by Lexi C. Foss
“Hey, hey,” he said softly, his thumb brushing away the tears that had fallen unknowingly from my eyes.
Goddess, I was crying.
But the thought of him not wanting me in return broke something inside me.
I hadn’t realized just how important this was to me until this second, this very breath. If he rejected me, rejected us, I… I wouldn’t be able to breathe right again.
I already love him, I realized. I already love them both.
I pressed my hand to my mouth, shock riveting my system. How had I let this happen? Or was there never a choice?
My wolf submitted to them both on instinct.
She knew her mates even when my human half didn’t.
“Luna,” Silas murmured, his thumb stroking over my cheekbone again. “Sweet little moon, look at me.”
I had let my gaze drop without realizing it, my mortification at falling so deeply threatening to destroy me.
“I-I can’t,” I admitted. Not a response to the command to look at him, but to the very real heartache ripping me apart. Never in my life had I felt like this, so terrified by the potential of someone’s response.
I hated not being able to sense him or his thoughts. How does he feel?
It would be so easy to assume, but forever was a long time. This relationship circumvented so many of society’s standards. Nothing about being a triad was considered typical. None of us truly understood what it meant beyond what Jolene had said.
But I wanted it so badly that my chest ached with the emptiness of incompletion. It hurt to breathe, bringing more tears to my eyes.
This wasn’t about him rejecting us but about us denying the bond.
Now that I’d allowed myself to consider the triad, I could sense what the incompletion was doing to me. “I feel so empty, Silas.”
“I know. I feel it, too,” he whispered, his lips against my forehead. “It’s agony without you inside me, little moon. Edon’s there—I feel him every day—but you… I miss you even when you’re standing right in front of me. I want that connection to you, too. That bond, to call you truly mine, to claim you both. I already do in my heart, Luna. You’re already mine.”
I swallowed, my eyes glassing over again. “You do?”
“Every day,” he promised. “You’re my little moon. My Luna. On the next full moon, I’ll prove it to the world. To you and Edon both. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
I grabbed him and kissed him, my tears falling between us as I let all my inhibitions go. All my doubts. All my fears. Everything. I gave him all I had, kissing him until I couldn’t even breathe and not stopping to refill my lungs.
He owned me.
Edon, too.
My neck prickled with awareness, a familiar warmth approaching from behind. How he found us, how he knew, I didn’t care. Because as I felt Edon’s lips on my shoulder, I collapsed, allowing both males to cradle me between them.
“I want it, too,” he whispered into my ear. “I’ve wanted you both since the beginning. You’re mine, little mate. And Silas is mine, too.”
My clothes disappeared into a pile on the rocks. Silas’s following suit. And Edon had arrived naked, likely in his wolf form.
I turned in his arms, kissing him as I did Silas, pouring all my emotions, my heart, into my tongue as it stroked against his. I love you, I thought at him. I love you so much it hurts.
He couldn’t hear me, our mating bond incomplete.
And it sliced me wide open.
I didn’t want to wait until the full moon, but we didn’t have a choice.
Four more weeks… I’d have to survive all that time without him hearing me, without connecting to Silas.
“Don’t cry, little mate.” Edon licked the tear from my cheek. “We’ll fix this soon.”
“I want you to hear me,” I said. “I want you both to hear me.”
“Then scream for us, sweetheart,” Edon said. “Scream for everyone to hear, to tell the world who owns you.”
Silas nibbled my shoulder, his hot body pressed to my back. “Let us take care of you. Let us show you how we feel about you, how we feel about each other. Join us together, Luna. Mate us both. At the same time.”
I shuddered, my heart slamming against my lungs. “Yes.” I swallowed. “Yes.”
If we couldn’t have each other mentally, then we would do this physically.
Both of them inside me at once.
Sensing everything I had to offer.
“Yes,” I said for a third time, my head falling back against Silas’s chest as Edon licked up the column of my throat. His palm pressed into my abdomen, sliding downward to the ache between my legs.
“So wet,” he hissed, his fingers slipping easily inside.
I moaned, my hips rising up against his touch, begging him to go deeper.
But he had something else in mind.
He removed his hand, then guided it around to my backside. Silas shifted to allow him room to move, but I felt his cock pressed into the alpha’s wrist.
Heat slithered through my veins, lighting my body on fire as Edon penetrated my puckered hole.
Silas yanked my head back for a kiss, distracting me with his tongue. But the pressure built inside me as Edon worked to lubricate both sides, readying me to take them both.
It would destroy me.
Cripple my ability to think of anyone but them.
And I was okay with that. Because Silas and Edon made me feel whole. They were my pack, my past, present, and future, and I would only ever desire them.
“She’s ready,” Edon whispered seconds, or maybe minutes, later. I didn’t know, my body strung too tight with anticipation to comprehend time.
He captured my mouth, his tongue fucking me thoroughly as he guided the three of us to the ground. Leaves pillowed my bare legs, pleasing my inner wolf immensely. Silas lay on his back beside me, his handsome features melting my heart. “Hop on, little moon,” he invited.
