Page 38

I should have taken the kings up on their offer to clear the schedule and spend the day in bed.

My feet dragged as we moved through the halls of Dawnspear. Hours had passed since the execution, the time spent in a haze of political discussions with the mage guild over new runespells for the Azarasian war efforts. I had listened eagerly for the first few minutes, but when a mage started describing a rune that melted an opposing army’s flesh from their bones, I retreated inward. The rest blurred into places, names, and casually described horrors.

If only the image of the prisoners’ mangled bodies had faded so easily.

I dug my nails into my palm. By the time the daemium had swallowed the corpses, they had been little more than pulp. Not a speck of blood or brain matter remained on me, but the ghost of it lingered. If I closed my eyes, the warmth of the droplets dripped down my cheeks.

Luc’s rings burned through my gown where his palm rested against my lower back, his touch a silent reminder. The execution. The polished lie of Montaurère, pristine and golden on the surface, rotten beneath. The unshakable truth that I belonged to the Imperium.

I couldn’t forget. Maybe those criminals had deserved death. Three thousand thralls, dead because of their actions. But the Conqueror and the Butcher had caused far more destruction than that. Their actions had killed hundreds of thousands.

And yet… I didn’t hate them.

I should have. But the soulbond had stripped that from me.

All I had left was exhaustion. It coiled through me like smoke, curling into the spaces between my ribs. My pulse felt too slow. My limbs, too heavy. The kings’ runes had kept away the pain and nausea, but my illness had never been that merciful. It could be so much more when it wanted to ruin my life.

My symptoms hadn’t flared like this since the day I was harvested. It was long overdue.

“Good night, brother?”

Cédric’s voice pulled me back. We had remained on the ground floor, navigating stars knew where, and now paused at a junction as Sabas and Cédric approached. But I barely noticed them.

I could only gape at the baby the Crown Mage held.

Prince Rosier looked like his father, a Roche through and through. His ivory cheeks were plump, his golden hair soft wisps. He tugged at the lapels of Cédric’s maroon coat with a gurgling laugh, fascinated by the light catching on the gilded trim. If not for the luminous gold of his irises, I might have thought him any other six-month-old human child.

Behind him, Maire and another thrall followed in silence, their eyes on the floor. Maire didn’t even glance at the child she had carried, but her shoulders were too stiff, her posture too rigid. She could pretend all she wanted, speaking of Rosier like he was a curse instead of a son, but it wasn’t the truth.

“You could say that,” Jules answered his brother jovially, but his arm tensed around my shoulders at the same instant Luc’s grip tightened at my waist.

I frowned between them. I didn’t think any of my emotions or sensations were strong enough for them to notice. But they weren’t looking at me. They didn’t even notice how I stared at the infant prince.

They were glaring down their councilors.

Sabas and Cédric slowed. Their gazes flicked to the way I was tucked between the kings, the way their fingers pressed in—

They stopped a few feet away, hesitating.

Before last night, they wouldn’t have.

I’d thought the kings claiming me might ease their possessiveness, not intensify it. But that was delusional thinking. Azaras had only grown more obsessed with Karra the longer they were together.

A twinge shot through my torso. Without the soothing rune, that cramp probably would’ve sent me crumpling to the ground.

The King of Dawn nipped at my earlobe. I jumped, pushing into Luc’s chest with the movement. Everyone around me besides the kings disappeared. “Couldn’t you, lovely?”

I blinked at him, pulse hammering. Couldn’t I what? “Huh?”

His golden eyes gleamed with mischief. “Say we had a good night?”

It took me a second to retrace the conversation. All the blood in my body rushed to my face. “I guess.”

Luc chuckled, a deep rumble against my back. “You guess?”

Heat flared between my legs, unwelcome and insistent. Not now. Gods, I shouldn’t have felt like this. Not when my anxiety and my illness swirled within me, sinking deeper by the minute. I had hoped the leftover desire from last night’s bout of insanity would fade. Instead, it worsened.

Karra had thought the soulbond’s effects maddening, and I suddenly understood why with perfect clarity.

“That’s not the resounding feedback I was expecting,” Jules said, his fingers tracing the curve of my shoulder. “Maybe we reschedule the security deliberation this afternoon—”

Sabas shot his king a flat look. “No.”

