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My breath caught. The sentence echoed in my ears, louder than it had any right to be. The witches didn’t react, not visibly. Maybe they were too broken. Or maybe they were braver than me.

But something in me cracked.

Luc stood in one smooth motion. Jules followed a beat later, casually adjusting his tunic like he was getting ready for a dance, not an execution. His excitement flared beside Luc’s steady resolve. The throne room stayed silent, the air tight as both kings stepped down from the dais together.

A small part of me screamed to stay down. Keep my head bowed. Let this happen. Let them pass.

Ilenia sobbed beside me, her whole body shaking. Eral didn’t lift his head. The other two hadn’t spoken since we arrived. And Morrena... Morrena didn’t beg. Didn’t plead. She only watched the kings descend, her expression carved from stone.

The Isaurans had betrayed me. They’d threatened my life.

But I couldn’t let them die like this.

My knees trembled as I shifted my weight. A small part of me screamed to flee as the Conqueror and the Butcher approached. But I planted one foot, then the other.

And I rose—straight into the kings’ path.

Everything went silent. I think. Maybe I just couldn’t hear over the thundering of my heart. I had stepped in front of the Conqueror and the Butcher . Two vampire kings who ruled as mercilessly as they killed.

I couldn’t hope to stand against them. I didn’t have any magic. I didn’t know how to use a sword or dagger, and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter against their inhuman strength and speed.

I knew all that.

I did it anyway.

I couldn’t stand by and let the witches die.

The kings stopped. Stopped . Their faces remained blank and calm, but their focus locked on me with an intensity that made me want to bolt. Luc’s tension coiled like a storm held in check, dangerous and waiting. Jules’s emotions spiked hotter. Surprise, amusement, and beneath it all, shameless desire.

But they didn’t move forward. That was a good sign, right? They didn’t have to stop. Luc walked over those in his way, and Jules cut through them with blade, claw, or fang. I was soulbound to them. They couldn’t kill me without killing themselves, but they could still pick me up and move me out of their way.

Then their expressions shifted. Luc slowly arched a brow as Jules grinned with sharp menace. Every cell in my body screamed to get the fuck out of here.

Well, not every cell. A couple traitors wanted to jump them.

I raised my chin, determined not to wither under their intense gazes.

Luc’s hand wrapped around my jaw a second later. “Whenever you raise your little chin like that, bride, I get unbelievably hard.”

I only raised my chin higher. “That’s not my problem.”

His grip tightened. “Isn’t it?”

A flush heated my cheeks. It was my cunt Luc would ram his unbelievably hard cock into. My body might’ve reacted, but I forced the rest of me still. That wasn’t real. It was just the soulbond. I wasn’t flustered or embarrassed. Why should I be? I was standing to save lives.

My pulse roared in my ears, but I didn’t lower my gaze. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. “Don’t kill them.”

Luc didn’t hesitate. “We don’t allow our enemies to live.”

“I’m your enemy.”

Luc’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of heat behind the mask. “You’re our bride.”

“And if you harm our bride, I rip your face off.” Jules glared at the kneeling witches. “They hurt you, didn’t they?”

I flinched. The words were crude, brutal, but not wrong. The witches had hurt me. The blocking rune had felt like a slow death, like something vital had been stolen from me. Still, I didn’t look away from Jules. I didn’t let his words sway me. That pain didn’t justify what the kings would do in return.

“Leave it be, Nessa,” Morrena said, her voice tight. “You can’t change—”

“Shut up, Morrena.”

The words ripped out of me, louder than I meant, edged with all the fury, helplessness, and exhaustion curdling in my chest. She had tried to use me, caged me like I was nothing. I was done listening to her voice.

Her mouth snapped shut mid-sentence. Her jaw locked, her lips pressed tight, her eyes blown wide in shock. I blinked. Had I said it too harshly? Too loud? Morrena stared at me, unmoving. Not defiant, not angry. Stunned, like I’d slapped her.

Something in her expression shifted, cold realization crawling over her face.

I didn’t stop to figure out what. I turned back to the kings. Luc had tilted his head, a glint of approval in his eyes. Jules’s grin had sharpened into a smirk, like I’d just done something worth watching.

But they hadn’t moved. Hadn’t brushed past me. Hadn’t dismissed me.

Maybe they were actually considering my words.

The Conqueror crushed that fluttering hope under his boot. “We have yet to discuss your punishment, bride. You weren’t innocent in this. You assisted the witches. Without your help, two of our Imperial Guard wouldn’t be dead, and you never would’ve stepped foot outside our apartment.”

My stomach turned. He made it sound so neat. So simple.

Jules brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “That’s also high treason, if you didn’t know.”

I swallowed. “And what is the punishment for that?”

“Death,” Luc said.

My stomach lurched. I knew they couldn’t kill me—not without killing themselves—but the word still punched straight through my gut.

“But you’re our Mortal Bride,” Jules said, as if that explained everything. “We’re limited in how we can punish you for your crimes right now.”

