She shatters between us. Screaming both our names. Magic detonating outward in waves that crack the mirror from top to bottom and send furniture sliding across the floor. The bonds explode with light. Gold-green, silver-blue. And somewhere distant, a pulse of pure gold answering.
Finnian. Still connected. Still feeling her through the bond.
Good. Let him feel this. Let him know what’s waiting for him when he comes back.
The thought tips me over the edge.
“Fuck—” The word tears out of me as I bury myself deep and let go. The orgasm rips through me with enough force to white out my vision. I pulse inside her, filling her, claiming her in the most primal way possible.
Kieran follows seconds later. His roar is ice and winter storms, echoing through the room as he empties himself into her. And through the barrier between us, through the bonds blazing at our wrists, I feel his release, her release, all three of us connected in a feedback loop of pleasure so intense I lose track of where I end and they begin.
We come together.
The way it was always supposed to be.
I’ve spent a long time waiting for something I couldn’t name. Guarding a Cauldron I didn’t want, serving queens who didn’t see me, watching Kieran and Finnian find each other while I stood outside the circle.
This is what I was waiting for.
Her.
Them.
Us.
The room goes still.
Three bodies pressed together, breathing ragged, magic slowly settling around us like glitter falling to earth. The mirror is destroyed. Cracked from top to bottom, shards scattered across the floor. The furniture has rearranged itself against the walls. One of the bedposts is smoking.
“Holy shit.” Ash’s voice is absolutely wrecked. Destroyed. The voice of a woman who just got fucked by two Fae and lived to tell about it.
“If either of you saysincredibleI’m going to stab you.” She laughs, shaky and breathless. “It was beyond incredible. There isn’t a word. Someone needs to invent a word.”
“Claimed.” Kieran pulls out slowly, and she whimpers at the loss, fingers scrabbling at the ruined mirror frame. “The word is claimed.”
“Ours.” I withdraw just as carefully, pressing kisses down her spine as I go. “The word is ours.”
“The word isneed to sit down before I collapse.” She laughs again, and her knees buckle.
I catch her before she falls, scooping her up and carrying her to the bed. Kieran follows, stretching out on her other side, and for a moment we’re just three bodies tangled together. Sweaty. Satisfied. Something permanent in the air between us.
“That mirror is destroyed,” Ash observes, glancing at the cracked glass. “Also I think we set a bedpost on fire.”
“Worth it.” I press my mouth to her shoulder.
“Replaceable.” Kieran’s frost-cold fingers trace patterns on her hip. “You’re not.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Her hand finds mine, squeezing. Then finds Kieran’s, linking all three of us together.
“Finnian should have been here.”
The name hangs in the air. The fourth corner of our strange little square, missing but not forgotten.
I think about the scholar’s face when he looks at her. The way his whole body softens, like she’s the answer to a question he’s been asking his whole life. The way he’d have catalogued every response, every sound, probably written a damn thesis about the magical properties of simultaneous orgasm.
He should have been here. Taking notes. Making her laugh with his earnest observations. Being exactly the steadiness we need when Kieran and I are too much fire and ice.
We’re going to get him back. And then I’m going to watch him fall apart inside her while Kieran and I hold her steady.
