Page 46

“Bring her over.”

Luc’s voice cleaved through my stupor. Bring her over. I blinked up at Jules as he straightened his shirt, the silk smoothing beneath his fingers. His brows lifted slightly at me.

Oh, fuck.

Her. My mother.

Over. To where I still crouched, naked and cum-streaked.

Estrella and Tristan were bringing over my mother now .

I grabbed my gown, twisting, yanking, shoving the fabric over my head. Too tight—no, the wrong way—shit, where was the hole for my torso—

I found it and dragged the dress over my body, frantic fingers clawing at the laces.

Wait. Where did I toss the brassière?

I spun around. I didn’t see the scrap of silk. I didn’t really need it, but if it was just lying about and my mother noticed it—

Luc cleared his throat.

My gaze snapped to him. The silk contraption dangled from those long, silver-ringed fingers. Cheeks aflame, I snatched the brassière and strapped it over my chest before fixing the riding gown over top of it. I shimmied on the panties as I stood.

A tangled mass of reddish-brown hair fell into my face. Like the thump of Patriarch Meallán’s fist against the pulpit, I jolted to attention. I ran my fingers through the knots, yanking, smoothing. I was marred. Wicked. Sinful. I needed to be clean, to be proper, to be tidy—

The kings were staring at me.

I swallowed.

Jules grinned. “You’ll need to do far more than that to convince someone you weren’t just thoroughly fucked.”

Heat flashed under my skin, panic curling tight in my ribs. Oh stars, oh stars. My fingers worked harder. Strand by strand, I pulled my hair back, getting it out of my face, where it was unruly and untamed and wild—

“Sit,” Luc said, patting the sofa. His voice was an order, not a suggestion.

My hands twitched, but they didn’t stop fidgeting as Jules sprawled onto the sofa beside Luc. He leaned into the King of Dusk. My fingers slowed. What a sight they made. Jules’s blond hair wasn’t as tousled as mine, but his waves brushed at his shoulder, the faint sheen of sweat on his pale skin evidence of his own release. Luc remained pristine, his forehead curl untouched, his doublet only slightly creased. But there was a looseness to him, so at odds with the Conqueror’s usual manner.

Thoroughly fucked indeed.

“Nessa.”

The Conqueror’s voice, however, hadn’t relaxed at all.

I snapped upright, my fingers falling limp from my hair. The urge to twist it into a tight, aching braid itched beneath my skin.

Was this what it was like? Returning from the marital altar in the Church’s cloister, dragged into a celebration of the sin you’d spent your life avoiding? I’d never had a wedding, never been pulled from a chamber with a blood-stained sheet, the proof my innocence was dead. But I remembered Aislin’s pink cheeks as Donal dragged her before the congregation, proclaiming her his.

This was that but worse. I was the Imperium’s, officially and eternally. Their blood whore, their obedient thrall, their Mortal Bride.

And my mother would be the first from my old life to witness it. Perhaps the only one—

A low growl cut through my spiraling thoughts, a warning rumble. I straightened like the warriors had at the city gate when we arrived, instantly at attention.

Luc stared, solid and unblinking.

I had disobeyed the Conqueror.

Twice.

Fuck. I hurried forward, my movements stiff, as Jules fought back a smirk.

My foot caught on a fold in the rug.

I tumbled forward—

Directly into them.

Silk. Hard muscle. A wall of heat and power.

Jules let out a delighted cackle. “No need to throw yourself at us.”

I narrowed a glare at him. “I—”

Luc moved me without effort, shifting my body like I weighed nothing. Suddenly, I was half in Jules’s lap, my calves brushing Luc’s thighs. My brain stuttered even as my body betrayed me, relaxing into their warmth. A shiver zapped through my spine. Heat tinged my cheeks.

“Imperium.”

The world tilted, expanding outward in an instant. Tristan’s voice. I jolted, gaze snapping past the kings to the Imperial Guard. He and Estrella stood at attention, watching us from lowered eyes.

Between them, a human woman kneeled. Her silver collar gleamed against her skin, her thin black gown draped like mourning attire.

My heart nearly stopped.

My mother .

Luc’s voice cut clean through the silence. “Do you know why you’re here, Mrs. Halloran?”

My mother—my mother —couldn’t stop her gaze from flickering to me between the strands of her brown hair. I met eyes the same muddy shade as mine. “I assume you have questions, Your Majesty.”

She barely hid the bitter edge to her words.

Jules rested his chin against my shoulder, the grinning face of the Butcher in the curve of his lips. “I see where you got your attitude from, lovely.” His eyes went flat as he focused on my mother. “I find it less endearing in you, thrall.”

