by Tara Rose
“I love you, too,” said Jaxon. “I have for a long time. We both have. We were simply too stupid and stubborn to tell you.”
“But you think I did this. You think I had a part in Molly’s disappearance, or that I’ve been in contact with her.”
Jaxon placed a finger under her chin and lifted it off Parker’s chest. “No, we don’t. Molly could not possibly have sent you notes because she’s likely been dead since the night she disappeared. Whoever sent this note wanted us to believe you’ve been in contact with her, but he screwed up.”
“She’s dead…”
Her voice still sounded so far away and uncertain, that all Parker wanted to do was hold her until the pain went away.
“I know, sweetheart,” said Jaxon. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why? Why did someone kill her? She did nothing wrong.”
She was so distraught she hadn’t even reacted to each of them saying they loved her. Parker thought his heart would burst from the pain. Had they both lost her?
“We don’t know that,” said Atheron, “but we’re going to find out.”
Jaxon faced his father. “I am begging you, for mine and Parker’s sake as well as for Brenna’s, to question the triplets again. Father, this has gone on long enough. They tried to claim Brenna the night she got here. When they were unsuccessful, they told her she’d be sorry.”
“What?”
“Yes. You didn’t know about that. They told her she’d be sorry.”
He glanced toward Brenna. “Is this true?”
* * * *
Brenna pushed away from Parker and glanced at the king. She nodded. “It’s true. I’m not sure which one said it, Your Majesty, but one of them told me I’d be sorry.”
“Five of the women they’ve chosen have died of poisoning,” said Jaxon. “And now Molly is dead.”’
“But why would they kill her?” asked Atheron. “She was only a servant.”
But she was still a human being! Brenna bit her tongue to keep from screaming. Her head was still reeling with the words they’d spoken. They loved her. But what did that matter if the rest of the castle believed she’d betrayed her two princes?
“To cover up the fact they were using her to glean information,” said Jaxon. “My guess is she threatened to tell one of us so they took her and killed her to keep that from happening. And then they tried to make it look as though Molly had left willingly, and has been contacting Brenna ever since.”
Brenna remembered how afraid Molly had been near the Council chambers that day, and told Atheron that story. “What if that’s where they’d raped her?” she asked. She wouldn’t call it “seduced” because she doubted that Molly had willingly had sex with those three men.
Atheron looked uncomfortable at her use of the word. “We don’t know they did that.”
“Something happened to her in those rooms. Why else would she refuse to go inside and then lie about knowing that part of the castle well?”
Atheron nodded slowly.
“What did the guards who were knocked unconscious the night Molly disappeared have to say?” asked Parker.
“They were asleep,” said Atheron. “They don’t know who hit them.” He sighed heavily. “All right. But if they are involved, how do you expect me to ferret out the truth? They are princes, like you two. I cannot outright accuse them without something more concrete than a series of what they will call coincidences.”
Oh fuck! The conversation she’d had with Cedric came rushing back at her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Ask the apothecary who made them the poison.”
“What?” All three men asked it at the same time.
She took a deep breath and faced the king. “Ask Cedric, your chief apothecary.”
“Brenna, what are you saying?” asked Jaxon.
She told them what Cedric had told her the day they showed her the medical facilities.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
She cut her gaze toward Atheron for a second. “Um, if you recall, Sire, you both distracted me shortly afterward and I honestly put it out of my mind as too far-fetched. That is, until now. All the pieces fit.” She’d dismissed it as her imagination because in the week following that bizarre conversation, nothing happened. Even after Molly disappeared, she hadn’t thought about it. But now, it all made sense.
Atheron nodded several times again, and then he told them all to stay in their suite until they heard from him. Once he left, the men asked her to come with them into the sitting room. She did, and then they took seats close to her. Jaxon reached over and took her hands. Brenna held her breath, waiting to hear what they had to say.
Chapter Seventeen
“Did you even hear us?” asked Jaxon. “In there, when we said we both loved you?”
She exhaled. “Yes. Yes, I did. I love you both, too. I have for a while now. I’ve simply been afraid to say it. But then when I thought you didn’t believe me…” She glanced at Parker. “I’m so sorry, Sire. I shouldn’t have told you to go to hell. But I was so hurt. After everything I told you about my life before, I never expected you to think I could withhold something so important from either of you.”
Parker brushed a finger along her arm. “I’m the one who needs your forgiveness, not the other way around. I jumped to the wrong conclusion, and as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized what a fool I was.”
She pulled one of her hands from Jaxon’s grip so she could take Parker’s hand, and then she squeezed their hands. “You’re not a fool. Neither one of you is. You’re the strongest, bravest, noblest men I’ve ever met. You’re everything the fairy tales said princes should be. I’m so in love with both of you that it hurts at times.”
They both reached for her at once, and Parker pulled her close first, kissing her with wild abandon. When he released her, Jaxon placed her into his lap and held her close, kissing her neck. “I’ve waited so long to hear those words.”
“So have I,” said Parker.
“And I never thought I could trust another man this much, but I was wrong. Thank you. Thank you for choosing me.”
“Thank you for placing your trust in us,” said Parker. “And for giving yourself to us completely.”
“Yes,” said Jaxon. “Thank you for all of that. And for returning our love.”
Brenna snuggled against Jaxon and gazed at Parker, her heart overflowing with emotion. The ghosts of the past had finally been put to rest, and she was free to love again. She was free to trust once more. She had the rest of her life to give to these men. “What happens now?” she asked.
“We wait for my father to discover the truth,” said Jaxon.
“And what if he can’t? What if the triplets wiggle out of this again?”
“They won’t.”
