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4:10.

4:09.

4:08.

I jolted away from the balustrade. How had I let the countdown tick down that low? It was in my starsdamned line of sight. “I need to go.”

“Nessa—”

“No, Morrena.” I backed away from the balcony’s edge, from the witches, from the kings below promising sinful pleasure. “I can’t help you. Not now. I don’t even know how to help myself.”

Morrena’s expression softened into pity. “There is nothing you can do now but submit and let the Imperium have you. You’re their soulbound. That means something to the Azarasians, so they will take care not to harm you. But as their soulbound, you alone will one day be able to stand against them.”

“Stop saying that.” Rebellious speech against our vampire overlords in Corraidin ended with a trip to the nearest garrison to feed the troops. I couldn’t imagine a different fate awaited humans and witches within Montaurère.

“I will not.” Morrena closed the distance between us, her cane tapping against the stone. “And I will make sure every Exalted Daughter and Son who visits after me will repeat it.”

I scurried back through the doorway. The witch stopped at its opening, like she couldn’t pass any further. I threw my hands up in the air, panic clear in my voice. “Do whatever you want, Morrena. I can’t help you and I really, really need to go.”

Morrena’s eyes widened, but I was already turning. I hadn’t exactly been polite, but I didn’t really have time to worry about a witch’s feelings. My words surely weren’t the worst she’d heard today.

3:22.

3:21.

3:20.

The hunt had well and truly begun. I couldn’t see or hear the kings, but I knew with certainty that they followed me. An awareness prickled down my back. Even without the soulbond, the prey in me sensed her hunters.

I raced down the hall, turning blindly. Roxiana and Isabeau’s advice to head south from the staircase couldn’t help me now. There was no way I’d find my way upstairs. Just like the councilors had said.

I turned another corner—

Luc stood in the middle of the hallway, watching me with burning black eyes.

Fuck. I backtracked and continued straight.

2:49.

2:48.

2:47.

Stars, I was running out of time. To do what, I didn’t know. I couldn’t escape this. Did I want to escape this? Even after what I had just witnessed, my pulse pounded between my legs, my desire wetting my inner thighs.

Godstars forgive me. I wanted to fuck these monsters.

But that was all it was. All it ever could be.

“Nessa.” Jules’s voice echoed eerily through the halls as he sang my name. “Where are you running, lovely?”

“I’m not running,” I muttered. “All I can manage with this starsdamned plug is a brisk walk.”

He cackled. “It looks like running to me.”

This time, his voice didn’t echo.

It came from directly behind me.

I twisted around—

And met luminous black eyes, the pupils swallowing all but a single line of gold.

Oh, fuck.

1:22.

1:21.

1:20.

My heart pounded as something within me screamed to run, even though it was meaningless.

The monsters had already caught me.

As Jules stalked toward me, my mouth went dry. I fell under his spell, entranced by the hunter’s cold, inhuman beauty, the luminous sheen to his eyes, the sinuous sway of corded muscles under twinkling chains.

I shook myself out of it right before he reached me. My heart exploded in my chest, releasing a flood of panic. My foot hit the softness of a rug. I twisted—

And slammed into something warm and solid. I froze as Luc’s breath brushed my forehead. “Uh-uh, little bride. You can’t escape us now.”

My nipples peaked. My body had always been a traitor. I shouldn’t have expected anything else from it. Still, I weakly tried to scramble away. But Jules had continued forward, trapping me between his body and Luc’s.

0:47.

0:46.

0:45.

“There’s still time on the countdown,” I said weakly.

“There is,” Luc agreed. “Just enough time to do this.”

Before me, Luc drew a small rune on his forehead, the flare of shadows gone in a blink. Remember . Jules must have done the same, judging by the familiar heat of magic at my back.

Jules rested his cheek against my head. “After you, Lucey.”

The tip of Luc’s finger brushed my temple in a quick, curving pattern.

“What does it do?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“Over centuries, memories dull, even for demons and their ilk,” Luc said. “We want to remember this and now we all will.”

“I—”

But I was out of time.

0:03.

0:02.

0:01.

0:00.

The shadows of the countdown faded as a large hand wrapped around my throat, fingers weaving through the collar’s decorative chains. A shuddering breath escaped me at the touch.

Luc tilted my head back and kissed me. Claimed me. Conquered me. I melted into his strong chest, the heat of him branding my skin. His grip firmed at my throat, at my waist, fingers just shy of bruising as he deepened the kiss. His tongue swept against mine, dragging me under like a tide I couldn’t fight.

Jules pressed closer, his hard length jabbing against my lower back through his trousers. His nose brushed my neck, breath warm as his lips skimmed down to my shoulder. Soft, teasing, as though he had all the time in the world to enjoy unraveling me.

Luc released my lips… then twisted me around and yanked me backward, arching my spine. “After you, dearest.”

