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Blood spewed from the gaping hole in Fergus’s neck, splattering across the Lord of Dawn’s face. Jules released the dying man, who crumpled to the earth, and spat out a glob of—

I glanced away, my nausea flaring again. There wasn’t anything in my stomach but that didn’t matter when I was staring at a shredded trachea.

“Egh.” Blood drenched Jules’s lips and chin, dripping down to the collar of his black leathers. He frowned, not at the blood and literal guts, but at the puking humans around me. “Now it’s going to stink.”

“And it wasn’t before?” I asked, my tone nearly shrill.

“I’m a vampire, lovely. Blood and guts don’t bother me.”

My gaze flickered between my eviscerating savior and my eviscerated assailant. Fergus twitched in the dirt, a gruesome sight. Jules wasn’t much better. “But you draw the line at vomit?”

“No one likes vomit.”

“You—” I coughed. Pain surged through my throat. My eyes watered. The bruised feeling wasn’t worse than the stabbing jolts and cramps of my illness, but I hadn’t grown used to it. I was familiar with pain, but not this pain.

I hadn’t realized that mattered. Probably because I’d never been strangled before.

When the flare under my skin passed and my vision cleared, Jules was standing a foot away, a godstar dressed in blood. I flinched back, my heart climbing my throat. Thankfully, I didn’t scream. My throat couldn’t handle that.

If the Lord of Dawn noticed my fear, he didn’t show it. “Let’s get that healed. Luc?”

The Lord of Dusk dropped from his hellsteed. I frowned at Jules. He hadn’t used magic to create a light or heal himself. “Why don’t you heal it now?”

“It’s after dusk, and we’re in the wilds.”

I glanced at the night sky above, like it held my answer. “I know?”

“You don’t, actually.” Luc crossed the space to his soulbond in three long strides. “But that doesn’t matter now. May I?”

May he? I didn’t think he’d ask. The vampire healers in Corraidin never did when assuring the health of the Impire’s herd.

I nodded.

Luc gently tilted my head, studying my throat. For the bruises, I told myself. Not because he was hungry. But it was hard to remember that with a vampire touching me. My heartbeat stuttered.

The lord’s nostrils flared, but his touch remained light. “You must have truly angered him.”

“He called me a whore and a bitch, but apparently me saying it back was crossing a line.”

“Hmm.” Luc traced a rune against my neck with shadowed fingers. First, the familiar brush of the soothing rune, followed by a second, less familiar rune. Probably one for healing like I’d witnessed earlier, but I couldn’t tell from the lines against my prickling skin. “Small men like him can be overly sensitive.”

A wave of warmth flashed through me and dragged away the pain. Luc lowered his hand, his claws fading into smoke. I rubbed my throat. When I closed my eyes, I could still imagine the pressure of Fergus’s grip, but the injury was gone like it had never happened. “Thank you.”

The Lord of Dusk nodded.

“Where’s my thank you?” Jules asked. “If he gets one for healing you, I should get one for saving your life.”

I shot him a dry look before I even realized it. I was in the middle of reeling it back since he was a starsdamed vampire, idiot , when he grinned back. Less than a week ago, I would’ve passed out if a vampire with blood staining his chin smiled at me.

Now it was almost comforting.

Almost.

“Um, thank you...” I met those intense golden eyes for a moment before dipping my gaze. Behind Jules, Fergus’s body had stilled, but blood slowly pooled in the dirt. I dropped my attention to the edge of the wagon. “For saving my life.”

“I can’t seem to hear you. You’ll have to come closer.”

My spine stiffened. “What?”

“That’s a great idea, actually,” Jules said to himself, wiping his blade across his leathers. It absorbed the blood. I almost hopped off the wagon just to search for the rune in the fabric. “Come with us. We’re better company and we don’t stink.”

I inhaled and then scrunched my nose. He wasn’t wrong there. I glanced around at the other Maboni in my wagon. Most had their heads lowered, hiding tears and terror. The few who met my eyes glared like it was my fault the vampires had stopped the wagon and killed Fergus.

In their minds, the ideal scenario was the one where I died. No one had cared when Fergus was strangling a traitorous blood whore.

I stood and walked to the end of the wagon. Fuck them. At least the vampires didn’t want me dead. They couldn’t bite me if I was dead.

When I reached the end of the wagon, Luc appeared in the blink of an eye and raised a hand. I placed my palm in his with far less hesitance this time and climbed from the wagon. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank him again,” Jules whined. “What did he do to deserve a head start?”

My brow crinkled. “A head start?”

