Page 57

The bright gold of daylight lured me back to the world. I buried my head deeper into silk sheets, breathing in smoked honey and rich spice. The scents made my muscles go lax, drifting back to content sleep—

Then my heart kicked.

A sharp, sudden reminder.

I shot upright, breath caught in my throat as the room came into focus.

The kings’ bedchamber. Empty. Still.

Memories surged in, sluggish at first, then crashing like a wave. I had tried to escape. Tried to run with the witches… only for them to turn on me, take me hostage.

Luc and Jules had crushed their plans without breaking a sweat.

Unless you included the sweat that had lined their brows when they fucked me together.

I slumped back and pressed a hand to my lower belly, like I could still feel them inside me. It didn’t ache like it had after my first time. Only a low, pleasant throb pulsed through my core. They must have reapplied a soothing rune. Even without my illness, I’d surely hurt after taking both their cocks at once.

I shuffled my legs, but the sensations didn’t change. My inner thighs rubbed together. I stiffened. They’d cleaned me of blood, but our dried pleasure still stained my skin.

I swallowed. The kings weren’t in the bedchamber, but Luc was within the apartment, a quiet hum in my mind. If he heard me trying to bathe, I had no doubt he’d fuck me again. And he wouldn’t be gentle about it.

Not that I had considered their treatment of me before they discovered I was a witch gentle. But after last night, I knew it had been.

Their bodies, pressing into me from both sides. Their grunts, a sensual chorus in my ears. Their cocks, stretching me wide together. The rub of Luc’s piercings against my inner walls eliciting shudders as Jules fucked my ass, only a thin barrier within me holding them apart—

I gave a sharp shake of my head. It wasn’t time to fantasize about the kings fucking me.

I had tried to run from them.

They wouldn’t let that go unpunished.

When that time came, I didn’t want to be a naked mess with tangled hair in their bed.

I crawled to the edge of the mattress and rose slowly. My body protested, begging for another day or two of sleep. The kings’ runes dulled the pain and nausea, but they couldn’t fully erase the fatigue.

No clothes waited for me this time.

Of course not. Riona was dead.

I flinched at the thought. The doorway to my bedchamber looked unchanged, but from the corner of my eye, I swore I could still see the thrall’s pale corpse.

Her sacrifice wasted.

After another sharp shake of my head, I crossed to the kings’ bathing chamber. Riona was dead, as were all the other human thralls who had come with us last night. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t change what had happened, no matter how much I fretted about it.

I stepped into the bathing chamber. A long marble counter stretched to my left, two deep basins Maire had called sinks embedded in its surface. A tub large enough for five stood to my right on gilded feet. Before the back wall, a section was walled off with gold-edged glass. An inactive rune glowed faintly on the ceiling, another mirroring it on the floor. Both matched the pair in the tub. Pour. Drain. There hadn’t been a contraption like that in the thrall bathing chambers, so I didn’t have the slightest idea what it was. Some sort of standing bath?

After relieving myself, I finally faced my reflection in the mirrors over the counter. My brown hair was a matted mess, but my upper body had at least been cleaned of blood and sweat. Only the tuft of hair between my legs and the skin of my inner thighs remained dirty, streaked with dry cum and the remnants of desire.

I clenched my fists to resist the urge to scrub myself raw. It wasn’t worth it.

And oddly enough, that was actually true. My clit didn’t pulse at the thought of Luc scent-marking me. Heat didn’t flare in my core. My nipples didn’t peak and tingle. I remained… unaffected. The soulbond hadn’t just stopped urging me toward the kings. It slumbered entirely.

Like it was finally satisfied.

I gasped. Of course it was finally satisfied. I had taken both the kings last night. I’d thought something was wrong with me, my hunger for Luc and Jules seemingly endless. Karra has craved Azaras, but it hadn’t been constant every second of the day.

But I didn’t have one soulbound. I had two . For our soul to be whole again, I couldn’t just fuck one of them.

I had to fuck both.

A sharp laugh almost escaped my lips. When Luc had said fucking them would be my eternity, I’d thought it a threat.

It wasn’t a threat. It was just the truth.