Jules wasn’t one to turn down a gift. His breath traced over my chest as he cupped my breasts, only delicate chains separating his skin and mine. His thumbs brushed over my nipples, the chilled metal contrasting with the heat of his fingers. I shuddered out a breath.

I grasped Luc’s arm, his hand still firm at my throat, but my gaze was trapped in gilded shadows. Jules took that aching gold-dusted bud into his mouth and sucked—

“Ahhh.” I couldn’t help the breathless cry. Pleasure coiled tight in my belly, flaring up from my core and the plug. Jules circled his tongue around my nipple, licking every bit of dust from my skin. Slow, thorough, tormenting. The bump of his piercing sent a sharp jolt through me. I yelped, knees buckling, but Jules pinned me between his body and Luc’s. Holding me up.

Holding me trapped .

Jules pulled back an inch. Cold air brushed my abandoned nipple. My breath gasped out.

The King of Dawn slipped his fingers through the chains of my top. “This is in my way. Remove it.”

Me? I blinked hazily. My mind lagged behind, drowning in sensation. But before I managed a reply, Luc’s free hand ghosted around my waist, threading through the chains.

Then he tore.

The silver and gold brassière snapped. Half of the chains slid over my shoulders before clattering to the floor. The sound was sharp, final. I jolted at the noise. The remainder of the metal looped around my shoulders, covering nothing. The kings had lured me into an alcove off the main hall, but we were still out in the open for anyone to see—

Luc disappeared from my back in the same breath that my legs hit the edge of a cushion. I tumbled onto a chaise so decadently large it might as well have been a bed. Above my head, I met my own wide eyes in a mirrored ceiling.

Oh. That was why the kings had herded me to this alcove.

But I only held my gaze for a moment.

A second later, two vampires were crawling on top of me.

On my left, Jules had stripped off his trousers and maroon drape, but the delicate chains of his shirt still ghosted against my fevered skin. Most of his pale hair was now gathered into a messy knot, but loose strands tumbled free, the rubies of his headdress swaying between them. On my right, Luc had shed his navy-blue robe before lowering his head, his tongue tracing a path of silver dust from my arm to my shoulder.

My skin tingled where it touched theirs. Every inhale enveloped me in Jules’s smoked honey and Luc’s heady spice. My world narrowed until my every sense was them.

Stars, I needed them. I didn’t mean to arch into them, but my nipples ached, needy and tender. Their mouths could soothe them and—

Jules’s lips closed over my left breast.

I inhaled sharply, heat ripping through my chest and shooting down my spine, straight to my core. The plug only heightened the pleasure, amplifying every touch. My fingers dug into the King of Dawn’s biceps, desperate, grounding.

Then another mouth brushed over my silver-dusted right breast.

My gaze ricocheted from Jules as I gasped.

Luc smirked at me.

“Poor little bride,” he said, exhaling against my sensitive skin. “So desperate for our mouths.”

Our mouths? My brain halted at those words.

Luc’s black eyes held mine as he leaned in and took my right nipple into his mouth.

I moaned, the sound a long, helpless ahhh . Sensation lashed through me, curling hot to my clit, to the plug, to my toes. My eyes flickered madly between the two vampires on either side of me. Jules mouthed me wildly, his piercing ripping gasps from my lips. Luc sucked leisurely, his tongue lapping slow, maddening circles around my nipple.

I shuddered, writhed. Stars, I wouldn’t survive this. There was no way. My thighs clenched, my body straining, bracing for something inevitable.

Then Luc pulled back abruptly, licking silver dust from his lips. He inhaled, slow and deep, and his lips twitched. “Did I get it wrong? Are you not desperate for our mouths?”

When I didn’t answer, he nipped at my aching skin. “Answer me.”

“You’re not wrong,” I nearly yelped the words. “I need you.”

“Where do you need me?” he all but purred.

Mortification flared, sharp and unbearable. My thighs pressed together, as though I could hide the truth, hide the wet heat between my legs. “You know where,” I whispered.

“Do I?” Luc’s smirk turned into a wolfish grin. “I’d ask Julien, but he seems otherwise occupied.”

Jules smiled against my breast, but he didn’t stop swirling his tongue.

Luc rubbed his thumb against my lonely nipple. “Here?”

“No.”

He dropped his hands lower, across the softness of my belly. “Here?”

I shuddered. “No.”

Luc slipped his fingers between the chains of my skirt and through my silver-dusted damp curls… but no further. “Here?”

Stars, I was going to explode. I shook my head, words failing me.

Luc slid a finger into my soaked center.

I cried out, my hips jerking. His touch was unbearably light, teasing, just a soft, circling stroke against my clit. So much like before. When he’d painted my skin in silver dust, when he’d marked me.

“Here, little curiosity?”