“You’ll find my soulbound and I can be rather competitive,” Luc said, still holding my hand.

I tugged away. “Over thanks?”

“Over everything,” Jules said with a wink.

I didn’t ask what everything included. I didn’t want to know. Steeling my spine, I approached the blood-streaked vampire. Luc followed behind me, a giant shadow at my back. Something in my chest tightened, coiling like a snared animal. Trapped on both sides. Nowhere to run. Some ancient part of my brain didn’t like that, even if the logical part knew that running would be a terrible idea.

I stopped a few feet away from the Lord of Dawn. “Thank you for saving my life again.”

“You’re very welcome,” he purred.

I tried to stop my blush, but I failed miserably. Stars save me, this wouldn’t end well. A drop of kindness and a couple of smiles were all it took to lure me into the monsters’ trap.

Jules smirked, then spun on the heels of his boots to face the hellsteeds alongside Luc and me. With the lords on either side of me, I kept my attention on the terrifying beasts. Better that than eyeing Luc’s broad, muscular form or Jules’s lithe, toned build.

I cleared my throat. “Which wagon am I riding in?”

“None of them,” Jules said. “When I said near us, I meant near us.”

My gaze flickered to Luc in confusion.

“You’re riding with Jules,” he stated plainly.

My jaw dropped. “On a hellsteed ?”

“Well, I’m certainly not getting in a wagon or walking,” Jules said.

“But... but… you’re covered in blood.”

“This is hardly covered in blood.” Jules swiped his thumb through the crimson on his chin. “Lightly splattered, more like.”

I grimaced. Jules sighed dramatically at the expression. “Fine, fine.”

He slid closer to Luc and brushed his thumb against his soulbound’s bottom lip, smearing blood across his bronze skin. Luc arched one brow, but his eyes darkened, pupils expanding to swallow the bright edge of silver.

Then Jules wrapped an arm around the Lord of Dusk’s shoulders and kissed him.

Their lips brushed, a soft movement so at odds with the blood now staining both their faces. My eyes widened. My pulse dropped from my throat to my lower belly.

Stars, they were beautiful.

Vampires and demons hadn’t cared much about gender in Karra’s time. Neither did soulbonds. Patriarch Meallán considered it another deviancy from the godstars’ path, another entry on the Church’s long list of sins. Love was love, so I didn’t see why it mattered.

Jules pulled back a second later. “Clean me up, will you?”

Luc smirked and licked the stain of blood from his lips. “You’re more than capable.”

The Lord of Dawn dropped his arms and pouted. “It’s so much more effort at nighttime. What if we’re attacked by hellwolves? I’ll be defenseless and you’ll have to save me again.”

“Julien.”

“Lucey.”

The Lord of Dusk merely stared back.

Jules sighed. A second later, blood peeled off of his skin and leathers to float into the air as droplets. My mouth dropped open. I’d witnessed plenty of magic over the past three days, but Jules hadn’t drawn a rune this time. This was a vampire’s innate control over blood. They didn’t need runes to channel this power, just like how their demon ancestors didn’t need runes to rip out and devour someone’s soul.

Before I realized, I had reached out to one of the blood bubbles, like I could cup it in my hand. They just hovered there—

The vampire lords stared at me, unblinking. They were right there in my line of vision, but I hadn’t processed their reactions, not when there was something new and otherworldly in front of me.

Focus, Nessa . I dropped my hand and ducked my head. My heart raced in my ears. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for curiosity,” Luc said.

I opened my mouth, but snapped it shut when another “sorry” tried to escape.

We reached the massive hellsteeds, which saved me from having to reply. Luc’s was a pure black while Jules’s was a sable brown dappled with white spots. They each wore wide saddles, the seat long enough to fit two comfortably.

I had never thanked the godstars for littering this world with Their spawn before, but for once, I praised Them for creating demonblooded horses. Not only would a regular horse have trouble carrying both our weights, but sitting astride one would essentially mean sitting in Jules’s lap.

This wouldn’t be much further away, but it was enough.

Jules hooked a thumb toward his hellsteed. “Up you go.”

I nearly laughed. “How?”

“Imagine she’s a horse. Just bigger.” The hellsteed snorted, blowing out a mass of shadows. Jules waved his hands through the smoke. “Stop it, Cala, I know you’re not just a large horse. You’re a terrifying beast and all who see you fear you.”

“I certainly do.”

“See?” Jules stroked the hellsteed’s snout. “You haven’t lost your touch, my girl.”