Jules winked at his Crown Enforcer. “What’s the difference if we do it in a day or two?”

“Your entire life has changed in a day or two, so stars fucking know.”

Jules groaned. “Egh, fine. We’ll come to your little meeting, Sabas.”

“It’s your little meeting,” Sabas muttered. “The security of the Impire is your purview.”

Jules sighed dramatically. “Don’t remind me.”

“Stop teasing him, Julien,” Luc said, his voice edged with exasperation and amusement. Then to Sabas, he added, “He’ll attend even if I have to drag him there.”

Jules huffed, affronted. “You’ll do no such thing.” He leaned into me, his lips brushing the curve of my ear. “I will, however, be taking a lunch break after the bond rite. But we shouldn’t be too late.”

I stiffened. But if their venom could ease my body’s betrayal and push away this exhaustion, I wouldn’t object.

If I knew for sure, I’d probably be begging for their fangs right now.

“You should push it an hour,” Cédric said to his soulbound.

Sabas scoffed. “I’ll push it two.”

Jules slapped his hands over his ears. “Don’t tell me that! Now I’ll be late for your new time.”

“You weren’t late for the bond rite.” Cédric smiled down at his son, his sharp features softening. Pure, unadulterated love. A heartless Azarasian had managed more tenderness for his child than my father ever had.

“Yeah, because Luc’s in charge,” Jules said with a pat to the King of Dusk’s shoulder over mine. “But also, we technically haven’t reached the bond rite, so we’re all late.”

Cédric frowned at his brother.

Luc shook his head slightly, then waved an arm, gesturing for Sabas and Cédric to lead. “After you. It’s Rosier’s bond rite, after all.”

Sabas and Cédric nodded before striding ahead. When they had put enough distance between us, the kings fell into step behind them, guiding me forward.

A cloying heat suddenly flashed through me. Pressure swelled in my center. It wasn’t desire this time. How long would the bond rite take? How long until I could sit, or better, leave? But I had no idea what it even entailed.

Luc’s sharp gaze flicked to me. “You aren’t feeling well.”

Not a question. A fact.

“I’ll survive.” The words scraped my throat. I had to keep moving. I wouldn’t dare ask the kings for reprieve. They had already noticed my flashes of pain, the nausea, but exhaustion? That was quieter. Too soft to transfer across our new bond. They didn’t feel the slow drag of it pulling at my bones.

“That’s not a reassuring reply.” Jules squeezed my shoulder, his inhuman warmth bleeding into my skin. “We can give Cédric our apologies—”

“No.” I cut him off, sharper than intended. I couldn’t afford to be seen as weak. Not before these vampires, my captors and soulbound. “Rosier’s your nephew. This seems important, so you shouldn’t miss it.”

Jules hesitated, but Luc didn’t. “What you’re feeling should be important to you, too.”

I flinched. My feelings were not important. They had never been.

It hadn’t mattered when the pain was tearing through my gut, but Deidre still expected me to kneel in church for hours. It hadn’t mattered when I wanted to collapse after running Books & Bows alone for days, but the ledgers still needed balancing. Being tired wasn’t an excuse.

I forced my spine straight. “I can handle it.”

Was that true? Didn’t matter.

Luc held my stare for a beat longer, then nodded once. “Very well.”

A few steps later, the soft strains of music reached my ears.

We passed through an open doorway into a long, elegant hall. Tall windows lined one side, the late morning sun spilling through like liquid gold. Crystal chandeliers hung overhead, refracting the light into bursts of color. On the other side, richly painted murals stretched from floor to ceiling, too grand and intricate for my exhausted mind to process.

On the far side of the hall, a figure sat at a gilded instrument, hands drifting over an array of ivory and black keys. The sound that poured from it was unlike anything I’d ever heard. Laughter and hushed conversation wove between the notes of music. Thralls moved through the crowd, balancing trays of gilded goblets, while clusters of vampires sipped their drinks.

I didn’t realize I had slowed until Luc’s hand pressed against the small of my back, guiding me forward again.

Some Azarasians dipped their heads when the kings entered, but many didn’t even pause their conversations. Instead, the focus was entirely on Rosier and another infant held by a dark-skinned woman. The prince’s soulbound, I assumed.

It made sense. A bond rite probably had something to do with soulbonds. The name all but confirmed it, but what exactly did it involve?