Or ever. I narrowed my eyes slightly at him as he skirted the truth. It wasn’t a lie.

“But don’t fret.” Jules pulled his curved blade, Thérèse, from its gilded sheath. “We can be quite creative.”

I stiffened. My breath hitched. Stars, was he going to cut off a finger this time?

Jules twisted the blade in his hand until the hilt faced me, offering it like a gift. “Your punishment will be death. It just won’t be yours.”

Everything within me stilled.

No.

No .

I glanced up into golden eyes, serious behind his smile. There would be no mercy for me, just like there was none for these witches. Because we were lesser than them.

I would always be lesser than them, even as their soulbound.

I tried to repeat that in my head as my body begged me to soften and submit. As my hands twitched for the blade and my heart begged for the warmth it was so long denied.

But my feelings were only because of the bond. I had wanted to forget. I had wanted it to be real. I had wanted it so badly, I’d started hallucinating futures that would never happen. Could never happen, if this was the cost.

Jules held out his blade with the patience of an ambush predator, waiting as I struggled in the trap. Faint amusement twitched at the corners of his mouth as he waited for me to take it. Waited to see what I’d become.

Luc circled to my side and brushed the tear I hadn’t realized was falling from my cheek. “If you wish to show them mercy, bride,” he said softly, “you’ll have to kill them yourself. We don’t intend to rush.”

I swatted at his hand. Stupid. The moment my skin met his, Luc’s eyes darkened. They were more shadow than silver now, flaring with a heat that wasn’t quite anger, wasn’t quite hunger.

But I didn’t back down. “Don’t pretend this is a gift to me.”

“I wouldn’t. This is your punishment.” Luc took the blade from Jules and pressed it into my hand. “This will be the first life you take, but certainly not the last.”

My fingers closed around the hilt before I could stop them. It felt too natural. Too easy. A chill slid down my spine as I exhaled, shaky and uneven. “You can’t make me a monster.”

“We don’t need to,” Luc replied, his voice a low rumble. “You survived the bonding. That means we’re a perfect match, pieces of a united whole.”

Jules grinned. “You might be soft, lovely, but somewhere inside of you, there’s a monster to match ours. We just want to meet her.”

A pulse jumped in my throat. “Well, you’re not going to today.”

Luc swung out his arm. I flinched. He hadn’t been aiming at me. I knew his target the second he moved. He didn’t break eye contact as his arm lashed out to the side—

His fist slammed into Ilenia’s skull.

A sickening crack echoed through the throne room. Through the bond. The jolt of impact in Luc’s bones. The slick of blood on his knuckles. Crimson splattered across the marble. I gagged, and Jules flicked a settling rune at me a second later. My nausea faded.

But he drew another in his opposite hand. Shadows flared from his fingertips, etching a familiar shape into the air.

Endure .

Ilenia’s body flopped to the floor, twitching. Twitching. Still twitching. She wouldn’t fucking stop. And she never would, not with that rune crawling beneath her skin, preserving her life, stretching out the agony.

I stared, frozen. This wasn’t justice. This was cruelty crafted into performance. “You’re monsters.”

“We know,” Luc said, cleaning the blood from his knuckles with a rune.

I tightened my fist around the hellynx hilt. The edges dug into my palm, grounding me, anchoring me in the horror.

No matter what this witch did, I couldn’t let her twitch for eternity, stuck on the edge of death. No one deserved that. Not even her. But knowing it was the right thing didn’t make it easier.

This would be the first life I ever took. Me. My hand. My choice. There was no glory in it. Just the sick weight of inevitability settling deeper and deeper in my chest.

I had stepped into their path. I had tried to save lives. But the only way to save her now… was to end her.

Ilenia was already gone. Her body just hadn’t caught up yet.

“Stop casting,” I whispered.

Jules’s rune didn’t flicker. “I’ll stop casting when you start stabbing.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Steadied my breath.

I could do this. I had to.

I didn’t know the most humane way to kill her. There was no dignity left in this. No right answer. She was already dying, her skull crushed. If Jules wasn’t casting the endurance rune, she’d already be dead.

This was just symbolic. Like my black gown. Like the collar. Like the leash. Luc had killed her minutes ago.

I was just here to finish the performance.

I slashed the blade across her throat. Blood spurted from the wound in a hot arc, joining the puddle already leaking from her skull. It should’ve been over. Quick. Clean. At the very least, final.

But Jules wasn’t letting her die. Not yet.

Stars, Ilenia should’ve been dead twice over by now. Her skull was cracked open. Her throat had been cut. But her body still jerked, twitching with mindless spasms, muscles firing in senseless agony.

Bile rose in my throat. Tears burned at my eyes.

I plunged my blade into her chest.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

Again.

Still, she twitched. Still, her body clung to life. I stabbed and stabbed and stabbed until blood coated my arm, my chest. Until my world was blood, the body beneath me, and a keening whine that echoed in my ears, escaping my lips.

