Page 29

I miss my unicorn. Murder. His name is Murder. And don’t look at me like that—he earned it. Gave me side-eye for hours after I covered him in glitter. Sparkles only enhanced his majesty, but no. Murder decided he hated me after that. Which is a shame, because he was the best damn companion I’ve had aside from Elias, and Elias doesn’t even let me braid his hair anymore after The Incident? with the enchanted ivy.

Now, it’s just walking. Walking and more walking. Endless, muddy, soul-crushing, foot-destroying hiking. I’m not meant for this peasant lifestyle. I’m meant to ride. I’m meant to fly. I’m meant to glide through the woods on a unicorn with emotionally repressed daddy issues and a murder kink.

Instead? Blisters. There’s one forming on my left toe that feels like it’s plotting my demise. It’s rubbing against the inside of my boot with every step, and no one seems to care. Not even Luna. My bonded. My heart. My dark, stabby goddess. She just keeps walking ahead of me like she’s not currently dragging me through the hellscapes of soggy terrain and endless foliage. She hasn’t even looked back.

“I’m dying,” I announce, loud enough for the birds to scatter.

No one reacts.

“I’m pretty sure this blister is sentient and trying to assassinate me.”

Still nothing. Rude.

I jog forward, dramatically limping until I reach Luna’s side, then drape myself over her like the beautiful, blister-ridden tragedy I am. “If I perish,” I mutter into her shoulder, “bury me in glitter and shame.”

“You’re not dying,” she says, deadpan. She doesn’t even glance at me.

“Not yet. But I could be. There’s a chance. A solid twenty percent chance.”

“A chance of what?”

“Sudden, spontaneous toe death.”

That earns me a snort, and I live for that sound. If I could bottle it and drink it, I would. I’d be drunk on Luna laughter until I was face-down in the moss with my pants missing and no recollection of how I got there.

“I’ll conjure you new boots when we stop,” she says, voice dry but fond. “With extra room for your delicate toes.”

“I knew I bonded the right woman.”

“Was it the magic? The sacrifice? The soul connection?”

“It was your commitment to foot care.” I lean in and whisper, “And your ass. Obviously.”

“.”

“What? I’m in love with your ass. Respectfully.”

She shoves me off her with a roll of her eyes, but her mouth is twitching, and I take that as a win.

Elias sidles up from the other side like he’s been waiting to tag in, eyes darting between me and Luna. “Did he tell you about the toe thing?”

“She’s intimately aware,” I tell him. “She’s going to craft me boots lined in silk and gold.”

“With toe room,” Elias nods. “Luxury.”

Luna sighs. “Why do I love either of you?”

“Because we’re irresistible,” I offer.

“Because I’m better looking than him,” Elias says.

I gasp. “Lies and slander!”

“Truth and beauty,” Elias counters, grinning.

We both reach for Luna at the same time, draping ourselves on either side of her like lovesick gargoyles while she pretends she doesn’t secretly love being the center of our ridiculous gravity.

“I’m walking,” she mutters.

“We’re supporting you,” I say.

“I’m not tired.”

“We are.”

“You just said you had a toe blister,” Elias adds, helpfully.

“I do. It’s throbbing. Tragically.”

Luna glances between us, then sighs again and keeps walking—shoulders tenser, lips twitching like she’s fighting a smile that she doesn’t want to give us. We follow like we always do.

And yeah. Maybe we’re in the middle of some apocalyptic nightmare of undead soul-binding harpies and magical instability. Maybe the sky’s a permanent bruise overhead and the woods hum with ancient violence. Maybe we're hunted. But for a few minutes, with her laughter still lingering between us and Elias picking twigs out of my hair, everything feels a little less doomed.

Even my toe.

...Mostly.

Lucien took an arrow to the shoulder and barely grunted.

Barely grunted.

The rest of us saw it happen—this heroic, cinematic moment where he rolled, fluid as sin, and threw himself over Luna like some immortal assassin-god with a death wish and a jawline sculpted by violence. The arrow hit him square in the back, right where Luna's head had been a breath before. It didn’t even slow him down. He just ripped the damn arrow off at the skin and kept going like it was a mildly inconvenient splinter and not a spear-sized bolt of death aimed at the girl he definitely doesn’t love.

Right. Sure, Lucien. You don’t love her. You just body-shielded her like she was the last living artifact from a lost empire.

But see, I—I—have a blister.

