by James Tate
I needed more answers.
Wrapping myself in the robe hanging on the back of the door, I quickly towel-dried my hair, then exited the bathroom.
Lee was still bent over Zan’s motionless form, his fingertips pressed to his brother’s temples as he used his magic. They both looked so still, like a painting. I didn’t want to interrupt and mess up whatever Lee was doing, so I softly padded over to where I’d left my dress.
Just as I picked it up, Lee exhaled loudly, and I spun around to find him staring at me with the intensity of a thousand suns.
“Is...” My voice came out as a faint whisper, so I cleared my throat and tried again. “Is he going to be okay?”
Lee’s gaze flicked down to his brother on the bed, then returned to me. “Him? Yeah, he’ll be fine. It doesn’t usually take me so long to heal people, but...” He trailed off with a tiny, one-shoulder shrug.
“But what?” I asked, feeling panic rise. Was it because Zan was really badly hurt? Or because of whatever Sagen had done?
Lee’s stare seemed to burn into me, and I shifted my weight from foot to foot. “But I couldn’t seem to force myself to focus, knowing you were naked in there. Even now, it’s all I can do not to break my connection with Zan to strip that robe off you.”
I widened my eyes, and my breath came in shallow gasps. “That wouldn’t be good, though.” I had to say it out loud to remind myself that Zan needed to be healed. That was the most important thing in this moment.
“No,” Lee agreed. “It wouldn’t.” His gaze returned to his brother, and as I looked closer at the connection between his fingers and Zan’s temples, I could see tiny sparkles passing between them.
For a tense moment, neither of us spoke, and my feet remained glued to the spot I was standing in. Finally, Lee sighed again and looked up at me with pain-filled eyes.
“Why him, Calla?” he asked me in an agonized whisper. “I thought maybe Ty... but Zan? He was nothing but cruel to you as Prince Alexander. Why did you choose him?”
I parted my lips to respond, but no sound came out. Suddenly, my reasons no longer seemed so sensible. What could I really say to him? That I’d chosen Prince Alexander because I knew he would ruin me, given half a chance? Hell, he’d even said as much during the ball the night before.
So why then did he risk death to reveal their secret to me?
The truth was that I’d chosen Prince Alexander because I was confident he wouldn’t hesitate to fuck me, and that would ultimately destroy the bonds I’d been forming with my tutors. How stupid did that make me in hindsight?
“I’m sorry,” I whispered eventually, feeling the guilt building inside me to the point of painful. “If I’d known...” I trailed off because I had no idea what the end of that sentence was.
Lee knew it too. “If you’d known, you would have done something stupid and probably gotten yourself killed. Like this idiot.”
“Yeah, about that.” I scowled at Zan’s unconscious form. “I have a few questions.”
Lee nodded, biting the edge of his lip and releasing me from his intense, accusing stare. “Understandable. You’d better go grab Ty so we can just do this once.”
“Me go grab him?” I exclaimed, tightening my fists in the fabric of the dress I was still holding.
Lee gave me a teasing smile. “Yes, Calla, you. Unless you want to take over for me and heal Zan’s brain aneurysm?”
My brows shot up so high they practically touched my hairline. “That’s what happened?”
Lee nodded, and I bit my lip to try and hold my emotions the fuck together. What in the hell had Zan been thinking?
“Third door down on the right,” Lee told me, and I nodded.
“I know.” I fished around on the chair and found the last of the three keys I’d been given. My dress had no pockets, so I’d had the keys in my bodice while I was wearing it and they’d dropped out onto the chair when I took it off. “I have a key, remember?”
His smile was tight and humorless. “How could I forget?”
I hesitated another moment, debating getting changed back into my ball gown, but eventually tossed it back onto the chair and tightened the belt on my borrowed robe. There would be time to change clothes later, but answers were more urgent. I’d absolutely kick myself if I wasted time fucking around with intricate bodice lacings when there were more pressing matters at stake.
“Calla,” Lee called as I opened the door, making me pause. “Zan will be fine, I promise. I just need to focus.”