I nodded, breathless, useless, lost. My chest heaved, straining beneath the pressure of these teasing touches.

He put the slightest bit of pressure on my clit. “Say it.”

A strangled cry ripped from my throat. “Yes. There. Touch me, please.”

Luc hummed, satisfied. “I didn’t plan to touch you.”

Then he withdrew.

A sharp, desperate whimper escaped me. I grabbed for his arm to stop him, but before I could—

Jules reached across me, pinning my wrist to the cushion.

The King of Dusk chuckled darkly. “I planned to taste you.”

Luc disappeared. Literally, between one blink and the next. Fuck, vampires were fast. Where had he even—?

A warm hand landed on the inside of my thigh. “Spread your legs for me, wife.”

Every inch of me froze. I had already ridden Luc’s fingers and Jules’s tongue, already been laid bare beneath their hands, their mouths, their hunger. But Luc ordering me to expose myself, to spread my legs slower and slower until my cunt opened for him…

I gave a sharp shake of my head.

It was the most lewd thing anyone had ever said to me.

I wanted to do it. I wanted to welcome him inside me. But to say yes, to surrender…

Godstars forgive me.

I let my legs droop open until my knees bounced against the cushion.

Luc groaned, his black eyes focused on the soft, pink flesh of my cunt. His gaze was nearly a touch. I shuddered, growing wetter, hotter. His hands slid up my thighs, spreading me wider, stretching me until my body clenched in desperate anticipation. His fingers grazed over my skin, circling the plush curve of my hips, tracing lazy, taunting lines before his palms cupped my ass.

Luc’s hands were large, possessive, consuming. Still, my flesh overflowed between his fingers. I flushed and squirmed, totally exposed—

Then he squeezed.

I yelped, body jolting as he hooked my thighs around his shoulders. His breath trickled over my drenched, aching cunt. My gaze flickered wildly from the beautiful pale-haired godstar nestled at my side to the gorgeous dark shadow between my knees.

Jules’s arm rested firm against my chest, keeping me in place.

But I could still see.

Luc’s dark eyes glinted as he breathed me in. “Jules has had you on his tongue twice, and I haven’t gotten a single taste. It’s time to rectify that.”

His head of black tousled curls dipped between my legs.

Luc pressed a light kiss to my clit. I gasped, the sound tearing out of me.

Then the Conqueror devoured me.

Luc licked me like a man starved. Fuck. My back arched violently, a cry ripping free. Jules had buried his face between my legs like my cunt was his favorite food, but Luc was a man on a mission.

His mission? Making me scream.

He twisted his tongue—

I convulsed, shattered, another cry punched from my lungs. My one hand dug into Jules’s shoulder and my other clamped shut, clamoring for something to hold.

Jules released my wrist. “Grab his hair.”

His command was a groan of words said against my skin, but I obeyed instantly. My fingers fisted in Luc’s curls, tugging, shaking. He chose that exact second to plunge his tongue into my cunt. I moaned, my eyes rolling back. The King of Dusk’s grip on my thighs tightened, keeping me still as he feasted.

Jules’s mouth wandered, releasing my nipple to trail slow kisses across my chest. He circled a finger around my right nipple, a teasing touch. “Luc is rather good with his mouth, isn’t he?”

I couldn’t answer. Not beyond a pitched, keening whimper. Luc circled my clit with the rough pad of his thumb, pressing his tongue against that achingly sensitive spot inside me.

I shuddered.

Fuck. Oh, stars.

“Ah, poor, sweet Nessa, having your wits tongued out of you.” Jules rested his chin on my sternum, his wicked golden gaze never leaving me. Waiting for my answer.

The longer I stayed silent, the more my abandoned nipples ached.

The softer Jules traced his fingers along my right breast.

The slower Luc rubbed my clit, his tongue dragging torturously slow out of me.

The bastards. “What was the question again?”

Jules’s grin was all satisfaction. “Don’t play coy.”

“I— I—” I tried to reply, I really did, but the pleasure thrumming through me had melted my brain. The Conqueror had his fucking head buried between my legs. The Butcher had a hand on my breast, his cock hard against my thigh.

I was little more than a writhing mess between them.

Jules flicked my nipple.

I yipped. “His mouth is amazing,” I nearly shouted, desperation stripping my voice raw. “I’ve never felt anything like it. Please. Touch me.”

Jules chuckled. “I think you just insulted me, but since you begged so nicely…”

The King of Dawn lowered his head back to my left breast. His eyes closed as he wrapped his mouth around my sore nipple, his free hand gripping my other breast, rolling the aching bud between his fingers.

Godstars, this was perfect.

Almost perfect. Luc’s tongue only swiped soft, teasing strokes through my heat.

Like they heard my thoughts, Luc sucked in my clit at the same time Jules clamped his lips around my nipple.

