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Another shiver worked through me, his mind telling me I’d captured his interest from the very first moment he’d seen me. “Was it the number sixty-six?” I asked, referring to the candidate number from that stupid shirt I’d been forced to wear. “Or the insignificant stars?”

He frowned. “The stars weren’t insignificant, Cami. They showed favor from the Source.” He canted his head. “And no. I think it was the tight fabric stretched across your beautiful tits.”

A laugh burst out of me.

“We should bring back the ‘no undergarment’ rule,” he went on. “Make Cami wear only white in the bedroom.”

“Or nothing at all,” Typhos suggested.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to un-mate both of you.”

Typhos caught my chin and pulled me in for a kiss. “Our Source won’t allow that, Camillia.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t try,” I returned.

He hummed, his eyes narrowing. “We’ll just court you all over again.”

“I don’t think you ever courted me,” I countered, teasing him. But a flicker of surprise met his features, his eyes widening.

“Would you like me to court you, my queen?”

My eyebrow lifted. “He asks while his dick is inside me.”

His lips curled. “That’s a different form of courting.”

“How romantic,” I drawled.

“Melek’s the romantic one,” he returned, again drawing my attention back to the gift. “I’m the one who makes you come so hard you pass out.”

“Pretty sure we can all do that,” Az said as he entered the bathroom with a coffee mug in his hand.

And no clothes.

I watched him approach, his impressive cock hard as he stepped up onto the platform and down into the oversized tub to sit behind me.

Ajax followed next, but unlike Az, he had on a pair of black track pants. A gold key hung from his neck, the glittering metal reminding me that Typhos had given it to him. A symbol for the Warden .

Or maybe it was a way for Typhos to mark Ajax as his, too.

These men were all very possessive.

Eyeing Melek’s token, I said, “Okay, I’ll wear it. But it’d better not be a conduit. And it’d better not cover me in glittery jizz.”

Melek grinned. “My angel dust is just for sex, little angel. Promise.”

I snorted. Because like I believed that. He’d covered me in his disco glitter several times before—no sex required.

Typhos gathered my hair away from my nape to allow Melek to affix the chain against my neck.

The key touched my skin, hanging just above my breasts. I stroked the chilled metal and the gems decorating the pendant. “It’s very pretty, Melek. Thank you.”

He brushed his knuckles along my cheek. “You’ve always been the key to our hearts, Cami. I knew it that day in the library. And I’ve known it every day since.”

I leaned into his touch, hypnotized by his multicolored eyes. Az stroked his finger down my spine, and Typhos lowered his hands to my hips.

All while Ajax watched, his gaze thoughtful. “That’s the day you found her reading Vita.”

Melek glanced back at him. “Yes.”

“Because the figments gave it to her,” Ajax pressed.

Melek’s brow furrowed a little. “What are you thinking about, Warden?”

But I already heard the words unfurling in Ajax’s mind, his wondering if Vivaxia had somehow influenced the figments that day. However, he dismissed the idea in the next second, all too aware of their trickster ways.

They’d never allow someone to manipulate them, he thought. Although, Vivaxia wasn’t just anyone. He frowned. But let’s say she did coerce them somehow. How could she have known what Cami would do with Vita?

Now it was my turn to frown. Because he had a point. “She couldn’t have known,” I answered him out loud. “I didn’t even know what I was going to do until I did it.”

“Unless she compelled you somehow,” he replied, his gaze meeting mine. “She had an anchor in Lucifer’s mind, and we know she did something to you while you were in the Virtuous Fae Realm.”

“She strengthened the funnel inside of Camillia,” Typhos replied, obviously following our conversation, probably from both of our thoughts. Since he’s mated to Ajax now, too .

But definitely not in the same way he’d mated me, as evidenced by his sensual claim beneath the water.

“It had already existed,” he continued. “But she did something to deepen her hold.”

“She said she owned me,” I replied, frowning as I recalled everything she’d said and done in the Strigoi throne room. “She’d been able to force me to stop breathing.”

Which meant it was entirely possible that she’d persuaded me to push all that power into Vita.

Hell, it was pretty clear that she’d been the reason the book had come to me in the first place. She’d planted it in the Hell Fae Realm, then activated me as her personal little siphon.

From what I’d gathered from Typhos’s thoughts, Nos’s contract with Vivaxia had been signed the day of my birth, thus making me the perfect age to qualify for the bride trials.

And then she’d sent my father to make him the offer he couldn’t refuse.

Perhaps because of Vivaxia’s own persuasion in Typhos’s mind.

Fae, it had all been planned with such terrifying precision. If Vivaxia weren’t such a bitch, I might have admired her for it.

“She couldn’t have known you were going to train Cami,” Melek pointed out. “Actually, I would bet she didn’t anticipate that at all.”

“True,” Typhos agreed. “But this is Vivaxia we’re discussing.

Everything she does is in layers. Vita provided her with an entry point into our realm—via my mind and memories.

Nos was her primary endgame. The portals were a distraction, one meant to capture my focus and keep me from sensing anything else.

And Cami was a tool designed to steal my light. ”

“So you think it’s a coincidence that Cami set off that trap in Vita,” Ajax summarized.

“No, it was purposeful,” I said, thinking through her whole strategy and everything I’d witnessed. “She couldn’t have known that Typhos would overload me with power, but everything she was doing to me involved trying to make me lose control.”

My mates fell silent while I continued puzzling out her intentions and desires.

“She wanted me to push power to the funnel inside me. But in case I didn’t, she’d left me with another obvious option—Vita. A book she introduced me to. She might not have coaxed those figments, but she would have found a way to ensure that book ended up in my lap.”

Which explained why it was always showing up in unexpected places.

“She told the book which images to show me. Though, I think Vita had been trying to communicate with me, too. But Vivaxia orchestrated it all.”

Turning me into her own little puppet.

Her personal siphon.

“But I wasn’t the heart of her plan,” I went on. “I was simply one of her many layers.”

Just like Typhos had said—Vivaxia favored layers , her strategy superior because of it.

“Pushing all that energy into Vita overpowered the funnel she’d left inside of it, which was just one of the many facets in her overall endgame,” I concluded. “She played us all. But she lost because she lacked heart.” And as I now knew, that was the key to maintaining the Source’s light.

Caring for others was a pivotal part of ensuring that the power survived. Because souls and desires were what energized the core. One must love and be loved to manage such vitality.

That’d been Typhos’s greatest weakness on the opposite end of the spectrum. He was so cherished and admired that he had too many souls to care for on his own, his Source growing wildly out of control as a result.

Bringing the brides tipped him over, his spirit taking on more burden and responsibility than one heart could manage.

But now he had a circle. He had me . And together, we would ensure his Source’s vitality and strength.

There might be more power-hungry fae in the future, beings like Vivaxia who desired to take rather than give. However, they wouldn’t stand a chance against us.

Because we ruled with love.

And love was the greatest power of all…