Page 40

The draining fog receded from my mind, reluctantly releasing me from my fitful half-slumber. Silver eyes. Gold eyes. Fingers brushing along my temple, my chin. A deep growl. The warmth of their power, followed by the cooling wave of a rune. Voices whispering things I couldn’t understand until they turned into clear words in my dreams.

Then peace.

Silence.

The press of a body at my side while another’s hand wiped the sweat from my brow.

Then nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Rising light.

For the second day in a row, I woke to dark sheets, the kings’ tantalizing, male scents invading my every sense. I moaned, my thighs clenching slightly—

I stiffened at the sudden bloom of desire. But it wasn’t followed by a flash of agony, the deep, stabbing ache that usually accompanied my haze and stayed past its welcome.

It was just… gone.

No lingering exhaustion and uncomfortable bloating in my belly. I pressed a hand over my lower stomach. My illness never left so quickly. It always lingered, clawing at me for days. But it was entirely gone, like I had imagined it sinking its claws into me at the bond rite. The kings’ must have cast a soothing rune, one strong enough to force my body into this unnatural peace.

Something moved, something in black.

I flinched, yanking the sheets to my chin. Riona approached with downcast eyes, a tray in hand. What? My brain couldn’t make sense of it, even as she lowered the gilded tray to the side of the bed. My gaze dropped. Fresh crusty bread. More cheese than one person could possibly eat. She set a familiar leather-bound book beside it, then quickly backed away, her gaze still averted.

I blinked hazily. At the food. At the book. At Riona.

The thrall cleared her throat, brown eyes flickering to the door. Like someone stood right outside, listening. Estrella and Tristan, no doubt.

“Yes, Riona?” I asked when the silence stretched on.

“His Majesty, The King of Dusk, insists you spend the morning in bed, reading and resting.” Riona hesitated, licking her lips. She turned to face the dresser, where a swath of crimson lace cascaded down its side. “But if you decide to rise, His Majesty, The King of Dawn, wishes you to wear the dress he selected.”

I stared. Blinked. Processed.

They wanted me to do… nothing?

Well, nothing or play dress-up for Jules.

“Where—” I didn’t even need to finish the question. Luc was beneath me, floors below, but Jules was close. Not right outside the bedchamber but in the apartment, likely in one of the rooms I had yet to explore.

“Yes, my lady?”

“Never mind.” I pushed onto my elbow, the dangling jewels on my collar tinking against the metal. “Thank you, Riona.”

She dipped into a bow before backing toward the door and leaving me alone.

I picked at the food as my brain returned to life at a snail’s pace. Whenever I woke from days of pain and exhaustion, I always had to force myself up. Wash the dried sweat from my face. Dress and flip the sign on the shop door. Pray for enough customers that I could purchase a slice of cheese that would last a week without molding.

Now I had a full platter of cheese, eight different types arranged artfully before me. I didn’t need to stand or bathe or dress or work.

I just needed to rest .

When was the last time I had simply rested? If I wasn’t in agonizing pain, I was up and about. Even when I was in agonizing pain, I was up and about. My stepmother hadn’t tolerated laziness. When my body first started fighting me, she refused to let me lie down, no matter how much I cramped and ached.

She was merciless after my fertility results. If I couldn’t have a child, I could at least know how to clean and cook. Even then, she had been preparing me for Patriarch Meallán.

But the kings wanted me to rest.

A swirl of emotions rose within me, too many to distinguish between. It was a burst so strong my eyes watered.

I pushed up until my back rested against a pillow propped against the daemium headboard and grabbed The Soulborne Queen . Losing myself in its pages was a balm I had used for years. Whether my mind spiraled toward doom or tangled itself in hope, fear, and shame, a book always helped.

But the moment Azaras made his grand debut, the character I had imagined for years twisted into Luc. Demons were shapeshifters. They didn’t have physical traits to pass down to their offspring, but both sire and son were tall and dark-haired. Their arrogant confidence matched, too, though Azaras was a bit more unruly. My brain didn’t care about the other conflicting descriptions.

I closed the book. There wasn’t any reading or resting happening anymore, not in this bed.

My gaze caught on the crimson gown.

Ten minutes later, I gently turned the doorknob and peeked into the sitting room.

Jules’s chosen gown had gone over my head effortlessly, the kings’ magic having already cleaned me. A straight waterfall of crimson, it rippled to my feet until I cinched it at the waist with a matching sash. My hair was slightly tangled, but after a quick brush, it was passable by Azarasian standards. I resisted the urge to braid it tightly, like the good Maboni woman I wasn’t. I was ready to go in under four minutes, but it had taken the remainder to work up the courage to open the door.

How had Jules found a gown even more sheer than the harvest dress?