“What exactly is a bond rite?” I asked, my voice lower than intended. I should have asked before now. If my mind weren’t fraying at the edges, I probably would have.

“Every soulbound pair has one at six months,” Luc said, waving over a thrall. The human bowed smoothly, balancing the tray before him. “It’s primarily to determine the type of bond Rosier and Vérène have. It will end with Vérène’s parents giving her to Sabas and Cédric to raise and protect.”

My brain stuttered. Give their daughter away? “What? Why?”

Luc plucked one goblet for himself and a second for Jules. “Once soulbound turn six months old, the bond becomes more pronounced. It’s difficult for a soulbound pair to sleep when apart.”

That explained why Karra had struggled to sleep without Azaras in Volume I. But that was fiction. This was my life. I clenched my fingers against the fabric of my gown. I hadn’t considered that the kings’ absence wouldn’t just be an ache, but a physical inability. Would I be able to sleep at all without them?

“Vampire babies are much like human babies in that regard,” Jules added, snatching his drink from Luc. He leaned into me as he did so, his half-buttoned shirt gaping open, silk warm against my cheek. I inhaled, smoke and honey. Not even that comforting scent was enough to settle the unease in my bones. “If they can’t sleep, no one can.”

Then, casually, effortlessly, Jules brushed his lips across Luc’s.

Stars.

I snapped back to reality.

I had seen the kings kiss before—far more passionately, far more possessively. In my dreams, I had watched them go beyond kisses. Yet this? This was nothing more than the ghost of a touch.

And somehow, it was the most sensual thing I had ever witnessed.

My breath slipped out in a slow exhale.

Jules pulled back with a satisfied hum and clinked his goblet against Luc’s. “Thanks, darling.”

Then he winked down at me.

I flushed and cleared my throat. “So… they’re expected to hand over their child?”

“It’s only symbolic,” Jules said. “Vérène’s parents, Lord Martien and Lady Alix, moved into Sabas and Cédric’s guest suite weeks ago. They’ll live together, raise their children together, until Rosier and Vérène are grown and capable of living on their own.”

They’d live together? Raise their children as a unit? How… strange. But I guess it made sense if soulbound needed to be together to sleep restfully. For their parents to rearrange their entire lives like that, it had to be necessary.

The thought lodged like a stone in my throat. That kind of dependence wasn’t just uncomfortable. It was suffocating. A sharp ache crawled through my muscles, curling tight. My bones felt too heavy, like they carried the weight of centuries instead of decades. Only the soothing rune kept me from keeling over.

Still, I forced myself to stay calm. “So you’ve slept in the same bed since you were six months old?”

“Before that,” Luc said, voice even but edged with something colder. “Marisol wouldn’t risk anything happening to her precious grandson and heir.”

Jules scoffed, sharing in the bitterness. “The moment she found out who carried his soulbound, my mother was whisked away to live in Duskfell.”

I couldn’t help my curiosity. The kings had told me so little about themselves. I knew Luc was Azaras’s son, but not Karra’s. His mother was one of Marisol Vela’s daughters, Roxiana’s sister. It was clear neither he nor Jules had much love for the former Regent of Tenebra de Mar. They never called her Grandmother, only Marisol.

But I knew even less about Jules’s family. He had two brothers—that was all. It was strange to think of him with a mother. Of course, he had one. Vampires didn’t spring fully formed from the ether. I knew that. But that somehow made much more sense than the Butcher having something as mundane as a mother.

“And your father?” I asked.

Jules scoffed, swirling his blood wine. “My father had no choice in the matter, much to his dismay.”

“They separated him from his soulbound?”

“My parents weren’t soulbound,” Jules said, too smooth. A deliberate kind of detachment. “My mother was his witch thrall.”

I gaped. His mother was a what now? “And you call her your mother?”

He shrugged casually, but the movement was forced… and only to my eye. “That’s what she was.”

“But…” My gaze flicked past him, where Maire stood with three other thralls a few feet behind their masters. “She was a thrall.”

Jules smiled, a perfect, practiced mask, but to me, it lacked its usual spark. It was unnerving, knowing his expression was flawless, convincing to anyone else, yet feeling the truth beneath it. Not just in my gut, but in our soul. “She didn’t have any parental rights to me, but Titus was rather protective of her, so Marisol had no choice but to let her stay.”