“This is the closest I’ve ever stood to a... horse.” I wrung my hands together, trailing my gaze across the beast’s hulking form. “I always watched from outside the riding ring during my sister’s lessons.”

For some reason, my words made both lords turn back to me. “Your sister received lessons and you didn’t?” Luc asked.

“My parents could only afford lessons for one of us?”

“Why was that a question?”

I bit my lip. I hadn’t meant to phrase it that way, but Luc had heard it anyway. While I hadn’t received lessons, Orrin had years after me and my twelve-year-old sister, Saraid, had started a few weeks back.

I had always known my father preferred his children with Deidre. When I had turned down Patriarch Meallán’s offer and told her I wouldn’t ever marry, Deidre had said no future blood whores would live under her roof. My father hadn’t said a word against it. I left their home a couple of months before my nineteenth birthday, but on my own, I could barely afford food, let alone the lessons my siblings had received for free. If my great-aunt hadn’t left me her bookshop, I don’t know where I’d have gone.

“Even if you were an experienced rider, I wouldn’t expect you to mount a hellsteed on the first try,” Luc said, breaking the silence. “It’s a rather difficult task for humans. You’re all so little.”

I straightened. “I’m nowhere near little.”

The lords glanced at each other, communicating with a single look. Without a word, Luc turned and wrapped massive hands around my waist. I went stiff. Luc lifted me. Up. Up. Up. Higher still. His arms didn’t even flex, like my weight posed no strain at all.

He dropped me on Cala’s back without so much as a harsh breath. “I’d have to disagree.”

Something fluttered in my chest. “To you, I guess.”

Luc glanced over at Jules. “Must I lift you on as well?”

The Lord of Dawn batted his eyelashes. “Will you?”

Luc only shot his soulbound a look.

“You’re so mean.” Jules mounted his hellsteed with ease, settling behind me. His thick, solid thighs pressed against my own softer ones. My back grazed his chest. The unnatural heat of him radiated into me. I straightened, but that only bumped my ass into his groin.

I tried to wriggle forward. His leathers protected him, but I felt him beneath the fabric, long and male and hardening—

Jules’s hands shot out and gripped my waist. “Relax, lovely. I won’t touch you, as long as you stop grinding that luscious ass of yours against me.”

Luscious? Heat flared in my cheeks. My face was surely as red as his cloak. “I wasn’t grinding. I was trying to give you space.”

“The only thing you’ve given me is an erection.”

The flush spread down my neck.

Luc mounted his hellsteed at our side. “Does our volunteer need to ride with me?”

“No,” Jules huffed. “Like you’d be any better. ”

Luc glanced back at his soulbound, those silver eyes briefly flicking to me. What did Jules mean? Luc had given me a few brief, half-smirks, but the man was otherwise as stoic and cold as ever.

Without a response, Luc twisted back and kicked his steed into a trot.

Jules must have done the same since we started moving forward, the convoy following behind us. I gripped the pommel at the foreign movement. I would not fall off this horse. Embarrassment aside, it was at least a six-foot fall to the ground and that would hurt.

Unfortunately, my grip didn’t stop me from sliding back against the Lord of Dawn’s hard, perfect body—

Jules rolled his shoulders back and let out a deep sigh. His erection disappeared as quickly as it came on. Instead of relaxing, my spine stiffened further. I hadn’t touched many men—make that any—but I’d read a lot of books, fiction and nonfiction. It didn’t seem normal that he... softened almost right away.

But of course he had. I had moved against him, and his body had reacted, but I was just the human volunteer. If Jules ever drank my blood, we’d have sex—but only because of the bloodlust flooding both of us. Vampires were all gorgeous, and plenty of humans were attractive enough by comparison. I wasn’t one of them.

What was there to desire about me?

My perfectly ordinary features?

My broad shoulders?

My soft stomach, ass, and thighs?

I resisted the urge to dig my nails into my palms and forced myself out of those toxic thoughts without the help of pain. It didn’t matter what I looked like. To the vampires, I was just flesh and blood. But I had a mind. I had thoughts. I was more than my body.

Not to them.

But to me.

And my opinion was the only one that should matter.

Jules rescued me from my inner spiral. “Controlling blood can come in handy.”

“What?” I processed his words, and heat flooded to my cheeks. “Oh.”

Huh. I never considered that. Azaras had perfect control over his body, but he was a demon. He could literally change shape. Vampires could make fangs and claws out of shadow, but they couldn’t shift their whole body.

That apparently didn’t mean they couldn’t control their own blood.

Jules’s grin widened, his chin in the corner of my vision. It had only been three days, and I could count on one hand the number of conversations we’d had, but I knew he was going to say something that would make me want to throw myself off his hellsteed.