Swirls of a maroon pattern twisted through the crimson lace, but the darker bits strategically avoided anything of importance. Every part of me was visible—the peaks of my nipples, the faint marks on my soft stomach, the curls between my thighs. I had tried to enter the kings’ wardrobe, then my tiny chamber, searching for something else. But neither door had opened for me.

It was either this gown or a bedsheet. And if I wore a bedsheet, Jules would laugh at me. I shouldn’t have cared, but I knew he would. I couldn’t let him have the satisfaction.

But I had almost done it anyway.

Estrella and Tristan flanked the doorway, the Impire’s star insignia glinting in the light from the center of their dark leathers. They turned as I stepped forward, my chin raised, my eyes lowered out of habit.

“Are… the kings around?” I asked, unsure what else to say. Neither had moved much since I woke, but I didn’t know what they were doing, only where they were located. Their emotions weren’t strong enough to leak over, and I didn’t reach out and check, lest they sense me looking.

It was already embarrassing enough that my first instinct upon standing was to go to them.

“His Majesty, The King of Dusk, is meeting with the Crown Chancellor and Crown Enforcer in the throne room,” Estrella said. “But His Majesty, The King of Dawn, remained behind. He’s in the apartment’s private garden, Your Majesty.”

Estrella gestured down the hall past the library doors, but my eyes remained wide on her. She had used Majesty so many times. Had I hallucinated that last part?

“Your what now?” Estrella had barely spoken to me on the journey from Mabon. The few times she had, she had called me human. Exalted Morrena had called me the Queen of Dusk and Dawn, though no one else had acknowledged it. Not even the kings.

Until now.

“The Imperium have requested we not call you by your title in public until they announce you to the courts,” Estrella said, gaze lowered in deference when she turned back to face me. “But in the privacy of your apartment, we will show you the respect your new soulbond entails.”

Sweat broke out along the back of my neck. “I’m not anyone’s Majesty.”

“You are now, Your Majesty,” Tristan said like it was that simple. He gestured me forward. “Please follow us.”

Estrella led the way down a long hallway lined with murder art in gilded frames. We passed a handful of doors, but I didn’t ask what lay behind them.

My gaze fixed on the bright windows ahead.

Dawnspear was built into the mountainside. The southern half of the palace overlooked the sprawling city below. The northern half was embedded into solid rock—at least, until the floor beneath us. Whether the mountain had curved naturally or the vampires had carved it away, a small garden occupied a plateau level with the kings’ apartment.

On the balcony overlooking the greenery, Jules sat before an easel, his back to me.

If Estrella or Tristan said anything, I didn’t hear them. I stepped through the doorway into the morning light, lured forward by the King of Dawn’s mere existence. The closer I got to him, the more the anxious twisting in my belly calmed.

Jules didn’t turn, though he undoubtedly heard me. Humming as he worked, he dipped his gilded brush in more paint. I stepped closer, circling his side until the canvas came into view.

And froze.

My breath caught. Smooth skin over thick thighs and a plump ass. A long back, sweat dripping through the rivulets of soft flesh. Artfully tousled hair like copper streaked with dark gold. The woman lay collapsed against Luc’s bronze chest, the King of Dusk watching her with starved intensity, his gaze locked on her as she panted, her lips parted. Her eyes were gold and green and brown and somehow beautiful—

Fucking stars, was that supposed to be me ?

My jaw gaped. Heat rushed to my cheeks until I was surely as flushed as I was in the painting. The painting of me. After getting my brain fucked out.

Before getting my brain fucked out again.

I had seen Luc’s expression in the throes of pleasure, had witnessed his desire as I came undone. But I still couldn’t imagine someone looking at me the way Luc did the woman in the painting.

I couldn’t imagine someone painting my ass either, but here I stood, staring at it.

“I couldn’t decide which to add to my collection next. After I fucked you or after Luc fucked you.” Jules pressed his brush to the canvas, stroking lines of pink across the woman’s back. My back. “Your eyes made the decision for me.”

My throat constricted. I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t know what to say to any of this.

What came out was, “Those aren’t my eyes.”

Jules’s hand stilled. A shiver trailed down my spine. I knew a predator now listened to my every heartbeat. My every breath. When those golden eyes slid to me, I forced myself to stay still.

Jules let his darkening gaze drop. Hunger flickered over his face, devouring me in the sheer lace gown he had selected.

His grin turned wicked.

Fuck.

The King of Dawn patted his right thigh. “Sit, lovely. If I have your eyes so wrong, let me gaze into the beauties themselves.”

My jaw dropped. Liquid warmth flushed through me. He wanted me to sit on his fucking lap while he painted my ass?

Stars, why was that so… arousing?

“Nessa,” he all but purred.

My feet betrayed me. I blamed them entirely for the movement. I wouldn’t. Ever. But I did. His attention stayed fixed on me, waiting and watching, the sensuous hunter ready to pounce. I circled his left leg until I stood between his muscular thighs, then twisted awkwardly to sit, stiff-backed.