Where Jules’s words made me wet, my mother only trembled.

“If you know we have questions, I assume you can guess what they are,” Luc continued like Jules hadn’t just threatened my mother with a smile.

This time, she chose not to respond.

Luc let out a deliberate sigh. “You’ll tell us eventually, one way or the other. Offer the information freely and you can go back to your life.”

“Life?” The harsh whisper escaped my mother like a rattle. “This existence isn’t my life. You stole me from my life twenty years ago.”

The kings both leaned forward, a soft brush of pressure where their bodies touched mine.

The prey had captured the predators’ interest.

Fuck. This wasn’t going to end well.

“Returning to Mabon isn’t part of our offer,” Luc said. “It’s your life here or your death here.”

Death? I whipped toward Luc, my movement jostling Jules from my shoulder. He pouted at the disturbance, but I barely registered it, my pulse pounding in my ears. “You aren’t killing my mother.”

Luc’s pupils dilated slightly. “I don’t allow my enemies to live.”

“It’s bad practice,” Jules said, gently tracing his knuckles along my arm.

“She’s my mother.”

“I’m aware,” Luc said, unmoved.

The bastard. Crossing my arms, I sat straight-backed. Holding myself apart. It didn’t work, given I was still perched across their laps. Luc’s lips curled, the smallest flicker of a smirk.

Then it was gone.

His attention shifted back to my kneeling mother. “What will it be, Mrs. Halloran? Life or death?”

My mother snorted. “It will be death either way.”

I flinched. No. It wouldn’t come to that. I had barely even processed my mother stood before me. They couldn’t kill her before me, just as I got her back. “Mother—”

“So you’re our enemy?” Luc asked.

“I am.” Her eyes met mine directly this time. Her terror remained, but rage coiled beneath it. A flicker of something restrained, something waiting. “So is she.”

My jaw dropped.

Wait.

“What?” I said the word so softly my mother didn’t even hear me.

She aimed her next barbed sentence at Luc. “Shall you kill her, too, Conqueror?”

The breath in my lungs stilled. What ? How had this progressed to killing me? I didn’t have the slightest idea why I’d carried a soulbond under a glamour. On top of another glamour and stars knew what other magic. If I was a pawn in some enemy’s plan, I didn’t know anything about it.

But even if I had known, even if I had willingly played my part, I wasn’t their enemy.

I should have been. The kings were vampires, our Azarasian masters. I had feared them. A part of me had hated them for years. They were the villains who had lorded over my entire life.

Had, had, had.

I couldn’t feel it anymore. Just like the kings couldn’t kill me.

Luc only slowly arched a brow at my mother, woefully unimpressed. “You know I can’t.”

My mother paused at that. Licked her lips. “I didn’t know for sure.”

Luc tilted his head, studying her. “Your daughter just tried to command me without consequence. I would’ve thought it was obvious.”

“And she keeps on glaring,” Jules added. “We wouldn’t tolerate an ordinary human glaring at us.”

I scowled. “I glared at you before the soulbond.”

“You were our volunteer.” Jules nipped my shoulder. “And it was adorable.”

I nearly jumped at the light brush of his teeth on my skin. A small, embarrassing squeak escaped me. A blush stained my cheeks, but my mother didn’t react. If she had lived here for twenty years, where it wasn’t rude to watch someone fuck at a feast, what was a little sexual tension between her daughter and her soulbound in a library?

I squirmed, my legs shuffling in discomfort. But that only made it worse. The stain down my thighs was unignorable. How could I just sit here, minutes after the Butcher had his cock in my mouth, the Conqueror’s cum drying on my inner thighs, while the mother I had dreamed of for two decades sat across from me?

I couldn’t think straight with this starsdamed soulbond.

I squirmed harder, trying to wiggle out of their laps.

Two different hands clamped around my waist.

Luc’s breath brushed my ear. “I have no reservations about bending you over again, little curiosity. Even in front of your mother.”

I forced myself to go still, every part of me.

Luc hummed, his voice dipping against my skin. “Pity.”

“It really did work, didn’t it?” my mother asked.

This time, it was the kings’ turn to stiffen. Lust burned away. Something sharper, heavier, deadlier, took its place. Their eyes cut toward my mother.

Luc’s voice was quiet. “ If you’re aware of the soulbond, then the spell wasn’t cast recently.”

My mother didn’t reply.

Luc’s fingers tapped against my hip. “Was it?”

Her gaze dropped. Not entirely to the floor in respect and fear, but partway, enough that she could gauge their reactions.

Luc’s gaze pinned her in place. “Tristan.”