My life would never be mine again. I was trapped. Caged by the kings, both physically and magically. Running last night had been a moment of desperation, of lunacy. There was no running. Just like there was no escaping my illness.

It simply was, and there was nothing I could do to change that.

The air in the bathing chamber thinned, every breath tight in my chest. This would be my existence. Wife to the Imperium. Queen in name only. Whore in reality.

I would serve them with my blood and body forever. Their captive. Their property. The mother of their children. My palms slicked with sweat, a chill sliding down my spine. There was no denying it anymore. When they decided they wanted an heir, they’d have all the time, all the magic, all the power in the world to plant their child in my belly.

And I couldn’t stop it.

I couldn’t stop any of this.

I’d thought I had no control of my life before, but now I truly had none. The floor tilted beneath my feet. Or maybe I was tilting. I couldn’t tell.

A sharp pain shot through my core. I glanced down. My heart nearly stopped. Dark blood coated my thighs, thick and heavy, dripping all the way to my ankles. I didn’t even care that I was suddenly wearing a thin nightgown, not in the face of all that blood. Not with the twisting in my belly.

It was like the pain of my illness, only far worse. A deep, relentless cramp that stabbed hard and didn’t stop.

A wave of dizziness hit me. I grabbed the edge of the counter, gripping it like it was the only thing anchoring me to the world. What the fuck? Was I dying? Had the kings broken something in me? Why had it happened so fast, so sudden? I raised my head to meet my reflection—and flinched back.

My eyes were no longer brown, but a shade so dark they looked black. But more than the color of my iris had changed. They were flecked with silver on the right and gold on the left, luminous specks that spilled over my pupils. The asymmetry itched at something deep in me, unsettling and almost mesmerizing.

I swallowed back my nausea. They were so… foreign.

Inhuman.

“Nessa?”

I jerked around, spinning toward the sound of Luc’s voice. The King of Dusk stood behind me, dressed all in black. His gaze swept over my trembling form, blood still streaking down my legs.

Something shifted in his expression. A realization flickered across his face. It twisted in his chest, sharp and sudden. An emotion I felt so clearly, I thought for a second it was my own.

Was that… sorrow?

I hadn’t known Luc was capable of a sorrow like this. Not this sharp. Not this deep. Even his rage, his pain, his pleasure hadn’t hit me this hard.

He closed the distance between us quickly, the terrifyingly cold Conqueror from last night replaced by someone else entirely. His expression was soft. I had only ever seen him look at Jules like that.

He took me into his arms like I was something delicate. Precious . It was such an insane concept that my breath caught. Something welled in my chest, something aching. A craving I had never dared acknowledge.

No one had ever touched me like this before.

Like I mattered .

Tears pricked at my eyes. I tried to force them down, to bury them like always, but they broke loose, spurred on by the pain in my center. I didn’t know what was happening, but I leaned into his chest anyway, needing his warmth and comfort.

He pressed a kiss to my temple. “All will be well, my love—”

And everything changed.

Luc was gone, the kings’ bathing chamber and the morning light with him. Runelight flickered across rough stone walls, their texture unmistakably that of a cave. Above me, the ceiling was perfectly flat, a jarring contrast to the uneven rock. I lay in the center of an enormous bed, under soft maroon blankets, completely naked and—

The bond blazed with joy, radiant from both sides. It pulsed through my chest, too warm to be real, too intense to be mine alone. For a moment, I let myself sink into it, let it cradle me.

Then the pain hit.

I yelped as a fresh wave tore through my center. Not the pain of my illness. Not the sharp cramp from moments ago, blood streaming down my thighs. This was far worse, like I had been ripped in two.

Had I been injured last night, after they fed from me? Was waking in the kings’ apartment and walking to the bathing chamber the fever dream? Or was this? Luc holding me. Calling me his love. The cave. The bed. The pain—

“Nessa?”

This time, it was Jules who spoke. The King of Dawn pushed upright from the mattress beside me, golden gaze glowing like sunrise. “Lie back, lovely. You’re healed, but—”

“What happened to your hair?” I blurted, my gaze finally taking in his short blond hair, a few wild pieces falling across his forehead.

He wore it well, but it wasn’t Jules. Even tousled, it was too neat. Too… tame.