His arousal beckoned me with a pulse that made my pussy clench in expectation. Yes, please. I crawled over him, straddling his hips and wrapping his shaft in my damp folds.
“Fuck…” He grabbed my hips, shifting me to where he wanted me—with his head at my entrance. “Slide down.”
I did.
Because that demand? It demolished my ability to rebel, to fight, to do anything other than accept. My lower abdomen quivered, the feel of his thick, hot length inside me a growing addiction in my blood. I seated myself on him, locking us so deeply that he groaned in approval.
Edon grabbed my hip, his teeth skimming my shoulder. “Bend down and kiss him, little mate.”
My heart fluttered, my wolf preening beneath the alpha’s command.
I leaned into Silas, embracing him with my mouth and sighing as he wrapped his palm around my nape.
Mine, he was saying.
Yours, I agreed.
This was what I needed, our bodies connecting and confirming we belonged together. “More,” I begged, no, ordered. It wasn’t a request but a requirement. I needed more.
Edon stroked down my spine, eliciting goose bumps in his wake. It left me feeling light and cherished. More gentle touches, his tongue gliding along my lower back as he gripped my ass and spread me wide.
I half expected to feel his mouth there. Instead, he shifted, and something much harder and larger pressed against my opening.
I swallowed, suddenly unsure.
But a nip from Silas reminded me of my task, his lips moving beneath mine. Wicked. Smooth. Perfection. Urging me to return his kiss. And I did, losing myself to him as an intense pressure began to fill me from behind.
Slowly.
Carefully.
In and out, one inch at a time.
It hurt.
Yet it also did all sorts of sinful things to my insides.
I groaned into Silas’s mouth, my lower half throbbing in both pain and pleasure, the two males joining with me in a way that left me spellbound.
“How
do you feel, Luna?” Edon asked, his breath slightly more labored than before, as if he were pacing himself in this task.
“Hot,” I whispered, swallowing. “Full.”
He chuckled. “Not full yet, little mate.” He thrust in a little more, causing me to both flinch and moan.
“I can feel you,” Silas said, his jaw clenching. “Fuck, I can feel you.”
“Wait until I start to move,” Edon replied, his hands running up and down my sides. “Just a little more, Luna. Almost there.”
Something unintelligible left my mouth as he forced me to take him to the hilt.
Something that sounded a lot like a growl mingled with a scream.
Something that was reminiscent of his name and a curse.
He dropped his head to my back as he allowed me to adjust to them both. I couldn’t move, pinned between two strong males, their hands and lips tracing along my skin as they each praised me for taking them both. For accepting our bond. For allowing us to join so completely.
And that was exactly how I felt—complete.
These were my two mates. My males. My lovers. My future.
“Fuck me,” I said, needing to feel them move. “I need you to fuck me.”
Silas chuckled, his lips ghosting over my cheek. “You heard the woman, Edon.”
“Still topping from the bottom,” he mused out loud.
“As if you would have it any other way,” Silas replied.
“I wouldn’t.” Edon slid almost all the way out of me and rammed back in, causing me to cry out.
Fuck.
I expected that to hurt. It didn’t. Instead, it left me winded in the best way. “Please,” I said, unsure of what I wanted to beg for more. Another thrust? Harder? Softer? Faster. I just felt so full. So absolute. So alive.
His hips snapped into mine again. “Is this what you want, little mate?” he asked against my ear. “To feel me taking your virgin ass and making it mine?”
Silas arched beneath me, his cock pulsing inside me. “Again,” he breathed.
Edon complied, leaving me breathless and hot between them. I was wrapped up in delicious masculine muscles all moving in time with my body, sealing me in a cocoon of feral sex.
Both of them found a rhythm, one I tried to maintain, but each pump left me seeing stars. I’d never felt so utterly dominated. Completely mastered. Owned. Yet worshiped.
They were kissing me, touching me, making sure I loved it every bit as much as they did. And that care alone sent me cascading into a well of oblivion so deep that I fought to resurface.
A pinch to my clit brought me back, teeth against my neck, a palm squeezing my breast, and a stark demand to “Come again.”
Edon. He wanted my pleasure, to split me in half for everyone to hear.
And my body craved to give it to him.
Both males moved sharply, in and out, hitting me in places I never knew were orgasmic points. It left me shaking between them, my pleasure mounting again, only this time was far more intense. Liquid lava poured through my system, culminating in my lower belly, threatening to burst.
“Edon,” I whimpered. “Silas.” I didn’t know whom to beg, whom to cry out to, but as the fire escalated inside, I began to sweat. To vibrate. To scream.
It was ripping me in two. Half of me claimed by Silas, the other half by Edon. And their names poured from my mouth, just as they desired.
“Fucking beautiful,” Edon praised, his cock so deep in my ass that I couldn’t move, could only convulse as pleasure continued to ripple through me.
“Perfection,” Silas agreed, his back bowing off the ground as he came inside me on a roar that echoed off the trees and blasted my senses apart.
Edon followed us both, his seed pumping deep inside me as if to find Silas’s essence.
A sudden peace settled over me.
Joined.
We were finally together. All three of us, in mind, body, and spirit.
With Silas beneath me and Edon at my back, we were finally mated in a harmony of bliss.