The Imperial Guard stepped closer to my mother as one. Estrella fisted the back of her hair and yanked her head up. I gasped alongside my mother.

She had only shown me half her profile, but now I saw all of her. An hour ago, her face in my mind’s eye was a blur, but now it was clear, right in front of me. She had aged, wrinkles marking the peach skin we shared, but there was a glow of health to her skin I wouldn’t have expected after spending twenty years as a thrall.

What had Luc said? Vampire venom, sweat, blood, and cum all improved a human’s health and lifespan.

I didn’t want to think of that.

And I didn’t have to.

Tristan drew a small rune on her neck, the same pattern the kings had drawn on me only two days ago. Truth . But that alone wouldn’t get my mother to talk.

Estrella drew a new rune over her thrall runespell at the top of her spine.

Torment .

Jules snapped his fingers.

The effect was instant. A sharp convulsion wracked my mother’s body, her spine snapping taut. A ragged, animal scream tore from her lips. Her limbs seized violently, her fingers curling into claws as she twisted against the invisible force raking through her nerves.

I lunged before I could think, before I could weigh my options. I didn’t even make it a step. Jules’s arm hooked around my waist.

I tried again. I thrashed against him, elbowed hard into his ribs. It was like slamming into stone. His grip tightened. I shoved against his hold. Pulled, twisted, pushed—

Nothing.

No give. No movement. No escape.

“Stop it! Stop it, you fucking monsters!” my voice rang in my ears, raw with rage.

Jules didn’t even look at me.

Luc’s expression remained utterly composed.

My mother convulsed again. Her eyes, wide and unseeing, reflected nothing but agony. Veins stood out on her throat, her mouth open as that terrible wail rose in pitch. My stomach lurched. I had never heard anything like it before. Her fingers scrabbled at the back of her neck, nails digging at the rune as if she could peel it from her skin.

I couldn’t breathe.

"Stop it," I said again, weaker this time. But my voice barely felt like my own. My ears rang. My pulse slammed against my ribs like a trapped thing, desperate to escape.

This was what it was to be powerless. Not just outmatched in strength, but crushed under it. Nothing I said, nothing I did, would change this.

Another jolt wracked my mother’s body. Her scream splintered, fading into a keening sound that hit something primal in my chest.

This wasn’t just punishment. This wasn’t just pain. It was torment . It reached deep, searing into her marrow, overriding thought, identity. Everything but the unbearable, relentless sensation—

Luc snapped his fingers.

The rune cut off in an instant. My mother collapsed forward like a puppet with cut strings, her panting breaths sharp.

I shoved forward with all my strength. My pulse hammered like drums, deafening in my ears. A second ago, the kings had held me steady, had torn me apart with pleasure. Now, they were tearing my mother apart with pain.

I fought. Hard. My muscles strained against their grip, but I was nothing against them.

It didn’t matter.

This time, they let me go.

In three frantic steps, I was across the rug and dropping to my knees at her side. My hands trembled over her, unsure where to touch, what to do, how to fix this.

She flinched.

My chest caved inward. I stopped. Pulled back. Swallowed. Was she… scared of me ? I had imagined this moment a thousand times—the reunion, the relief, the sobbing embrace. Not this. Not her shaking beneath my hands. Not her flinching at my touch.

But I’d sat on our captors’ laps. I let them hold me. I let them use me.

My insides twisted, nausea creeping up my throat. I sat back on my heels, utterly helpless. This was wrong. All of this was wrong. I couldn’t stop the kings. I couldn’t make my mother tell the truth.

I couldn’t do anything.

My mother pushed onto her elbows, her breath shallow, sharp. Her gaze flickered past me to glare at the Imperium. Not looking at me. Not even acknowledging me.

Awaiting her torture.

No, no, no—

“When was the soulbond cast?” Luc asked.

My mother didn’t reply. Why wasn’t she replying?

I swallowed hard, my throat aching, burning. They would find out, even if they had to peel her apart and stitch her back together again. They would do it. They had the strength. The power. The ruthlessness. She had to know that.

Resistance wasn’t an option.

“Tell them, please,” I whispered.

She glanced at me.

Nothing.

Stars, no—

Luc snapped his fingers.

My mother shrieked. Her back bowed violently, her body contorting as if something had reached inside her and twisted her spine into knots. I had to crawl back to avoid her flailing limbs. Tears burned down my face, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t stop this. I could only watch.

And through it all, my body still tingled, still trembled in the aftershocks of their touch. The warmth of them still lingered on my skin. It was wrong, it was vile, it was sick. How could I have let them touch me?

How could I still feel them?

“Please—” My voice cracked.