His brow furrowed, ever so slightly. “What?”

“What happened to your…” I reached up to gesture toward my hair, but my fingers met empty air. I froze. My hair fell to my waist, I should have reached it by now—

But instead, I brushed against soft curls just above my ear.

I jolted once in shock. Then again as pain shot through me. Why the fuck was my hair short? And why did it hurt so much—?

Soft fingers grazed my chin. Jules tilted my face toward his. He leaned over me, propped on an elbow, golden gaze scanning every inch of my expression. His eyes were still keen, the calculating mind behind the Butcher’s wicked joy. But like with Luc, there was something new beneath it now.

Something brighter.

Something softer.

Something that shouldn’t have existed.

The pressure in my chest swelled.

“Ah,” he murmured, the word brushing warm against my cheek. “This is a poor time for a skip.”

I stared at him. Were those words supposed to make sense? “What?”

Something split the air. A high-pitched cry that pulled at something deep within me.

My head snapped toward the sound. Luc stood at the end of the bed, bare-chested in dark slacks, his bronzed skin glistening in runelight. His silver eyes were locked on me. But I didn’t meet them for once, too busy gaping at the bundle of lace and silk cradled in his arms.

I tried to press up onto my elbow. Was that a fucking—?

My vision wobbled.

I slumped back to the bed and slapped a hand against my face. No, no, no. That wasn’t right. I squished my eyes shut. I inhaled, sinking into the cushion—

And exhaled, now leaning against something solid. My palms gripped the edge of a cold surface as water trickled in the background. The pitched cry had cut out. The light had changed from dim gold to the white of morning again.

I opened my eyes to my reflection, once again naked and cum-stained in the bathing chamber. My widened eyes stared back at me, the familiar brown of a shocked mortal. My face was wet, like I’d splashed water on it.

I didn’t remember doing that.

“What the fuck?” I muttered.

“I believe that’s my question, bride.”

I jumped a foot in the air.

Luc stood in the doorway. But this wasn’t the Luc I had seen moments ago. The long stretch of him was clad in a navy doublet embroidered with silver thread, his posture rigid and unreadable. There was no softness in his gaze. Just heat in his gaze—and something hard as steel beneath it.

Like a king staring down a subject who’d disobeyed him.

Like I had.

I should have been concerned, but I was only terribly confused. Terribly, desperately confused. “What was that?”

He arched a brow. “What was what?”

“That!” I waved my hand vaguely at the room, like the room would become a cave again.

Luc only stared. He had no idea what I was talking about. None whatsoever. His expression didn’t change, but the bond between us whispered the truth.

I swallowed. First the hedge maze, now this. My mind was breaking. But that was normal, right? Who wouldn’t, after everything I’d seen and felt and suffered? I didn’t know why my brain had conjured blood on my thighs, a concerned Luc, Jules and me with shorter hair, and a different Luc cradling a starsdamned baby .

I was sure it had a reason. I had been panicking about them breeding me. That was surely why.

I turned back to the mirror, leaned over, and splashed more cold water onto my face. The chill bit into my skin, just what I needed. A shock to bring me back.

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

I didn’t believe the words. I was already fracturing, bit by bit.

“How long before the witches betrayed you?”

I glanced up to find Luc staring at me impassively. He wanted to jump straight into the interrogation? I could do that, as long as no one broke a bone.

“The moment we transported out of Dawnspear.”

He nodded. “That’s not surprising.”

I winced. Of course it wasn’t surprising to him. He was the bloody Conqueror. Plotting and maneuvering people was his entire existence. “I was surprised.”

“Of course you were,” he said. “You have a kind heart. You want to believe the best of people, despite the disdain you experienced your entire childhood.”

I repressed a flinch. “I’m an idiot, I know—”

Luc’s large hand suddenly encompassed my jaw. He tilted my head until I looked over my shoulder at him. The look he gave me was flat and unblinking, like my self-loathing was blasphemy. “Do not call yourself an idiot. Am I understood?”

I shuddered, my shoulders pressing back against his wide expanse of chest. “Yes.”

He arched his brow.

I swallowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

At that, he released me and stepped back, putting space between us once again. I wrapped my arms around myself, a shield and a support all in one.