I gave him a tight nod and slipped out, closing the door softly behind me. Until that point I hadn’t even noticed that I was shaking, but Lee’s reassurance helped me breathe a bit easier as I quietly made my way down to Ty’s room.
Standing at Ty’s door, I paused with the key in my hand. Should I just knock? It seemed rude to use his key when he’d given it to me for a totally different reason. Besides, if Lee needed to focus, should I be taking my time?
I raised my hand and knocked softly three times. It was the polite thing to do, wasn’t it?
When no response came, I tried again.
Was he not in there?
I knocked again. Nothing.
Sounds of footsteps and jingling keys sounded further down the corridor, and I sucked in a nervous breath. I had no idea what would happen if guards caught me standing outside Prince Thibault’s door while wearing Prince Alexander’s monogrammed robe, but I wasn’t willing to find out.
Screw it, if Ty wasn’t in his room, I might as well hide in there until the coast was clear.
Quickly, I inserted the key and let myself into the room, closing the door firmly behind me and leaning my back on it with a sigh of relief. Movement across the room drew my attention, and I found Ty was in his room after all. Fast asleep in his bed, totally naked with his blankets kicked off onto the floor.
“Ty,” I hissed, crossing the room to his bed and trying really hard not to stare at his impressive erection. Guess he was having a good dream?
“Lo,” he mumbled in his sleep, and his hand shifted to grip his shaft.
Shit. Did that mean he was dreaming about me? Holy Aana’s tits, that was hot. I’d really never appreciated the naked male form until now, but by the Gods, Ty was something to be admired.
“Ty,” I tried again, this time reaching out to shake his shoulder. Too late, I realized I’d done the exact same thing I’d done to wake Lee.
But Ty didn’t immediately wake up like his younger brother had. Instead, his free hand snapped out like a striking snake, grabbing me by the waist and yanking me into his bed, where he rolled me underneath his hot, hard body.
Before I managed more than a squeak of surprise, his lips were on mine in a bruising, passionate kiss. He’d stolen the breath from my lungs, so I gasped against his mouth, sucking in more air and allowing him to deepen the kiss.
For a moment, he totally consumed me. His huge hands were all over me, his hard length crushed against my pubic bone as he hitched my leg up to his waist and ground against me. Thoughts evaporated from my brain; all I could focus on was Ty.
I moaned as my borrowed robe shifted and my bare thigh met the searing heat of his skin. He felt so good against me. So strong and demanding, and I wanted him to fuck me so hard that I would totally forget everything that had happened in the past week. All the death, politics, threats...
Ty stilled above me, his large palm cupping one of my ass cheeks and his rock hard cock pressed tight to my bare pussy.
“Lo?” he asked in a sleep-fogged voice. “I thought I was dreaming.” He moved his head back a fraction to look at me, but the rest of him remained frozen where it was.
“I gathered,” I replied in my scratchy voice. My lips were swollen and hot, and I needed to bite my cheek not to buck my hips against his.
Ty stared down at me for a long moment, his green eyes hungry and heated. “You came to me,” he murmured, then let his gaze trail down my body as he took in my robe and our position. “But you’re
wearing Zan’s robe and... oh shit. You know I’m me and he’s him and that means someone broke the oath.” His eyes widened in concern, but still he didn’t change our position. If anything, he pulled me tighter against him, and my breath hitched.
I gave a small nod, not trusting my voice.
“Is everyone still alive?” Ty asked, his brow furrowing slightly.
I nodded again. “Barely. Lee is healing Zan now. We should go.” I made no moves to peel myself out from under him, though, and he just stared back at me for a moment.
“Lee’s healing Zan,” he repeated slowly, his gaze flicking to the monogram on the robe. “So you chose him.”
A third time, I nodded. I had nothing to say that would make it sound better. How the hell could I have guessed I would end up in this situation? Who the hell falls for three different guys, all at the same time, then finds out they’re secretly princes? I did. That’s who.