Far too slow.

Jules struck. His teeth grazed against my nipple through the thin lace of my gown. I yelped, lightning striking through me. Before I pulled away—did I want to pull away?—he sucked the clothed, aching peak into his perfect mouth.

Heat surged through my veins. My knees weakened. His hands flashed to my hips as mine clutched his shoulders, nails digging into the hard muscle beneath the white silk of his tunic. His tongue flicked over the bud—

Stars, his tongue piercing had a pointed edge now, and the fabric didn’t mute a damn thing. I moaned, a loud, desperate sound.

Jules smirked against my breast before releasing my abused flesh. He batted his eyelids at me, somehow innocent and sinful all at once. “If you shove your tits in my face, I will put them in my mouth. Fair warning, from now on.”

I gaped down at him. Just gaped. No thoughts traveled through my brain. Only shock—

Every so slowly, Jules dropped his gaze. Tracing my throat. The collar at my neck. The weight of my breasts beneath the sheer crimson. His pupils darkened as they narrowed on my nipples, still stiff through the fabric. “And if you leave them in my face, I will put them in my mouth again —”

I sat my ass down. Hard. The plushness of my thighs pressed against the firm muscle of his leg, my skirts nowhere near thick enough to mask the feel of him. His eyes met mine and trapped me deep within liquid gold.

“Perfect,” Jules murmured.

My flush crawled up my neck, the heat noticeable all the way to my ears. I must have been as red as a rose. Jules quirked his lips, but returned to his masterpiece and stroked that brush once again along the curve of my ass. A shiver chased down my spine, the ghost of his fingers tracing the same path.

“How are you feeling?”

I stiffened at the sudden, serious question. His voice had softened, the teasing gone. “Don’t you know the answer?”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t ask.”

Blood rushed to my cheeks. Why did he say things like that? It was easier to hate him when he was slaughtering innocents. Still, I found myself answering honestly.

“Usually when my illness flares like that, I feel it for days afterwards,” I started, hesitant. “But this time, it’s like… I’m already back to normal. Better than normal, actually. My normal is constant discomfort, but with the soothing rune, I don’t even feel that.”

He nodded, eyes still on his painting. “I’m glad to hear it.”

I fiddled with the loose ends of the sash around my waist. “What happened?”

“Our blood increased your immune system response and your body began attacking itself,” he said. “I can summon Healer Chastain to explain it all, if you wish.”

“No, that’s…” Words rose unbidden in my mind, an echo from my vivid dreams. “It caused inflammation, but that only irritated the misplaced cells and worsened the pain.”

He smirked. “Eavesdropping on us while you’re sleeping, are we?”

“No!” I nearly shouted in his ear. He chuckled, low and deep, the warmth of it brushing my cheek. “Maybe. I barely remember it, like any ordinary dream.”

“We haven’t done anything exciting while you’re sleeping, so there isn’t much to remember.”

My bronze hands, tangled in white-blond hair. The stretch of his lips around the base of my cock, the glint of his tongue piercing as he took me deep—

I jerked my head, as if I could shake the image loose. Of course, that would be the dream I remembered best. My pulse dropped between my legs.

Jules inhaled against my hair and groaned. “Stars, you smell divine when you’re aroused. What are you thinking about?”

“I’m…” I trailed off before I could voice a lie. I shifted on his thigh instead, pressing my nails into my skin.

Hours ago, my body had been fighting itself. Now I ached for his touch. I shouldn’t have craved anyone’s touch right now, much less the Butcher’s. I shouldn’t have wished his hands glided across me instead of his paintbrush against canvas.

But the craving wasn’t mine. Wasn’t just mine. The soulbond screamed within me. The kings hadn’t left my side most of yesterday, but that wasn’t enough. It wanted them closer. Needed them closer.

Jules dipped his brush, circling a fresh stroke of pink across the canvas, right where my thighs parted. I shuddered. When he pulled back, a sheen of pink-tinged gloss coated my inner thighs. Wet, glistening. Evidence of our pleasure, of my bleeding, captured in oil and shadow.

“If I got your eyes wrong, I might have made other mistakes. Best we check, don’t you think?”

My mouth dried. I met those bright eyes, wicked and knowing. He didn’t mean…?

His lips brushed my temple, deceptively chaste. “Stand,” he whispered, his lips moving down to my cheekbone. “Pull up your skirts.” He breathed against my lips. “And bend over the balustrade for me.”

Shit. That was exactly what he meant.

I jerked back and straightened my shoulders. This was just the soulbond. It had writhed in me since I woke, filling my lungs with the kings’ lingering scents from the bedsheets. It wasn’t real. I had to resist.

My core clenched. I stiffened in his lap. That was certainly real. “Do you always come on this strong?”

Jules’s brows lifted, his smirk lazy. “Don’t I always?”