Not an arrow, no. Not something dramatic. I didn’t get skewered defending Luna from bloodthirsty banshees in the woods. No, I got a hot, festering, potentially infected volcano erupting on the bottom of my foot because no one thought to conjure me orthopedic combat boots. Not even Elias. Especially not Elias. That traitor.

Lucien got an arrow. I got slow, creeping suffering.

And no one cares.

No. One.

“Do you think,” I say to no one in particular—though let’s be honest, I’m always talking to Luna, “they’ll write songs about the tragic warrior who hobbled into battle, valiantly ignoring his own agony while everyone else got the cool injuries?”

Elias, ahead of me, doesn’t turn around. “No.”

“Maybe a poem,” I try. “A tragic one. Maybe a ballad.”

“You’re going to be in a ballad,” Elias mutters, “if you don’t shut up about your damn toe. I’ll turn you into a fucking footnote.”

“Ohhh,” I groan, dragging one leg dramatically through the underbrush. “Foot. Note. That’s rich. I’m bleeding emotionally from that one.”

Luna shakes her head, but her lips twitch, and she’s not walking away, which is basically the same as holding my hand and declaring her eternal love. I take it as the massive win it is.

“Do you need me to carry you?” she asks, all mock-sweetness that’s actually real sweetness, which is even worse. “Like a baby?”

“Yes,” I answer immediately, without shame. “But cradle carry. I want the romance.”

Elias chokes on a laugh. “No one wants to romance your blister, .”

“Luna does,” I say with conviction.

“I do not,” Luna replies, but she smiles at me when she says it, and my entire soul makes finger guns.

Lucien is ahead, that quiet force of nature who barely acknowledges when he’s in pain, and I hate how noble he looks with the blood soaking through his back. It’s not even his blood, it’s probably metaphysical wine or something. Divine ichor. Lucien probably bleeds judgment.

But I’m the one who’s suffering in silence—and that’s way harder.

No one's impressed.

I might have to start limping louder. Just in case.

My stomach growls like an ancient beast being summoned from the pit of hell. Not the sexy kind either—the desperate, gurgling kind that says I’m one skipped meal away from cannibalizing one of my deeply beloved, morally gray brothers. Probably Elias. He’s got the most meat on him and the worst attitude. It’s only fair.

“We had breakfast,” Lucien says without turning around, voice clipped and cold as always, because Lucien is immune to joy.

“But what about second breakfast?” I whine, dragging my feet like a war victim whose tragedy has gone unrecognized. “You know, the meal of heroes. The food of romantics. The snack of men who got zero appreciation for their glitter-shirt conjuring this morning.”

Luna snorts next to me, trying to hide it, which is exactly the same as laughing in my face, which means I win. Again.

“You conjured the glitter shirt for yourself,” she says. “You just happened to leave it for me.”

“Incorrect,” I say, clutching my chest like a wounded bard. “I crafted it for my muse. My reason for existence. My legally bonded soulmate.”

Elias mutters, “Gods, kill me.”

I flip him off lazily. “Jealousy is an ugly color on you, Elias.”

“It’s not jealousy. It’s hunger,” Elias says. “We all are. Shut up.”

“Ah-ha!” I spin on my heel to face Luna, walking backward so I can throw my arms out and bask in the glory of being right. “We’re all hungry. And yet only one of us has the courage to say it out loud.”

“You said it while groaning like you’d been shot in the gut,” Elias replies.

“Exactly,” I say. “Performance art. It’s what I bring to the team.”

Luna’s eyes flick to me, and there’s that soft heat again—one she doesn’t hide anymore. Her gaze lands on my mouth, and her lips part slightly like she might say something, but instead she just shakes her head and reaches over to flick my shoulder. It’s light. Affectionate. Possessive in a way I don’t think she realizes yet.

I lean in dramatically. “You know what else I’m hungry for?”

Elias groans. “Here it comes.”

“Your love,” I whisper to Luna. “Your eternal devotion. Your maybe slightly inappropriate touches behind the nearest tree.”

“I’ll feed you to the fucking trees,” Lucien growls.

I grin wider. “Worth it.”

But then she does it—she actually reaches over and laces her fingers through mine as we walk. No sarcasm. No teasing. Just... that. That soft little squeeze that sends something blistering straight through my chest and down my spine. All the snark dries up in my mouth. The forest’s shadow doesn’t matter. The hunger doesn’t matter.

“You already have all of that,” she murmurs without looking at me.

And just like that, I forget about second breakfast.