“But you’re in my bed now,” Ty continued, and this time I definitely wasn’t imagining it when his fingers tightened on my ass. “So what am I to think about that?”
My breath hitched again as he rocked his hips a little, rubbing my clit in a way that made me want to moan. “You pulled me in here,” I informed him, feeling defensive. “I just came to wake you up. For the record, I did knock.”
“Our rooms are soundproofed,” he explained. “And I pulled you down here because I thought you were a dream. A really good dream. But might I point out that you were definitely kissing me back just now.” His hot breath feathered my skin as his lips caressed the side of my neck and made it hard for me to formulate coherent thoughts.
His hips shifted again, and I knew that it would only take a small tilt of my own to have him inside me. The tip of his cock was against my core, and I shivered, drenched with desire.
“Lee sent me to get you,” I managed to say, fighting against my primal instinct to take things further. “He said we need to discuss things all together.”
“Can Lee wait?” Ty suggested, his teeth nipping at my earlobe as his hands kneaded my ass cheeks. “He usually needs some alone time to focus his magic anyway.”
Suddenly, the urgency of the whole situation swam back into the front of my mind, and I inched away from Ty. Inched, because I really was having a hard time pulling away.
“Ty,” I whispered, my voice still cracked and broken from all my screaming. “Zan almost died breaking his oath.”
Ty sucked in a long breath, then released it with a heavy sigh. His hands peeled off my butt, and he rolled to his side to free me. “Of course he did,” he muttered, sounding just a tiny bit pissed off.
I quickly, but reluctantly, scrambled off the big bed and yanked my robe closed around me once more. For a long moment, Ty lay there on his back, staring at me and not seeming at all concerned about his nakedness... or his unchanged erection. His boldness was doing all kinds of things to me, and I needed to clench my thighs together to stop from demanding more than the current situation allowed.
Eventually, he gave me a wink and sat up. Grabbing a pair of pants, he yanked them on but left the waist undone. “All right, let’s go.”
My eyes widened, and I stared at his crotch, then back up at him. “Aren’t you going to put a shirt on? Or, uh, do your pants up?” He was halfway covered, but nowhere near enough to be decent.
A wicked sort of smile touched his lips, and he stalked closer to me. “No, why would I? Servants aren’t permitted in this wing until daybreak, and I like having you look at me like you are right now.”
“Uh-huh,” I breathed, helpless to stop my gaze from running all over his broad, muscular form. All that combat training had seriously paid off; the man was shredded. “And how is that?”
Ty placed a finger under my chinto tip my face up and give me a heated smirk. “Like you regret picking Zan.”
With a smug eyebrow lift, he released my chin and opened the door, holding it open for me.
Gritting my teeth, I forced my feet to move as we made our way back to Zan’s room, but my mind wouldn’t shut the hell up. Was I regretting picking Zan? No, not really because I hadn’t picked Zan at all. I’d picked Prince Alexander with the intention of destroying my relationships with my tutors once and for all.
But clearly my reaction to Ty—and just before that to Lee—suggested that my feelings hadn’t magically evaporated overnight just because I’d tried to do a shitty thing. Hell, even the sheer terror I’d experienced when I thought Zan died told me I still cared far too deeply to just… give them up.
I was back at square one, being forced to choose between three men—three gods-damned princes—that my heart was stupidly invested in.
But how could I even begin to explain that?
3
Back inside Zan’s room, the eldest prince was nowhere to be seen. Instead, it was just Lee sitting in one of the two overstuffed armchairs in front of the fireplace as he flipped through a book.
“Where’s dickhead?” Ty asked as Lee looked up at us entering the room. He jerked his head towards the bathroom, where running water could be heard and steam coiled from under the door.
“You guys took long enough,” Lee commented with a small frown. He gave Ty’s lack of shirt a disparaging look and huffed a small sigh. “I guess you were having a hard time choosing what to wear today?”
Ty smirked at Lee. “Something was hard anyway.”
I choked on the breath I’d just drawn and started coughing. Thankfully, it distracted the brothers from whatever pissing competition they were about to start.