Luc glanced down, like he’d just noticed I was still naked. Without a word, he turned and exited the bathing chamber.

He didn’t need to give the order. He wanted me to follow him. I didn’t have it in me to resist. I was tired. Confused. Defeated. And what would it accomplish, if I defied him? He could just stomp back in here and carry me out.

I glanced back at the mirror one last time, but my eyes were still a normal brown. No silver, no gold. No black. Just me.

Shaking my head, I followed Luc into his bedchamber. I didn’t have time for hallucinations now. I still waited for the noose to tighten. And it would tighten. I needed to survive that.

Luc passed the long dresser between doors. A swash of black fabric lay across the surface, next to a familiar silver-gold collar.

But I didn’t care.

A massive hellwolf stood in the doorway to the sitting room.

“Titus!” I launched forward, reaching out to bury my hands in his thick fur. “You’re alive.”

The hellwolf bared fangs as long as my hand and growled low in his throat.

I froze mid-step, blood draining from my face. Terror snapped through me. But that was fair. Titus wasn’t a dog. He was a hellwolf. He understood exactly what I had done yesterday.

My shoulder slumped, the breath leaking out of me.

Even when I was a stranger in this place, Titus had let me curl into him and pretend I wasn’t alone. But now, he looked at me like I was a threat. My stomach twisted, shame crawling up my throat.

I hadn’t meant to hurt him. But I had anyway.

Luc stood motionless across the room, hands linked behind his back. He said nothing of Titus’s reaction. Only tilted his head and said, “Get dressed.”

I inhaled deeply and backed away until I stood beside the dresser. I picked up the fabric first. The gown was the standard black slip all thralls wore. That I hadn’t since the soulbond was discovered. A pang shot through my chest, but I ignored it.

What else had I expected?

I slid the dress over my head. Whatever came my way, I would endure. Even if I was little more than their thrall again.

“And the collar,” Luc said.

My hands hovered over the silver-gold metal. This was equally symbolic. I had to return myself to my shackles. I breathed in. Breathed out. Before I could hesitate longer, I wrapped the collar around my neck with a clink of metal. The tiny jewels dangling from its chains traced my collarbones. The contraption settled heavy on my shoulders.

I was the Mortal Bride once more.

Forevermore.

Luc crooked a finger. “Come here, bride.”

Straightening my shoulders, I closed the distance between us. Luc’s pupils darkened with my every step. Something hot tickled under my skin, a desire I couldn’t repress. Stars, I loved every time she obeyed me with that defiant glare.

Loved.

No.

It was too soon for that. Before I could dwell on it, I gave a slow spin of my finger. “Turn—”

I jolted back to myself, Luc mere inches away. I held his gaze for a heartbeat. Just one. His shadowed pupil only swallowed more and more iris, that itch under my skin growing—

I turned before I slipped back into his head.

Luc’s hands settled over the back of my neck, right over the latch to the collar. A moment later, the heat of magic flared across my skin, sharp enough to make me flinch.

“You’re now unable to remove your collar without permission,” Luc said. “Nor can you say the words to free any thrall.”

Something inside me twisted. Cold and furious. I clenched my hands tight together. It was either that or yank at the metal choking my throat. Or scream. Or both.

“What now?” I asked, voice flat.

“Jules is nearly finished interrogating the Isauran delegation.” Luc lowered his hand from my neck, but didn’t step back. He didn’t touch me, simply standing there at my back, out of sight but never outside my senses. “Once he’s complete, they’ll be tried and sentenced before the High Courts.”

I closed my eyes. A trial. I didn’t know much about Azarasian justice beyond what I had witnessed. The kings were judge and executioner, all in one. The delegation wouldn’t survive the day.

If they were currently strapped to the Butcher’s Block, that was likely preferable.

When Luc didn’t say anything else, I managed a nod. “I see.”

“Do you?”

I twisted at that, meeting his bright eyes over my shoulder. “I know you don’t let your enemies live. It isn’t hard to guess what will happen next.”

Luc just hummed, a noncommittal reply. He didn’t believe me.

I turned back toward the dresser and the wall.

