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As I drive him into me, whimpering as he claims me, his eyes deepen, glowing with an inner sheen as they become platinum.

He leans forward, to kiss me, but I push my hand against his chest, pressing him back.

I might as well be pushing a brick wall, but he accepts it, leaning back against the bed as I ride him.

Thoughts creep in, spoiling my mindless escape.

I try to give in to the Bond, to let it consume me in animalistic pleasure, but it stays out of reach, like details of a dream I can’t remember.

Gallien is the intellectual, the one who thinks up plans, convincing his triad.

He orchestrated this. He convinced Doman and Titus to shut me out, that the only way to end this war was to use Fay as leverage to force Obsidian into the arena against them.

The surge of hatred fills me as I ride him faster, raking my hands down his chest, staring into his platinum eyes where I have marked him for eternity.

I feel his aura growing and growing in my mind, this sharp, endless intelligence, centuries of plotting and planning, a being that torments me because I love him, I love him just as much as I hate him.

I can’t. I can’t be filled with these torturous thoughts. I need the mindless lust of the Bond to consume me.

I slam my ass down against him, driving his curved cock painfully deep into me, and I force myself to imagine him spurting inside me, filling me with his seed, my breasts swelling and growing laden with milk, three times their size as my body changes for his alien son.

It works.

The Bond reacts to my desperate plea for it to activate, and the all-consuming hunger grows.

I don’t fight it. I sink into the endless pool of primal lust, and go wild, letting my body act by instinct.

The slap of flesh on flesh fills the room as I lean forward, riding him like an animal, driving myself up and down as fast as I can, taking every inch of his alien cock deep inside me.

With a groan of pleasure, his eyes roll back, and Gallien succumbs, his cock stiffening as he cums, jet after jet of his seed filling me.

Instant relief, this sense of completeness. I ran from this for years. It’s finally over. It’s finally done. My life will be bifurcated into two parts—before and after the Bond.

My legs shake as I pull myself from him, twisting on the sweat-soaked sheets. I sit on the edge of the bed, looking away from the triad and staring at the blank white wall of their spartan bedroom.

It doesn’t matter if I look away. I still feel them, the three auras of alien consciousness, and I will never be able to drive them out. Not even with a surgeon’s knife. For as long as I live, I will never be alone…

Unless tomorrow, when they challenge Obsidian, he stamps them out.

I twist, staring straight at Doman. His face is stern, responding to my aura in his mind, knowing my torment.

“I’m going with you. I know you three too well. You’ve got some plan to send me away to safety while you go up against that monster. It won’t work. If you want any chance against him, you need me near to you. The Bond works better in close proximity.”

“Adriana…” He looks invincible. His blue eyes burn a hole in me, his golden hair framing his noble features, a God of light next to Titus, the dark-haired, primal beast with wild eyes who is his counterpart.

The two of them look like warring deities, standing in judgment in front of Gallien, his cold aloofness omnipresent as he lounges back in the bed like some bored patrician.

They are the Gods of leadership, war, and justice.

The three of them are so big, so strong, but they’re not going up against normal men.

They are going against a creature who has tamed the Rift. A creature with black pits for eyes, who lives every moment in agony that can only be relieved by reuniting with his Bonded Mate. If Obsidian was a God, he would be the ruler of the underworld, the lord of time.

A creature that leads the worst men in the universe, men who would pounce on any weakness, men who branded themselves in his image because they see him as a living God. Only Obsidian could rein in the wolves of the Fanatics, turn their rage into the point of a spear aiming straight at Colossus.

“Don’t argue. Please. You shut me out once already.

I know you’ve got some plan to send me off while you go up against that monster.

But you wouldn’t let your younger brother follow you to Obsidious if you didn’t have a deal for safe passage, no matter…

no matter what happens in the arena. Extend it to me.

Obsidian won’t break his word. Gods don’t break their words. Or they become like the rest of us.”

I’m linked to them now.

I can’t let them go into the arena against that monster while I’m shuttled away somewhere safe. I can’t experience them winking out of my mind one by one, feeling their pain before they disappear.

“This will be the fight of our lives. If you’re in the crowd, if we lose focus for a singular moment, we’re dead.” Doman argues with me, his eyes squinting in worry. He doesn’t want me nearby—but he doesn’t want me far away, either.

“So what’s the plan? Send me out in the escape pod?”

Doman manages to keep his reaction muted. Titus can’t. He flinches, ever so slightly, and his aura grows stormy.

“It won’t work,” I continue. “You said it yourselves. The only way we’re getting out of here is shifting. If you send me away in an escape pod, I’m in more danger than by your side.”

“Our armies’ forces will pick you up.”

“And what then? What do you think happens when your parents get hold of me, and their eldest son is going on a suicide mission? They’ll use me as a hostage.

Against you, Doman. To control you, to force you to return with Fay.

You know it’s true. You know what they’re capable of.

Unless I’m with you, by your side, I’m not safe. ”

Doman’s eyes flick to Gallien, then back to me. There’s a chink in his armor. I’ve been in a thousand negotiations, and I know I’ve won.

“I will not bring my Mate to my enemy’s stronghold.”

“You know it’s safe, or you wouldn’t bring Cal with you. The War-God’s word is iron, or he wouldn’t be a God.” I shrug. “And if you three die, I’m worthless. I’m just another woman.”

“You’re the leader of Pentaris,” states Gallien, as his platinum eyes probe me.