“I guess I just thought…”

His brows rose. “Hmm?”

I licked my lips and cleared my throat. “We had… sex two nights ago.”

“Thirty-six hours ago, to be exact.”

My eyes widened. “You’re counting?”

His smile grew. “I think I’m setting a new record for myself.”

“Thirty-six hours is a record? You’re hundreds of years old.”

“I’m a bit of a slut, even by vampire standards.” He turned back to his work and breathed his next words against my earlobe. “We’re soulbound heartmates, Nessa. Even once we settle into our bond, we’ll crave each other. But right now, it’s new. It needs… reassurance.”

I swallowed. I didn’t need to ask what he meant by reassurance. Karra and Azaras hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other, their soul seeking closeness in the only way it could.

“Don’t you have things to do?”

“None besides you.”

I somehow managed a glare as I grasped for another excuse. “There’s still so much you don’t know. About me. About who cast this bond.”

His lips brushed the curve of my ear. “We have eternity to figure that out.”

“Do we though?” I sorted through the blur of dreams. “If I can’t drink your blood, I’m not immortal.”

“That’s a problem for another day.”

“But—”

“Stop procrastinating and stand, Nessa.”

I sucked in a breath. Fuck. I reached for another excuse, but none came to mind.

But why did I need an excuse? I could say no. I could walk away. I could return to the Mortal Bride’s bedchamber and read the afternoon away.

But I wanted him.

No, the soulbond wanted him. It wasn’t me.

It couldn’t be me.

A question couldn’t be a lie, right? “What if I don’t want to?”

“Do you not want to?” he murmured. “If you can tell me no and mean it, I’ll have to paint from memory.”

I opened my mouth, but no sound escaped my lips. I could say no… but it wouldn’t be the truth.

Jules’s fingers found my chin, tilting my face toward his. Our noses brushed, his breath warm against my lips. “Tell me no, lovely girl.”

I jerked to my feet and stepped back too quickly, as if his hands might follow me, as if I couldn’t trust my own body to stay in place. His arm dropped, letting me go. His other hand still held the brush to the canvas, perfectly still.

Did I stay? Did I go?

I twisted around until I faced the garden. My pulse pounded, my body half-expecting him to pounce. Jules inhaled sharply at the sight of my backside through the lace, the sound nearly a hiss. I wanted to scoff in disbelief, but I knew his appreciation was real.

I stared at the wide white stone of the balustrade.

I imagined lifting my skirts, the air kissing the ample skin of my ass, and leaning over until my aching nipples pressed against sun-warmed stone—

What the fuck was I doing?

What was wrong with me?

Jules was the Butcher King. He owned my people. He owned me . I had to get out of here before I did something I regretted.

Something else I regretted.

I backed away, but his gaze stayed fixed on me. Something in me screamed to run. Needed to run. Estrella and Tristan remained inside by the door, but if I went down to the garden, I could get away. I could breathe. I could think—

“Nessa,” Jules rasped, trapping me with a single syllable. “If you run, I will chase you. Not even Luc has the willpower to resist that instinct.”

The heat in me flared. I was a handful of steps from the stairs leading down into the greenery. It would be easy to turn and dash down them. But once I got away, I wouldn’t be able to stay away. I couldn’t evade a vampire on the hunt.

Most of me didn’t really want to evade a vampire on the hunt.

“And what will you do when you catch me?” I whispered.

Jules’s pupils dilated at the question. He lowered his paintbrush and stood, the slow uncoiling of a snake preparing to strike. “Bury my fangs and cock so deep inside you that you’ll feel me for days.”

My nipples hardened to near-painful peaks. “So if I run, you’re threatening to eat me and then fuck me?”

Jules’s smile was slow. Lethal. Amused.

“Or fuck you and then eat you.” He tilted his head, considering. “Yes, I think I prefer that order.”

“Do I get a say in the matter?”

“Can I fuck you, wife?”

I shuddered. “I… I don’t know.”

Jules’s gaze swept over me, lingering where the lace clung to my hard nipples and soft curves. “Don’t you?”

I swallowed. What had I told myself the nights of the harvest feast and the revelry? That fucking the king was inevitable. It was a transaction between master and thrall, nothing more.

Now it was all those things and an itch I needed to scratch.

Once I did…

Stars, I couldn’t even lie to myself. Once I did, I might pretend to resist, but I’d do it again and again and again. I couldn’t fight the venom coursing through my veins. I couldn’t fight the soulbond. I couldn’t fight the craving.

I was so tired of fighting battles doomed from the start.

And why should I fight this one? I had already surrendered my body and my soul. More than once. I was damned from the moment Jules dropped his head between my legs and made me scream on his tongue.

Before that even.

Might as well enjoy my damnation.

Before I talked myself out of it, I spun on my bare feet and fled down the stairs.