I was wrong.
A third climax, a fourth, until I lay limp and gasping between them, my body liquid with satisfaction so complete it approached unconsciousness.
Only then, when I floated in that space between pleasure and awareness, did they move into position for the claiming. Kael guided me to turn onto my stomach, his hands steady and sure. Rhex knelt beside me, his fingers combing through my hair with unexpected tenderness. Silas positioned himself on my other side, his hand finding mine and intertwining our fingers.
"Ready?" Kael asked, his voice gentle despite the tension I could hear beneath it.
I nodded, beyond words, beyond fear. My body still thrummed with aftershocks of pleasure, my mind hazy with satisfaction and trust.
The first bite came from Kael, careful but decisive, his teeth finding the perfect spot at the nape of my neck where the claiming mark would be most visible. There was a sharp moment of pain that quickly transmuted into something else, something that sent heat flooding through me in a wave that had nothing to do with ordinary temperature. The Bond between us flared brighter, stronger, as his claim registered at levels deeper than physical.
Silas came next, his bite landing slightly to the side of Kael’s, equally precise but carrying different intent. Where Kael’s mark had been about certainty, Silas’s spoke of understanding, of seeing to the heart of things. The dual sensation of their marksthrobbed in perfect counterpoint, pleasure threading through discomfort until the two became indistinguishable.
Rhex was last, his massive body shifting into position with careful control. His bite landed on the opposite side from Silas’s, completing the triangle that now adorned my skin. His mark carried raw intensity tempered by unexpected gentleness, the final piece that balanced the others perfectly.
As the third bite settled into my flesh, something changed. Not just in the room around us or in the Bond between us, but in my own body. Heat flared beneath my skin, familiar yet entirely new… not the vague warnings I’d experienced before Lady Morvane’s suppressants smothered them, but something fully realized and impossible to ignore.
My scent spiked sharply, filling the room with the unmistakable signature of an omega entering heat. Not gradual. Not controlled. Sudden and overwhelming, triggered by the combination of the Bond’s activation and three claiming marks in rapid succession.
Panic flooded through me, cutting through the haze of pleasure that had enveloped me moments before. This wasn’t supposed to happen… not now, not so quickly. I wasn’t prepared. None of us were prepared. There was a mob somewhere in the palace on a mission to separate us.
I jerked away from them, scrambling backward until my back hit the headboard. The princes stared at me with identical expressions of surprise that quickly shifted to something darker, more primal, as my heat scent registered fully in their heightened awareness.
"Nyx," Kael began, his voice strained as he fought for control that had come so easily to him before. "It’s alright. We can?—"
But I wasn’t listening. Something had fractured inside me, the present blurring with fragments of the past that rushed in without warning. Other hands. Other voices. Pain withoutpleasure, use without care. The memories weren’t clear… Lady Morvane’s drugs had seen to that, but the fear was crystalline, cutting through everything else with razor precision.
I slid from the bed, my limbs shaking as I fought dual battles… against the rising heat that demanded satisfaction and against the terror that screamed for escape. My hands found clothing, a simple dress laid out for later, and pulled it on with clumsy urgency.
"I need to go," I gasped, the words emerging strangled and desperate. "I can’t… I need space. Before I ruin everything. Before?—"
Before you hurt me like the others. The words didn’t leave my lips, but they screamed inside my head, past trauma distorting present reality despite all evidence to the contrary. These men had shown me nothing but care, nothing but respect… and still, the fear ruled, amplified by the heat’s confusing signals.
I moved toward the door, but Rhex was faster, his massive frame blocking my path. Not with aggression, but with urgent concern that registered even through my growing panic.
"Nyx, wait," he said, his voice rougher than usual, strained with the effort of maintaining control in the face of my heat scent. "You can’t leave like this. It isn’t safe."
My scent spiked again, stronger this time, richer, impossible to contain. I watched the shift happen in all three of them simultaneously… pupils dilating, postures tensing, nostrils flaring as they processed the pheromonal message my body broadcast without my conscious intent. Their control, so perfect before, began to strain under the pressure of biological imperative.
"Let me pass," I whispered, hating the fear in my voice but unable to suppress it. "Please, Rhex. I need… I can’t..."
Before he could respond, a pounding on the door shattered the tense standoff. Hard, insistent knocks that spoke of urgencybeyond ordinary palace business. The sound ramped my panic higher, adrenaline flooding a system already overwhelmed by heat and fear.
Kael moved to answer it, his movements stiff with the effort of maintaining composure. When the door opened, I glimpsed only a single guard beyond, not the army I’d feared in my panicked state, but still a threat to the fragile privacy we’d established.
It was enough. The momentary distraction, the fractional opening, the brief shift in their attention. I moved before conscious thought formed, slipping past Rhex’s side while his focus was split between me and whatever message the guard delivered. My bare feet made no sound on the polished floor as I darted through the narrow opening and into the corridor beyond.
"Nyx!" Silas called after me, his voice carrying a note of genuine alarm I’d never heard from him before. "Wait!"
But I couldn’t wait. Couldn’t stop. Couldn’t think beyond the primitive need to create distance, to find safety, to escape before the past could repeat itself in ways my rational mind knew were unlikely but my traumatized omega instincts screamed were inevitable.
I ran. Down corridors I barely registered, past startled guards who made aborted movements to stop me but seemed uncertain of their authority to intercept what was clearly a claimed omega… the fresh marks on my neck visible evidence of my status. My feet carried me without conscious direction, seeking exit, seeking air, seeking space to clear my head from the confusion of heat, fear, and bonding that tangled together in my blood.
And as I ran, as distance grew between myself and the three princes, I felt it happening… the fracturing of the perfect balancewe’d achieved. Without my presence as the fourth point in our configuration, the amplification became unstable again.
The Bond didn’t break—it was too profound for that—but it destabilized, harmony giving way to discord in my absence.
I felt it like physical pain, a tearing sensation beneath my breastbone that had nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with separation from something essential. The claiming marks on my neck throbbed in unified protest, the new bond stretched thin by distance it wasn’t designed to accommodate.