Luc didn’t speak. Like he was waiting. For what, I wasn’t sure. I stared at the wall, harder and harder, until I couldn’t anymore. I threw out the first question that came to mind. “Where’s my mother?”

“Imprisoned, as well. Jules spoke with her yesterday afternoon.”

I flinched. While I had sobbed and curled on my bed in pain, Jules had tortured my mother. She might not love me, but I didn’t want to imagine her at the end of the Butcher’s blades. “Did she tell him anything?”

“Nothing helpful. The rune binding her to secrecy cares not about pain.” Luc paused. “Jules found it cathartic, at least.”

Bastard. I narrowed my eyes. “I’m sure he did.”

“Your leaving upset him gravely.”

I spun around, nearly barring my teeth. “Him breaking my fingers upset me gravely—”

A low snarl cut me off. Titus had crossed the room in a flash of black fur, now stationed at Luc’s side. His shadowed eyes and gaping maw hovered inches from my face. Everything in me screamed to run.

But I only stiffened my spine. Titus couldn’t kill me without killing the kings. He knew that. Had known that long before Luc and Jules did. And letting a hellwolf ravish me was a far cry from breaking fingers.

Luc didn’t react visibly to Titus or me, but that squirming heat rose in him again. “Jules healed you right away.”

Jules healed me right away? I’d stayed standing, but my thoughts had certainly fled at Titus’s advance. I pursed my lips, retracing our conversation—

Fucking asshole . Like breaking my fingers was nothing. Stars, why couldn’t I throttle him? He liked to have his hand around my throat. Let him see how he liked it in return. “That doesn’t negate him breaking my fucking fingers.”

Luc arched a brow, faintly amused. “The Butcher doesn’t consider breaking a finger torture, little witch. The fact he took mercy on you when his emotions were repressed is only because you’re his soulbound. When he’s in that state, he usually does much worse.”

Repressed emotions? That explained the hollowness I had felt in Jules yesterday… and felt in him again right now.

But that wasn’t an excuse. For any of their actions.

I crossed my arms. “So he was so distraught he had to lock his emotions away, but not distraught enough to stop himself from fucking me.”

Luc’s features shuttered, his emotions dimming behind his mask. “Neither of us wanted to fuck you. The bond demanded it.”

My fists clenched. They had certainly seemed like they wanted to fuck me. But then again… I had certainly seemed like I wanted to fuck them, too.

The soulbound wasn’t just riding me hard. It controlled the kings, as well. Obviously. But I had never let myself think about it. I knew their desire for me couldn’t be real—had never been real—but they had acted so accepting of the bond. Like every action was still their own. Like it was a choice.

In truth, they were just better at pretending it wasn’t one forced on them.

“You didn’t seem to feel its… insistence after the block rune was gone.”

“Jules and I have experienced block runes before. All Azarasians must learn to endure, no matter what we feel from our soulbound, whether it’s pleasure, pain, or nothing at all.” Luc brushed his fingers through Titus’s fur, soothing the hellwolf. “But there’s no resisting what the bond demands when a block rune is removed. We could only delay it.”

“You could’ve delayed it until we got back to Dawnspear.”

“And why would we do that?” He cocked his head, genuinely confused. “We granted your wishes for privacy the first time we claimed you, but you shouldn’t expect it often. Shame isn’t in our nature.”

Neither was decency. “I’m aware.”

A spark flashed within me. Jules. His emotions surged through the bond, no longer sealed away. Whatever shield he’d built had fallen, and now the full weight of him crashed back into me.

Luc straightened. “Jules is finished. He’ll be escorting the witches to the throne room for judgment.”

I nodded, throat tight. “And I’m attending?”

Luc reached into his pocket… and pulled out a silver chain?

My stomach dropped. “What is—?”

He didn’t answer. Just stepped forward and latched the chain to a small loop at the base of my collar.

My jaw dropped. He just put a leash on me. I stared at the chain in disbelief, everything in me recoiling. And yet… not all in fear. A terrible, shameful thrill twirled in my gut. I stiffened, fists curling at my sides, trying to fight it.

“You’re not simply attending, little witch.” Luc gave the leash a slow, deliberate tug that sent a jolt through my spine. “You ran just like they did. This is your trial, too.”