Jules cut me off. “No, lovely,” he said, his tone almost fond. Like my mother wasn’t writhing in agony at his feet. “We need answers. It’s either this or my Block.”

The air was punched from my lungs. The Butcher’s Block, where the Imperium’s enemies begged to die. Jules was threatening to torture my mother, like they weren’t already. To the kings, this was simply foreplay.

She still had all her skin, after all.

I curled my shoulders and prayed for it to end.

One.

Two.

Three.

When I reached fifty-four, a full, unbearable eternity later, Luc snapped his fingers again. My mother collapsed, her wail cutting off.

She didn’t move.

Silence rang in my ears. Was she… was she dead?

“Your answer, Mrs. Halloran?” Luc’s tone was clipped this time, his patience fading. I didn’t know him well, but I could feel it, sharp and fraying at the edges. He was worn, but he refused to yield—

I caught myself before I slipped further into his mind. I did not want to spend any time in the Conqueror’s head while he interrogated my mother.

Slowly, painfully, my mother pushed onto a shaking elbow. Bloody scratches welled at her forearms, her shoulders. The crimson congealed under her fingernails. Her gaze flickered to mine again. This time, there was something else there, something I couldn’t name. She exhaled slowly, reluctantly.

“Before she was born,” she rasped, the words grated out of her. “The soulbond was cast before she was born.”

My breath caught.

Before I was born? Not after. Not recently. Not by accident.

“Curious.” Luc drummed his fingers against the sofa’s backrest. “How long before?”

“During conception.”

“Who cast the spell?” Luc asked immediately.

My mother gritted her teeth. “I can’t tell you.”

Jules snapped his fingers.

My mother dropped. Pain ripped through her. She clawed at the rune, at herself, turning the small cuts in her skin into gaping holes.

My pulse pounded in my skull. I whirled toward Jules. “She was answering you, asshole!”

Jules only grinned. “That didn’t sound like an answer to me.”

“She can’t lie, can she?” My voice came sharp, desperate. “She can’t tell you.”

“She has a point, Julien,” Luc said.

Jules huffed out a sigh. “Fine.”

With another snap, my mother was panting on the rug again. A thin sheen of sweat glistened across her skin, but she didn’t look at me. She didn’t look at anyone.

Jules slouched back into the sofa’s cushion. Like nothing had happened.

Luc eyed him before leaning forward. “Why can’t you tell us, Mrs. Halloran?”

She blew matted hair from her face, a tremor in her breath. “If I try… to tell you… I’ll die.”

Jules tilted his head, something thoughtful in his gaze. Luc only watched. “So a vampire or witch swore you to secrecy?”

She gave a jerky nod to her head.

Luc’s gaze flickered. His mind was moving, calculating, considering. “And why did this vampire or witch cast the soulbond during conception?”

“It was… hypothesized to improve compatibility, both for the merge of your souls and improving the attraction rune’s odds.”

A beat. Then another. The weight in the room changed. The kings didn’t move, didn’t speak, but something slammed into me. A wave of fire, anger and possession, both all-consuming. It flooded through the bond, surging from two directions at once, wrapping around me like shackles.

I turned.

Two pairs of black eyes burned into me. Both watching me. Both holding me in place with nothing but their presence.

Hunger coiled between us, inescapable.

Exactly like they were… even before we met?

Something surged through my limbs. My chest heaved, my breath caught. Not fear. Not panic. Something deeper. Hotter. Needier.

Arousal.

Pleasure at being claimed.

No. No .

A shudder ran down my spine, wrong in every way. My body clenched with want, my mind with revulsion. I crushed the lust, stomped it into the dark, buried it deep where it belonged. Where it couldn’t touch me. I forced myself to turn. I needed to focus. I needed to understand.

“What do you mean?” My voice was too thin, too fragile, but I forced it out. “By compatibility?”

My mother frowned, but she caught herself quickly. Her expression went blank.

“You’re not going to answer me, either?”

Luc answered instead. “If two souls are incompatible, they’ll reject the soulbond, killing one or both parties depending on their variance in power. But if you cast a bloodborne or soulborne soulbond on an unborn child, it could theoretically influence their development to be more compatible with the target.”

Development. My brain halted on the word.

“It would mean altering the spell,” Luc continued, like he was already dissecting the magic in his mind. “And it would be far more difficult to cast.”

“We already knew we were dealing with an expert, darling,” Jules murmured. He was smiling again, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

The weight in my stomach grew heavier. “And by influence my development, you mean…?”

Luc didn’t hesitate.

Didn’t blink.

He stared directly into me, into our soul. “You were made to be ours.”