And Ilenia still wasn’t fucking dead.

I spun on Jules and pointed the daemium blade at him. Soft conversation had resumed among the courtiers, but it died the instant they saw me point the Butcher’s own knife at him.

The kings didn’t react. Just watched, their eyes dark and hungry, drinking in every ragged breath I took. Their desire twisted low in my belly, impossible to ignore.

The fucking monsters.

I raised the blade higher, blood soaking my arms. “Stop cast—”

Someone moved behind me. I couldn’t see them, but I didn’t have to, not when the kings’ gazes shifted over my shoulder. A hand brushed the back of my leg—

The world spun.

Bodies hit the floor behind me—no, in front of me. I was facing a different direction now, Luc at my side, his arm wrapped tight around my waist. Eral and the other two delegation witches lay dead, blood leaking from their noses and eyes. Beside them, Ilenia had finally gone still.

Jules held Morrena off the floor, one hand wrapped around her throat.

I recoiled at the sight. I knew who she was, what she had done. But she looked fifteen. Her body was fifteen. Morrena’s toes weren’t anywhere close to brushing the marble. It looked like Jules was strangling a child.

Those same hands that had just reached for me clawed at his grip. Why had she done that? What had she hoped to accomplish? It only hastened her delegation’s deaths.

Had that been the point?

Her brown eyes found mine. Something passed through her gaze. A weight of things left unsaid.

If only I knew what things.

Shadows flared up Jules’s hand, crackling like lightning against his knuckles. His claws solidified into Morrena’s neck. Five long spikes pierced through her throat. Blood bubbled at her lips. Gurgled. Ran over his fingers. The warmth of it seeped across my hand like a phantom echo.

Jules jerked his hand up with a sharp, brutal motion. His claws tore through her like meat, hooking deep into her jaw.

Then he yanked.

He ripped Morrena’s face off.

I gagged as bone cracked. Snapped. Her head collapsed into a pulp of crimson flesh and shattered bone—

I twisted around and vomited onto the floor.

Oh, stars. I’d seen so many bodies in the last two weeks. Felt so much blood spray my skin. But that had been something else entirely. Not murder, but a desecration.

I coughed hard, eyes stinging from the image burned behind my eyes. I didn’t lift my head. I couldn’t. If I looked at Morrena again, I’d vomit until nothing was left. The taste of bile lingered. Spit clung to my lips. My throat burned.

A flare of magic burst through the air.

My head jerked upwards. What now? Before the wave of heat grazed my skin, Jules shoved me backward, straight into Luc’s chest. It should’ve been uncomfortable pressed between their two bodies like this, Ilenia’s blood smearing between us, but it felt like home. I blinked, dazed, barely seeing over Jules’s shoulder as he hovered protectively in front of me.

All I noticed were corpses.

I looked left. Right.

Every witch in the room besides me was dead.

Confusion rippled through the throne room. The courtiers looked around in silent, stunned disbelief, some taking cautious steps back, others whispering behind their hands.

The council moved first. Sabas and Cédric surged forward, passing the kings. Cédric stalked toward the bodies, gaze gleaming with eerie curiosity rather than fear. Roxiana and Isabeau flanked their Imperium, the Crown General’s sword already in her hand. Roxiana’s fingers glowed faintly with shadows, her expression unreadable. The four remaining Imperial Guard had entered the room in a flash, but they stayed back, waiting for their kings’ orders.

“What just happened?” I whispered, my voice barely audible above the thick silence.

“Suicide runespell,” Cédric murmured as he crouched beside Morrena’s corpse, drawing tiny runes in the air. Reveal. Deconstruct . “The trigger was Morrena’s death. Since it wasn’t active, the glamour over it hid it entirely from our senses.”

Luc didn’t take his eyes off the bodies. “Sabas, find out if it was restricted to the witches from the last harvest or if all witches in the castle were affected.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” With a nod, Sabas passed the Imperial Guard, heading into the hall.

“Morrena must have cast all of them.” Cédric had shuffled over to Eral, casting the same runes. “None of the rest of the witches would have the power to hide runes from us—”

Ilenia twitched.

It was subtle—just the jerk of her limb, the shift of her shoulder—but I saw it. I blinked, sure I imagined it. She was dead. Jules had stopped casting. Her injuries had finally, thankfully , killed her.

Then shadows burst from her corpse.

The ribbons of black smoke shot out like spears, wrenching free of her ribs, spine, and joints. Her limbs arched into the air. The darkness drenched her, wrapping round every inch of her. It almost seemed to grow heavier, settling like a second layer of skin. Her body twisted, warped. Bones cracked as her mouth tore open into a shadowed grimace that kept stretching, stretching, stretching—

And then she screamed. The sound tore through the throne room, piercing and unholy. Wrong . My heart nearly stopped.

Ilenia was no longer a witch.

She was a wraith.