My back arched. Pleasure pulsed through me, a wicked crescendo of twisting tongues and skilled fingers.

When Luc circled my clit, Jules grazed his teeth against my skin.

When Jules pressed kisses to my nipple, Luc sucked harder, a sharp, dizzying contrast. My head slumped back into the cushion—

Only to meet my glazed eyes in the mirror over the chaise.

Fuck. Luc’s dark head rocked between my legs, his powerful back flexing, muscles rippling with every movement. Jules curved himself around me, a naked godstar with pale hair. My body trembled, my face slack and flushed, the image in the mirror utterly debauched.

When I had worried about them eating me, I hadn’t imagined it like this.

The mirror was like oil on a fire. Pleasure burst, then clawed at my skin, unbearable in its intensity. My squirming increased. I couldn’t survive this. Surely this much pleasure would kill a person.

But Luc didn’t even tense his hands on my thighs to hold me in place. I was trapped. Shit. Fuck. It spiked higher and higher… I spiked higher and higher. Luc slipped his tongue back into me—

I burst with a scream. Jules caressed my nipple one last time, then leaned back, watching me break. My eyes rolled back. My thighs clenched down, locking Luc’s head in place. Locking the Conqueror’s head in place.

I should’ve released him, but I did not care.

Each aftershock sent fresh ripples of pleasure through me. Ricocheting. Building. Echoing. My ass clenched around the plug, doubling every feeling. I writhed and shuddered and moaned and made so much noise as I came on his tongue.

Fuck, that was embarassing. But the emotion was quickly washed away by the haze of pleasure, the thick, warm weight of satisfaction. I sank into the cushion, boneless.

When the kings had said they were going to fuck me, I had assumed they meant with their cocks.

I had no complaints about their tongues, though.

I met my glazed eyes in the mirror above me. Slack lips. Flushed cheeks. My legs sprawled. I was utterly ruined. I should have panicked. Should have felt the old, nagging voices creeping in.

There was nothing but silent, warm peace.

Jules burrowed into my side and nibbled at my earlobe. “Roll over onto your hands and knees.”

My entire body went stiff. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, not after the orgasm they had wrung from me. The kings didn’t plan to stop here, like they had the last two times. No activating soulbond would save me. No shock revelation would interrupt.

Tonight they would make me theirs.

Jules wanted to fuck me on my hands and knees.

I hesitantly pushed onto my elbow. Luc still lay between my legs, resting on his forearms, watching me with hooded eyes. Not even his broad shoulders could block out the open hallway behind him. I couldn’t flush any harder, but my body certainly tried. Anyone who walked by would have noticed the Conqueror and the Butcher pinning me down, their hands and mouths everywhere.

“Can we…” I swallowed, suddenly nervous. It was hard not to be with those two pairs of bright eyes on me, watching me more intensely than a human ever could. “Can we go somewhere more… private?”

Jules absentmindedly drew circles on my shoulder. “Where did you have in mind?”

Godstars, how did he make such simple words sound so sinful? “Your bed,” I whispered hoarsely.

Jules’s gaze flickered down as he arched a brow at Luc. Almost immediately, the King of Dusk shrugged at the silent question. I was Jules’s first, so the final decision belonged to him.

The king who didn’t care at all about anyone staring at him, naked or otherwise.

The king who treated the world as his stage, all of us a captive audience to his show.

I breathed out slowly. I would survive this, whatever the choice. I probably wouldn’t even think about my embarrassment until later. Just looking at the kings had the soulbond sinking its claws back into me, erasing everything but the bodies touching mine.

Jules studied me with a predatory patience I hadn’t realized he possessed. Did the soulbond show him glimpses of me, like it had shown me pieces of them? Did he see my shame? My fear?

Would he care?

He traced his fingers idly over my bare hip. “What will you give me in return?”

I tensed. “I don’t have…” I swallowed. If he asked, I must have had something left to give. “What do you want?”

“Everything,” he breathed out, letting the word linger. “But for now? Your willing and eager submission.”

Fuck. My breath hitched. I wished it didn’t. But he could see everything, into my very soul.

Cheeks burning, I nodded.

“Say it,” Luc murmured.

I swallowed again. “I’ll… submit. Willingly and eagerly.”

Jules hummed, clearly pleased. “Very well. Since you’re our soulbond and all, I suppose we can make an exception.”

“And if I wasn’t?” The question slipped out before I could stop it. I already knew the answer. They were indulging me, accommodating me, only because I was theirs. And if I weren’t…

Luc chuckled. “If you weren’t, we’d already be inside you.”

Jules’s grin sharpened against my skin. “But if our wife wants privacy, our wife will get privacy. I’ll gladly fuck you in our bed.” He pressed a slow, open-mouthed kiss to my jaw. “The High Courts will hear you scream either way.”