I seized the first question that came to mind. “What’s it like? Having a soulbond?”

For a second, I thought he wouldn’t answer me. That was honestly one of the better options. Who was I to speak to an Azarasian? I had no idea when I had suddenly become so bold—or insane.

“I’ve never known life without Luc, so I don’t know if I could describe it properly.” He glanced over at Luc beside us. The Lord of Dusk didn’t turn, but he was close enough that even a human could have heard. “What’s it like not having a soulbond?”

“Lonely.” The word came unbidden to my lips. I had never voiced that aloud. “It can be nice sometimes to sit with your own thoughts, though.”

“We sit with our own thoughts all the time,” Jules replied.

“You can’t read each other’s minds?” Karra didn’t slip into Azaras’s head often, but she’d always seemed to know what he was thinking.

“Soulbound companions can’t.”

“Companions?”

“Ah, right, you only know about Azaras and Karra’s soulbond. Lecturing is more Luc’s style, but I suppose I can play the teacher.” Jules cleared his throat, his tone shifting into something almost authoritative. “Those of us born with soulbonds can be companions, beloveds, or heartmates. Companions share the weakest bond, while heartmates like Azaras and Karra have the strongest.”

I glanced at Luc, but he showed no reaction to Jules’s mockery. “And you two are?”

Luc didn’t even blink.

“Companions,” Jules answered for both of them, his usual tone returning.

“So you can’t sense each other’s thoughts or talk in your dreams?”

“I have an intuition about Luc,” Jules said. “I always know where he is and what he’s feeling. If I were to guess at his thoughts, I’d probably be correct, but I never slip into his head. We do usually dream together, though sometimes it’s hazy.”

“Oh.” I fell silent, rewriting my favorite book in my memory. There was only so much I could infer from Karra’s story and heavily redacted textbooks. There were a thousand follow-up questions I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to seem too desperate for the scraps of information they threw at me.

The moonlight brightened overhead, pulling me from my thoughts. I looked up as we left the woods, the canopy of branches giving way to an open sky. Stars shimmered above, scattered across the clear night. On the horizon, half of the Blood Star’s Guard emerged, the constellation creeping higher as summer neared. In a few nights, the telltale red glow would appear.

Would the Azarasians host a revelry? They hadn’t celebrated celestial events in Karra’s time since Azaras’s godcurse activated between dusk and dawn. Hard to have a nighttime party if your sovereign was a vicious, winged Beast hunting loyal citizens from the sky.

But that had seemed to change after Azaras and Karra left for his hell, at least from what I’d read. The vampires had returned to their roots, celebrating the stars once more.

The road ahead took us through a wide, open meadow cloaked in somber silver. Tall grass swayed gently in the soft breeze as far as my eye could see—

Until it didn’t.

Dark, glowing rock scarred the earth in a wide circle of impacted ground. The pit stretched across the entire meadow, its edges like claws gouging the land. Shadows wafted from the otherworldly stone, daemium in its purest form. It almost seemed to absorb the light of the bright moons. The darkness was nearly transparent at the edges of the pit, but it rose like a plume of smoke at the center.

At the impact site.

“Is that a starcrater?” I asked into the sudden silence, the Maboni in the wagons behind us falling quiet at the sight.

“It is.”

I licked my lips. Fuck. A real-life starcrater. “Whose?”

Jules snorted. “I don’t have the faintest idea.”

“Gadeth,” Luc replied. “He’s a minor demon in Azaras’ court.”

“Minor as in weak?”

Luc nodded. “For a demon, yes.”

“So this is a small starcrater?”

“In this region,” Luc said. “Azaras and Isaura were banished with half their courts in the Second Godsfall. There are almost two thousand impact sites across the Impire alone.”

“So we’ll see more?”

The corner of his lip curled at my eager tone. “Certainly.”

I tried to snap my jaw shut. I would see multiple starcraters. My books were coming to life before me, both fiction and fact. I could almost forget why I was here and who I was with.

A man had died in front of me less than an hour ago. More would in the days to come. But the world was wide, and I had seen so little of it, so a single peek made me forget all reason, all rationale.

I would never see it all. Once we reached our destination, who knew if I’d ever leave? I might spend the rest of my life in an Azarasian city—whether that life lasted a dozen hours or a dozen years.

So for this moment, I watched shadows rise like steam from a starcrater in the moonlight with two gorgeous vampires.

A part of me never wanted this adventure to end.

But this wasn’t a story.

There would be no happy ending.