I swallowed. So that wasn’t the norm. I had imagined it earlier, when Maire first told me about Rosier, but seeing it in practice… It was different. It was worse. The vampires cooed over the infants, Cédric and Vérène’s parents beaming.

Maire? She stared at the floor.

A good, obedient thrall.

That was the norm.

Would that happen to me one day? Would I stand behind them, silent, while the High Courts praised my child like I wasn’t even there?

It didn’t matter. I couldn’t have children.

Well… I likely couldn’t have children. My fertility scores were so low I was essentially infertile. But the healers had said I could possibly have a child if I tried. A slim chance. One in a decade, maybe, just like my mother. Vampires had difficulty conceiving, so the odds would be even lower, but my lifespan was measured in centuries now.

Maybe one day, it would happen.

And I couldn’t do anything about it. The kings had always owned my body and now they owned my soul. Jules had joked about breeding me before we were soulbound. It wouldn’t be a joke anymore, even if it didn’t happen right away. My exhaustion worsened, like the fatigue of a flu, but without the sniffling and coughing. A dull heaviness bloated in my belly.

Warm fingers brushed my jawline. “Breathe, curiosity,” Luc murmured. “You’re our soulbound. We won’t be taking our children from you.”

I flinched and pulled back, but Jules was at my other side. I was trapped between them. “That’s rather presumptuous of you.”

Luc arched a brow. “And why is that?”

The arrogant bastard. I clenched my fists. Fuck it. They’d find out eventually. They might as well hear it from me. “Because I’m infertile, that’s why,” I snapped.

I braced for their reaction. Shock. Disappointment. Something.

But Luc only tilted his head slightly, like I’d told him something mundane. “Your fertility scores are rather low for a human, but with magic and the aid of a healer, it’s possible.”

I blinked at him.

What?

“Wait. You know?” My voice came out too thin, too breathless.

Jules grinned like I’d asked if the sky was blue. “Did you think we wouldn’t read the file of our new Mortal Bride? Or, well, that Luc wouldn’t read it and then summarize it for me?”

“I…” My throat closed. I had no response.

They’d known this entire time.

Luc’s voice was steady, unshaken. “It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

Nothing to concern myself with? Like it was that simple?

“You’re ours now,” he continued, “but that doesn’t mean we’ll force a child on our soulbound.”

I let out a sharp breath. “But my choices didn’t matter when it came to the collar or sharing your bed?”

“The collar is for your own protection.” Luc met my glare without hesitation. “And you came to our bed willingly.”

I crossed my arms, lips pressing into a thin line. I couldn’t argue with that.

Before I could dwell on it, the gentle music faded, the final notes lingering. I turned as Cédric, Sabas, and Vérène’s parents approached the grand instrument at the front of the hall. Sabas lifted a hand, fingers tracing a rune in the air. Chime . A crisp, twinkling sound echoed through the room, cutting through conversations like a subtle command.

Vampires stilled, shifting their attention toward the dais.

Cédric stepped forward, his voice smooth and regal. “Thank you for joining us to celebrate Rosier and Vérène’s bond rite. Today, we honor the sacred bond that ties them together, the foundation of our strength, the force that has shaped our Impire. Through the rite, we will witness what kind of bond fate has woven between them.”

Before I could process what was happening, movement at my side drew my attention. Roxiana sidled up beside Jules, draped in a sheer, rose-colored gown that clung to every curve. Beside her, Isabeau cut a stark contrast in her fitted black leathers, the General once more after last night’s revelry.

“Have you placed your bets?” Roxiana whispered to the King of Dawn. “I’m thinking they’re beloveds.”

“Companions are still the most likely option,” Isabeau said.

“But Vérène’s parents are heartmates,” Roxiana countered, gesturing subtly toward Lord Martien and Lady Alix. “It’s possible. Companions plus heartmates usually equals beloveds. Am I wrong?”

Luc’s lips twitched into a smirk. I frowned at him. I didn’t get what was funny.

Jules tipped his head toward Luc, the picture of barely restrained amusement. “If you really want to know, Roxi—”

Roxiana shot him a warning look. “No, don’t ruin it. Let them cast their spell. It’s tradition, after all.”

I had no idea what was happening.