Because this—her hand in mine, her voice in my ear, her smile half hidden and fully devastating—is the only feast I’ve ever really needed. Her fingers thread through mine like it means something. Not casual. Not a placeholder for the others. Not because we’re walking toward a cursed ruin with our lungs half full of magic and ash.

Because she wants to hold my hand.

And maybe that shouldn’t unravel me the way it does, but it does. My thumb brushes slow over her knuckles. She doesn’t pull away.

You always hold me like this when you’re about to do something reckless, I murmur through the bond, letting the thought glide into her mind like smoke. Should I be nervous?

She doesn’t look at me, but her pulse skips. I feel it. Right there in the space between our hands. In the bond humming between us like a live wire strung too tight.

Maybe, she answers, her voice silk-wrapped steel, quieter than breath.

I lean in without moving closer. Just enough to let the thought sharpen.

Because here’s the thing, sweetheart. I know what your hand feels like when you’re afraid. When you’re fighting it. And this? I squeeze, slow and deliberate. This feels like you’re thinking about how good I’d sound with my mouth between your thighs.

Her steps hitch. Not enough for the others to notice. But I notice. Gods, I feel her hips shift, her breath catch in her throat, the weight of her attention pinning to me like gravity.

, she warns, but it’s soft. Not a real protest. Never is.

Don’t worry, I breathe against her skin, thoughts curling like heat at the edge of her spine. I’m being good. Haven’t even told you how wet you were last time I touched you. How tight.

Her breath punches out like I’ve stolen it straight from her lungs.

I don’t stop.

You clenched so hard around my fingers I nearly lost it. One more second and I’d have come just from watching you fall apart. You remember that?

Her nails dig into my hand, but not to hurt. No—she’s grounding herself. Barely.

You whispered my name like it was a confession, I go on, slower now, softer. Like you wanted me to take you apart right there in front of everyone. Gods, you would’ve let me, wouldn’t you? If I’d asked.

I glance down, not needing to see her face to know her lips are parted. That she’s trying not to let the others hear the sound she’s holding back.

I love you like this, I murmur, reverent now. The teasing slinks into something deeper, hungrier. Half-trembling. Half-burning. I don’t even have to touch you and I can feel how badly you want it. How badly you want me.

She swallows hard. Doesn't speak. Doesn’t stop me.

So I slide the next thought in slow, low, wrecked.

I want to feel your thighs around my head again, Luna. I want to hear that little broken gasp you make right before you come. And I want to take my time with you next time. Use my mouth like a prayer. Like a curse. Make you lose track of the others entirely.

Her hand squeezes mine so tight it might bruise. Good.

Don’t let go, I say, not teasing anymore. Just soft. Intimate. Not even when they start asking questions. I want you walking into that keep dripping from the sound of my voice alone.

She exhales. Not loud. Not enough to break the quiet between us. But I feel it.

And then—softly, finally—her voice curls back through the bond.

Then keep talking.

I send the image slow. Not with sound. Not with touch. Just memory. Just want. Me behind her, one of my illusions in front, both of us inside her. Her voice wrecked, her fingers clawing at the floor, her mouth open around a prayer that never finished. That perfect, impossible moment when she shattered—twice—because I pushed her too far and she let me.

She falters. Only a step. Only a breath. But I feel it down the bond like a ripple across something sacred.

You remember that? I ask, not with my voice, but straight into her. Thought to thought. Want to want.

Her grip tightens. Not to scold. Not to warn.

So I go deeper. I feed her the sound she made, low and hoarse, when I slid in beside myself. The way her legs shook when we didn’t stop, didn’t give her time to catch her breath before the next thrust. The way her back arched when I whispered good girl in her ear and kissed the words into her spine while my clone dragged his tongue up her throat.

I dream about that night like I’m starving for it, I murmur down the bond. The taste of you. The way you begged when it got too much. And you begged so sweet, baby. Not for it to stop—just for me to hold you while you came again.

Her lips part. She keeps walking, but slower now. Like her body’s listening more than her mind. Gods, I adore her like this. Unraveled at the edges, still trying to pretend she’s composed. Still gripping my hand like she doesn’t want to climb me.

We could do it again, I offer, pulse steady, deliberate. You between me and another me. We’d keep you so full you’d forget how to speak. You love that, don’t you? Being mine times two.

She sends nothing back—but I don’t need her to. Her breath’s coming faster. Her pulse flutters through the bond, a tight rhythmic flicker like a heart trapped between need and surrender.