“So ah,” I spluttered when my coughing subsided, “how long do we have before your royal servants come in to wipe your royal asses?”
Lee frowned harder at me and held out his hand to me. “Come here. Your wrists need healing, and what happened to your voice?”
Ty made a grunt of surprise, grabbing me by one hand and inspecting the raw wounds around my wrist. “What... how did I not see these before now?”
I shrugged and extracted my hand gently from his grip. “You were, um, otherwise occupied. Besides, it’s no big deal compared to how Zan was.”
Both of them continued to scowl at me, and Lee indicated I take his hand again. Sighing, I reached out and let him draw me closer to him. Secret identities or not, I knew these men. So I knew it was pointless trying to fight them on something minor like healing my wrists.
“Sit,” Lee ordered, tugging me into his lap so that I sat with my legs to the side with his arm wrapped around me. His fingertips touched lightly to the marks on my wrists, and my skin started tingling and buzzing as his magic started working.
I stared, fascinated, as the little sparkles passed into my wrists and the skin started healing over before my eyes. Finally, all that remained was a smooth, pink band of new skin around each wrist.
“That’s a useful skill,” I marvelled, running my fingers over the newly healed skin and looking up at Lee in a bit of awe.
A small smile curved his lips, and he shifted his hands to my throat. “It comes in handy with these two oafs constantly hurting themselves,” he murmured, and I shivered when his magic started healing my voice. “Although you’ve been giving them a run for their money lately.”
“Not my fault,” I huffed. “Stupid Zan forgot to untie me before he tried to kill himself.”
Lee arched a brow at me, and Ty murmured something that seemed like a curse under his breath, but it was Prince Alexander himself who responded.
“Slipped my mind,” he muttered, exiting the bathroom in a cloud of steam wearing nothing but a towel slung low on his hips. I’d already been blindfolded when he’d arrived the night before, so it was the first time I’d properly seen his body. Or the first time I’d seen it not covered in blood when I thought he was dead.
Holy. Aana’s. Tits. What a body. Fucking hell, all three of them were all kinds of delicious.
Was it a prerequisite that royals be so gorgeously built? It was totally unfair to the rest of us mere mor
tals. How was a girl meant to keep her drool inside her mouth when men like that were just walking around in nothing but a towel?
“What’s that?” Ty asked, pointing to a small silver zig-zag mark on Zan’s smooth, tanned chest, right over his heart.
Zan glanced down at it, then looked back up—straight at me.
“That’s what I wanted to know. What is it, Luna?”
My brows shot up, and Lee’s arm around my waist tensed. “Me? Why the hell would I know?”
Zan’s dark gaze pinned me like a butterfly to a board, and I squirmed uncomfortably. This was the prince, now. Not Zan, the tutor I had a little crush on. “Perhaps because I didn’t have it before? It also looks suspiciously similar to the mark on your shoulder.”
“What?” I squeaked, instinctively reaching over to cover the mark in question, despite the fact that it was already hidden by my robe. I’d had it for as long as I could remember and always figured it was a birthmark. Except it didn’t look like any birthmark I’d ever seen, and it tingled with intuition to keep me safe.
Crossing the room, he yanked me up out of Lee’s lap and spun me around so that my back was to him, then tugged the robe down enough to expose my mark. He did it all abruptly enough that I was stunned into just going with it. When his warm hand touched my shoulder blade where the little silver mark was located, I needed to bite back a sigh.
Okay, maybe it was more than a little crush.
Damn it all to Zryn.
“How did you get this, Luna?” Zan asked me, his velvety voice low as he spoke near my ear. “And how do I now have a similar one on my chest?” There was a note of accusation in his voice that made my walls slam up, and I jerked out of his grip, tugging the fabric back into place to cover all my bits.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Your Highness, so you can quit with the tone. All I know is that you fucking died on top of me, and somehow Sagen made you not dead.” I waved my hand at him as if indicating magic. “So if you’re accusing anyone of making birthmarks magically appear, you can go accuse that bitch.”