Jules must have caught the confusion in my expression because he reached out, brushing a thumb against the crease in my brow, smoothing it away with a touch. “Azaras cast the Azarasian soulbound runespell. Luc can sense their bond type, just like the Beast King.”

Oh. I narrowed my eyes at Luc. “So you win every bet, then?”

Luc merely lifted his goblet to his lips. “I don’t place them anymore.”

“We made a killing the first few decades, but people caught on eventually,” Jules said. “Not that I need their money, but stars, do I love winning. Now I have to place bets in secret just for the thrill.”

A hush fell over the room as Cédric, Sabas, Martien, and Alix raised their hands, fingers tracing a series of precise runes in the air. Reveal. Illuminate. Merge. Shadows pulsed in response. As the spell activated, two glowing masses flickered into existence—one golden and the other silver, shimmering with barely contained energy.

The entire hall held its breath as the glows drifted closer, drawn by an invisible force. I watched, captivated despite everything, as the golden light surged just past the halfway point with the silver.

Then it stopped.

The audience released a collective exhale, murmurs rippling through the hall. It was a beautiful display—

The dam holding me upright broke.

A fresh wave of heat crashed through my torso. My vision wavered, the glowing masses blurring into streaks of light. The weight in my bones turned crushing, exhaustion dragging at my limbs like a current pulling me under. My head swam.

I had endured pain, nausea, exhaustion that would have left others collapsed in bed for days. But my body had finally betrayed me. I’d burned through the last scraps of strength keeping me upright, the sheer force of will that had carried me through the day crumbling beneath the weight of it all.

Weak.

I hated the fragility of my body, hated that I couldn’t endure longer. Hated that no matter how much I fought, I would always lose to this.

Now, my singular focus became surviving until I could get out of here.

I’d settle for the Mortal Bride’s bedchamber, even if it didn’t have a lock.

A chaise would do at this point.

“Yes!” Roxiana cheered, her voice slicing through the haze, along with a few others throughout the room. The vampires who had bet on beloveds. “I told you, Is.”

“Go collect your prize, dove,” Isabeau said with a pat to her soulbound’s hand. “Then you can collect what you bet me.”

A flush tinged Roxiana’s dark bronze cheeks. “Can I now?”

Isabeau smiled at her, a full, wicked grin.

“Oh, a sex bet. I love it.” Jules glanced down at me, eyes gleaming. “What do you want to wager, bride?”

I frowned at him, barely processing his words.

“We’ll see what the—” Jules started, stepping forward with me on his arm—

The room lurched.

Light fractured, the chandeliers overhead turning into spinning, blinding stars. The floor tilted beneath me. Too fast. Too sudden. My knees buckled.

I would’ve caught myself. But two arms wrapped around me instead, one at my waist and another across my chest. A spike of panic, of fierce concern, stabbed through me. I swayed, my vision narrowing, everything around me warping into streaks of color and sound. The music cut off abruptly.

Then—

“Back the fuck up unless you want to die,” Roxiana’s voice cut through the void, sharp and commanding.

Someone nearby gasped. The shuffle of feet. The weight of a hundred eyes pressed in. But I couldn’t focus. The space around me wavered, voices distant, blurred like sound through water.

“Fuck.” Jules’s grip on me tightened, no trace of his usual teasing left. “Should’ve known you were pushing too hard.”

Luc exhaled sharply through his nose, a slow, measured sound. Too measured. Like he was holding something back. His voice was deep, controlled, but sharper than usual. “Nessa. What do you need?”

“I just…” The words felt too big in my mouth. “I need to lie down.”

Luc moved before I could register it, arms locking around me before my body could betray me further. He lifted me effortlessly, cradling me against his chest like he had carried me a thousand times before.

Jules stepped in front of us, his posture shifting in an instant. The sharp gleam in his golden eyes, the tension in his frame, the way his fingers twitched at his sides. For once, he wasn’t putting on a show. He was clearing a path.

And if anyone was foolish enough to stand in the Butcher’s way, they wouldn’t live long enough to regret it.

The silk of his back was right there, within reach. I touched him. I barely had the awareness to think about it.

But the moment my fingers brushed him, the tension in my muscles eased slightly. My body recognized them both. Their warmth. Their strength. The anchor they had become against my will.

I couldn’t even hate the relief that settled into my bones.