I slide closer. Not with my body. Just with thought. My voice curls into her skull like smoke.

I’d make you come just from watching. No hands. Just you spread out and needy, two of me touching you until you can’t breathe. Until you forget who you are.

This time, she sends something.

Not words.

A flash of heat. A memory not mine. Her hips rocking back against me, one hand clawing at the clone’s shoulder while she gasps around the sound of my name. Her voice—wrecked, raw, high. Mine.

She’s giving it back.

I damn near stumble.

The trees narrow around us, twisted things bent into archways overhead. I barely see them. My entire body is inside her mind, twisted up in the bond and the echo of her wanting me the way I want her—again, again, always.

Luna.

I whisper it against her skin. Thought and heat, laced with reverence.

She squeezes my hand again.

And when we emerge from the thorns into the clearing, when Orin lifts his head and watches her like he sees every wicked thing pulsing through her, I wonder if he knows she’s still full of me. Of thought, of heat, of the echo of my mouth on her skin even though I haven’t touched her in hours.

Up ahead, Riven’s already moved to the edge of the clearing, his blade half-drawn. The Warden’s Keep rises beyond the fog, jagged and black against the bones of the Hollow.

But Elias is the one who speaks.

Of course he is.

He turns just as we catch up, eyes flicking down to our hands, then back up to Luna’s mouth like he wants to say something clever.

Instead, he chokes.

“Oh,” he blurts. “You—uh—holding hands now? Cute. Very… ceremonial. Very historical.”

Luna doesn’t respond. Doesn’t let go either.

Elias swallows, visibly flustered, and then mutters under his breath, “I mean, it’s fine, it’s not like I was gonna hold your hand too, or anything. That would be… weird. Unless you want that. Do you want that?”

-me wants to laugh. -her wants to shove her against the nearest wall and drag her apart in front of him. But I school my face into something calm and innocent.

Luna arches a brow.

Elias rubs the back of his neck, eyes wide. “Cool. Cool cool cool. Love that for you both. I’ll just… go scout. Or climb something and fall off. As is tradition.”

He turns and nearly walks into a tree.

Riven sighs. “Gods help us.”

And then Orin speaks, slow and quiet. His voice cuts through the heat still simmering between Luna and me.

“Keep’s awake.”

We all freeze.

The fog parts just enough to show the gates have shifted open—barely. Just a crack. Just enough to say welcome or you’re too late.

Orin steps forward, the hem of his coat brushing ash and frost.

“The Hollow’s reacting. Branwen left something in there. Something that’s still alive.”

I tighten my grip on Luna’s hand. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t speak. Her body is coiled and ready. Her magic, humming along the bond like it remembers what it means to go to war with me at her side.

I lean in, lips near her ear, and whisper—

After this… I want you on your knees again. One of me in your mouth. One in your cunt. Until you can’t tell which is which.

And then I smile like I didn’t just say something filthy enough to stain the air between us.

“Shall we?” I say out loud, already stepping toward the gate, dragging her with me like we’ve been doing this for lifetimes.

And maybe we have.

Ambrose

“,” Lucien says, calm as polished glass, “make some clones.”

The effect is immediate. stiffens like someone just offered him a dagger made of compliments and trauma.

Then he spins, eyes wild, grinning, palms already up like he’s warding off divine retribution.

“Clones?” he echoes, dragging the word out like it tastes filthy. “Oh, I don’t know. That’s a slippery slope, you know. Very... personal. Very intimate. Spiritually entangled. Almost sacred, really.”

Luna makes a sound like she’s swallowed her own breath.

I glance at her.

She’s blushing.

Interesting.

Lucien blinks slowly, like he’s regretting everything he’s ever said to anyone ever. “It’s not a request.”

tilts his head. “But don’t you think sending in a bunch of magically perfect copies of my stunning self might be… provocative?”

Riven exhales through his nose, arms crossed, mouth a flat line. “.”

“I’m just saying,” mutters, half-defensive, half-aroused by the memory he’s clearly replaying behind his eyes, “some of us have... histories with clones. There are associations now.”

Elias chokes on a laugh beside me. “Please tell me you’re not talking about what I think you’re talking about.”

“I’m not not talking about it,” replies, deadpan.

Luna is actively not looking at anyone.

Her cheeks are still pink.

So that happened.

I file it away like I file everything—somewhere between useful leverage and personal entertainment.