but even that made me gasp. “Your ass will take a cock soon enough.”

“And one day, Luc and I will fuck you together,” Jules said as Luc’s finger pressed a fraction deeper. “You want to be ready for us, don’t you?”

I shuddered. My breath came fast. The stretch of Luc’s finger wasn’t much. But the thought of what he was preparing me for sent heat curling low in my stomach. I should have been horrified. I should have refused.

Luc’s breath grazed my neck. “Answer him.”

Through a deep inhale, I found myself nodding.

Luc hummed in approval. “Good girl.”

My body heated at the praise. Not because I wanted it. I didn’t. But… stars, it did something to me anyway.

The next second, a smooth, tapered tip pressed against my entrance. I expected the chill of metal, but it was warm and slick. So that was what the runes had done.

“It will sting at first,” Luc said. “But your ass will adapt just like your wet cunt did to Jules’s finger.”

I tried to slacken, to relax, but my muscles clenched anyway. The Conqueror didn’t care. This was as much mercy as he was capable.

He pushed.

The plug slipped inside me. A moment of pressure. A stretch. Muted pain flared. The plug nudged past the tightest part, the flared base slipping into place, and a startled yelp tore from my throat.

My body tried to expel the foreign object, but it was no contest. Luc pressed the plug deeper until the narrow base nestled snug against me.

A strangled sound left my throat. Not pain. Not exactly. Just… too much.

“Breathe.” Luc’s hand remained firm on the plug, as if waiting for me to adjust.

I exhaled in a rush. The pressure shifted as my muscles fluttered around the plug, trying to make sense of it.

Jules brushed a strand of hair from my face. “You took that plug beautifully.”

The kings released me as one, pulling back. I swallowed and slowly straightened. The plug shot sensation through me at the movement. I bit my tongue to hold in my reaction.

How would I survive the revelry with a piece of metal lodged in my ass?

Jules held out his arm. “Are you ready?”

“I guess,” I said, my voice rough.

Luc settled at my other side and gripped my palm. The touch broke the mesmerizing effect of Jules’s gaze. I twisted toward the King of Dusk.

“Come, little curiosity.” His lips curved. “I’m eager to start the evening.”

The rest of Luc’s meaning glowed in his silver eyes. The sooner our evening started, the sooner it ended in their bed.