Mine, my wolf whispered. These males are mine.
Just as I was theirs.
We didn’t need a ceremony to complete us.
We were already complete.
As one.
The ritual next month would just be a formality. Because I felt it in my blood that our souls were already bound. Promised for eternity.
A triad.
Forever.
40
Edon
Lilith paced the main lodge room, her gown fluttering around her in a ridiculous wave of red. She looked ready to attend a damn ball, not address an agitated crowd of alphas and royals.
Tonight was her deadline of five days since the incident. And she’d waited until the very last second to call her “emergency council meeting.” Talk about a power trip.
I folded my arms and leaned against the wall, watching as she paced the wooden floor in her five-inch stilettos. One would think this bitch would be eager to run on back home. Alas, no.
“I have reviewed the evidence,” she announced, pausing in the center beneath the brightest light. It gave her pale hair an ugly yellow glow. Fitting for her personality, it seemed.
It’s starting, I told Silas. He was back at my house with Rae, Luna, Darius, and Juliet.
If something happened tonight, they were under strict orders to run to Jace Region. But I suspected the escape act wouldn’t be needed. Lilith would have brought an army with her if that were the case, and yet only two minions stood off to the side—both young vampires Kylan and Jace could take out with a second’s notice.
This revolutionary team was certainly proving handy.
Lilith cleared her throat and stared down Kylan. “I cannot allow a precedent to be set where royals or alphas decide to take the life of another just to soothe a situation. We’re immortals. There are ways to incapacitate us without ending a life.”
The royal smiled. “Duly noted. I’ll remember that going forward.”
“Why didn’t you just shoot him? Or break his neck? Why remove his head?” she demanded.
“Because I didn’t like the prick,” Kylan replied. “And he put my life in danger by instigating a war. Why are we not analyzing his guilt, Lilith? How many lives were lost unnecessarily due to his meddling?”
“How do you know he’s guilty?” she countered.
“Is it not obvious?” he asked, his eyebrows rising. “I thought you concluded your evidence research. If you’ve not ascertained that Silvano double-crossed Walter with the intent of hurting Clemente Clan for his own financial gain, then perhaps you need another five days in that fancy jet of yours.”
That royal had balls. Big ones.
And Lilith appeared ready to murder him for it. Blood stained her porcelain cheeks, painting her skin in a cherry-red tone. “You ascertained all that before killing him?”
He narrowed his gaze. “I am over five thousand years old, Lilith. Nearly twice your age. That’s granted me experience unlike anything you could ever fathom. And a double cross such as Silvano’s is not an uncommon occurrence throughout my very long history. So yes, young one, I did. And I delivered the justice he deserved.”
He took a step forward, his height advantage clear as he looked down at her.
“My only regret is not taking the wolf’s head, too, as he certainly deserved it for plotting such a ludicrous political move. Had it been me, I would have been much slyer about it. But again, that kind of knowledge comes with experience. Something I have in spades.”
She swallowed but didn’t otherwise move. “Are you threatening me, Kylan?”
“No, sweetheart,” he replied, smiling. “Why on earth would I desire your seat at the top? I live with enough targets on my back.”
Silence fell over the room.
The sound of hearts beating echoing off the walls.
Everyone waited for her verdict and Kylan’s reaction.
Your friend Rae might be one of the bravest people I’ve ever
met, I murmured to Silas.
Why?
Because she lives with Kylan. That royal is fucking terrifying. He didn’t appear fazed at all, his stance intimidating yet relaxed at the same time.
Something told me he would have no problem winning a fight against Lilith. Especially with this crowd. She might have a few supporters in attendance, but there were also several against her.
Except we couldn’t go after her yet. I’d asked, and Jace explained that they needed her alive because she was the only one in existence who could help them find Cam, the former vampire king. He was believed to be dead. His Erosita—who lived with Majestic Clan, apparently—proved otherwise. Because if Cam was dead, she would be, too.
I’d absorbed all that information with a shocked expression.
Silas, however, had just shrugged and said, “Nothing in this world is what it seems.”
If only we could all be that laid-back and accepting about it.
“No additions to your harem,” Lilith declared. “No Blood Day attendance. No social outings of any kind. You are hereby confined to Kylan Region until I say otherwise. Is that understood?”
“Is this supposed to be my punishment?” he asked, cocking his head. “Sounds like a vacation.”
“Then I’ll consider adding blood rationings to the list,” she seethed. “Get back in line or I will threaten your position at the top as royal.”
His lips curled. “You could try. But I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Her jaw ticked as he stepped back to his place in our makeshift circle.
It’d been part of our plan for him to take control of the show, and he’d acted splendidly. I just hoped he didn’t end up with any repercussions from it. But at least all the spotlight would remain on him as a potential rebel, and not on any of us.
“Edon and Logan are granted permission to ascend,” she continued with a flourish, pointedly turning her back on Kylan. “Edon acted within his right of the challenge, and I see no reason for him to be punished. Logan was an innocent bystander whom I’m grateful to have coming of age. Unfortunately, he cannot ascend for eleven more moons, which poses a leadership problem in his clan.”