She hoped like hell that Jaxon was right. Because if he was wrong, her life was now in more danger than it had been since the night Molly disappeared. Molly…Brenna blinked back fresh tears. She also hoped like hell that they were both right about the girl never trying to contact her all this time. The image of her hurt and asking for help, but getting no reply, swept over Brenna until she thought the pain would tear her apart.
But Atheron had said no one lived in Alfred’s home anymore. So why had Molly been found there? That meant whoever had taken her there knew it was abandoned. Who was the man on the horse who had delivered the note today? And how had Molly found him if she had been the one to send the note?
The more Brenna thought about what Atheron had told them, the more she realized the guys were right. Molly never sent the note. And she never sent any others. She likely had been dead before they reached the home where they’d simply left her body.
It had been a trick after all. And it had been designed to make it look like she was involved, and possibly Jaxon and Parker as well.
If Atheron didn’t get the truth out of the triplets, the three of them would no longer be safe in this castle.
* * * *
Bren
na woke to shouting, and glanced around for Parker and Jaxon. They’d fallen asleep in Jaxon’s room again, but the guys weren’t in bed with her. She jumped out of bed and glanced around for her robe, finally spotting it. She donned it, and went into the sitting room, where she found the doors to the hallway opened.
She heard Jaxon’s voice, Parker’s, Atheron’s, Sedgewick’s, and Quentin’s. But she didn’t know the other voices, all male. She didn’t want to be seen, so she Brenna flattened herself against a wall and tried to follow the conversation.
“You cannot execute three princes, Your Majesty.” Sedgewick’s voice was full of desperation.
“I can if they poisoned the women they chose!”
“But to take the word of an apothecary?”
“A chief apothecary. And one who had already dismissed one of his staff years ago for the same thing.”
Brenna gasped. That was why Cedric had looked so uncomfortable when she’d asked him about being able to refuse to make poison, even for a member of the royal family. Not because he’d made poison for the triplets, but because one of his assistants had done so. Alfred used to work for him. She breathed a sigh of relief. Cedric wasn’t involved in this.
“Have the triplets actually admitted to poisoning the women they chose?” asked Quentin.
“No,” said Atheron. “They only admitted to poisoning Molly.”
Brenna couldn’t stop her loud gasp in time. She also remembered promising Jaxon and Parker she wouldn’t eavesdrop again, so she stepped out into the hallway. Jaxon spotted her first and went to her, pulling her close. “I’m sorry we woke you.”
“It’s all right.” She glanced at their king. Her king now. She lived here. This was her home, and she belonged to two of their princes. “They killed Molly. Did they also take her?”
He gave her a look of sympathy. “Yes, they did. And for the reasons we surmised. They wanted to exact revenge on my son and Parker for claiming you.”
“So they killed an innocent servant? Was she feeding them information? Were they forcing her to have sex with them?”
“I only know what they told me, Brenna. They said she refused their advances and refused to tell them anything about what you three discussed, so I have to assume they wouldn’t lie about that. They are the kind of men who like to brag about their conquests.”
“So she died for nothing. She died because three selfish men couldn’t have her in bed, and couldn’t claim me.” Jaxon pulled her closer, and Brenna didn’t care that the men all looked a bit uncomfortable and unsure what to say. “So what happens now?”
“They will die at dawn,” said Atheron. “Because I believe they did poison the women they chose. I believe my chief apothecary. That’s what I came to tell my son and Parker.”
“And my father and Quentin don’t believe their king should execute three princes based on the word of an apothecary,” said Parker.
“He’s your king,” said Brenna, staring down Sedgewick and Quentin. She was far too angry to care what came out of her mouth right now. “I don’t know what that means here, but in my world it still means their subjects respect their word, at the very least.”
She caught the grin that passed between Parker and Jaxon, so she kept going. “And I know I have a lot to learn about how your laws work, and how much power your Council has, but it seems to me that you need to take this seriously because your king does.”
Atheron smiled at her. “Maybe we should put her on the Council?”
Sedgewick and Quentin didn’t laugh along with the others, but Brenna didn’t give a shit about that. Jaxon and Parker led her back into the sitting room, and asked her to try to get some sleep.
“It’s only midnight,” said Jaxon. “We need to discuss a few more things with my father before we come back to bed.”
“As long as you’re not upset with me.”
He stroked her face. “Not even close.”
“We love you even more now,” said Parker. “Thank you for that.”
“For what?”
“Your loyalty,” said Jaxon. “We are so proud of you right now.”
She smiled. “I love you both so much.”
Jaxon kissed her. “And we love you. Now get back to bed. We’ll be along in a while and then we need to ravish you once more.”
She sighed and watched them walk out into the hallway again, this time closing the doors behind them. Jaxon winked at her just before they shut completely, and then Parker did, too. Brenna watched the doors for a moment or two, hugging herself.
She couldn’t bring back Molly any more than she could bring back Mark, but she felt she’d finally avenged both their unnecessary deaths. Parker and Jaxon, and now Atheron, believed in her and trusted her. And she trusted her two princes. The ones who had chosen her. They’d been true to their word, and she knew they’d never let anything happen to her. And she would spend the rest of her life, making sure they both knew how very, very much she loved them.
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tara Rose loves to write about small towns and the quirky people that inhabit them. You’ll find engaging characters, budding romance, intrigue, and plenty of hot steamy ménage sex within the pages of her books. You never really know what goes on behind closed doors, but her books will take you there, and leave you panting for more.
When she isn’t writing, Tara spends time with her husband—her real-life hero. She loves to cook, collect antique pottery, and she will read just about anything. Tara also plays the cello, and loves decorating her house for Christmas.
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