I laugh, sour. “Just one in a long, replaceable line. Once any one of my people see your eyes changed, it’ll be my last day on the job. You can’t have a Prime Minister Bonded to our rivals.”

I didn’t even consider it when I slept with them.

It wasn’t worthy of consideration. My life’s work, but I threw it away in a second, just to give these three men a chance.

I sacrificed everything for them, while they pushed me away, shut me out, and treated me like a fool who couldn’t be trusted with the truth.

Titus stalks the room, his huge legs eating up the ground.

Nude, his body is a work of art, chiseled, rippling muscles that move in a symphony of strength.

His cock swings as he turns, and he paces the length of the room.

Their seed is dripping from my body, their sweat on my skin, their scent imprinted on me and their minds forced into mine.

He can feel my agony, and he stops in the middle of the room, next to Doman, and faces me.

“You don’t think we can kill him,” Titus growls. Those dark amethyst eyes flash.

“I watched the War-God bathed in nuclear fire and come out alive. I watched him teleport entire armies one after another. How do you know he can’t blink in and out of existence, dodging your blows?

How do you know he hasn’t seen the future, and that you’re walking into certain death? He is more than a man.”

“He is a man. And he will die like any other.” Doman’s hard voice cuts through my uncertainty.

I pull my legs against my chest on the bed, rocking back and forth from the anxiety. “Doman, you don’t need to do this. Give him Fay, in return for our lives. Give him Fay and negotiate peace. He has a son now. He’ll listen. ”

Doman shakes his head, ever so slightly. I can feel the torture in his aura, the torture I cause. His blue eyes seem to stare right through me, and his aura grows in my mind. I let it happen, letting his awareness take over mine, until the room fades.

I remember. I remember, but it’s like I’m living the moment just as he did as he pushes his childhood into my mind.

An image, so clear I can see every one of the faces in the bunkroom.

It’s his early childhood, when he joined Academy.

Hundreds of Aurelian boys are in his year.

Most are shirtless, in light pants, some lounging in the bunkbeds, others doing pushups, some hard at work reading through tomes of knowledge to prepare their minds.

They all so vital, lean, hungry young men ready to be forged into weapons.

One by one, their ivory skin goes grey, colorless as corpses.

Others have black brands imagined on their hearts, a third of the species, signifying the boys who joined Obsidian’s forces.

Many of them turn grey and lifeless, their eyes staring out blankly at me.

Near half are gone when the memory ends.

“Dead. So many dead. I killed some of them myself. Others died under my command. I have to end this, Adriana, the only way it can be ended.”

He grabs his battle-robe, donning it, and tightens his belt. He returns the hilt of his Orb-Blate to its holster and looks down at me as I rock on the bed, agonized by the terror of losing him, conflicting emotions churning in my mind.

“I will kill Obsidian. I will become the War-God. And I will unite the Aurelian Empire once more, under my flag, to face what is coming for us all.”

He made me love a different version of him. One that was almost human. I knew he’d have to go to war, that soon, he’d be up against Obsidian’s forces.

I thought he’d be on Colossus, his fleet surrounded by Orb-Batteries and the ancient defenses of the Aurelian home planet, drawing Obsidian into a trap.

I thought the four of us were linked, that we were working together.

We swam into the cavern with the krakens, we bedded on icy tundra, I showed them my home and kissed them on the moonlight canopy.

Beautiful memories, corrupted by his lies.

“You should have told me,” I whisper, heartbroken.

“I don’t want to die with you hating me, Adriana.” Doman’s voice comes out in a rasp, the first indication that he admits the danger in his plan. He’s no longer treating me like one of his soldiers needing a morale boost.

“I don’t hate you,” I sigh, tears dripping down my cheeks. Tears of defeat. I can’t fight any longer.

No matter what I do, what I say, there’s no way to stop what’s coming. My triad is going to war in the Arena of Blood.

“I don’t… I don’t know what I’d have done if you told me your real plan.

I feel like I don’t know anything anymore.

Prophecies, creatures that hunger for us…

all I know is I can’t live in a world without you three.

” I lift my head from my knees, looking Doman straight in his glowing blue eyes.

“Kill him, Doman. Put the War-God down. End it. Just end it.”

Sudden exhaustion overcomes me. I lay back in the bed, staring up at the white ceiling. Gallien pulls me to his body, resting my head against his steady heart. He has no fear. Only a cool readiness.

Titus doesn’t say a word. He comes to bed, the mattresses pressing down with his bulk, and squeezes himself under me, while Doman undresses and takes his spot to my left.

The three aliens fill the bed, wrapping me in an embrace of ivory skin, rippling muscles and warmth cocooning me.

Their musk fills my nostrils, and I run my hands gently over their skin as I sink into their auras.

I don’t want to sleep. A moment unconscious is a moment without feeling the triad. I explore them in my mind as I listen to their rhythmic breathing, the drum of their heartbeats in unison. Three auras. Three consciousness, so different from my own.

The Aurelians are stone in my mind, even as they rest. Titus is already asleep, the habit of a soldier who can steal a blink of rest at a moment’s notice. None of them have a thread of anxiety, even a hint of fear, even though they will be in a battle for their lives tomorrow.

They are three sturdy, impenetrable, centuries-old consciousnesses that seem unbreakable.

It’s an illusion.

Soon, my invincible triad will go up against the one force in the world that could shatter them.