More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Did you ever stop to ask what the purpose of such a side effect could be?”
“Ah, but we’re not in your head.” He grabs my hand and tugs me to my feet. “We’re in your heart, and that’s something altogether different.” “Don’t talk in riddles. I don’t have the patience for it.” “Pity.” He laughs. Wolf dips down and licks the blood from my upper chest. The sound he makes is nearly a purr. “We’re not just eager and willing cocks, love.”
“In all those years, I only saw him lose control of his shape when he was with Malachi and me. Only us. Never when someone else was involved.”
“When you have strong emotional spikes, all three of us feel it. Knowing when you’re afraid or angry is incredibly useful on that note.”
“What is this, Wolf? Let us in.” “What’s the password?” “Wolf.”
I want them all inside me.
curses. “We have to go. Now.” His voice goes low and dangerous. “We’ll discuss the demon once we get somewhere safe.”
“What did you do, little dhampir?”
“I’ll carry you.” “Actually—” “Wolf, I know you’re not planning on arguing with me after you just went behind both our backs with this demon. Shut your fucking mouth.”
Trio? Does that mean I’m outside the hierarchy? I don’t know how to feel about that.
“Mina. Little dhampir.” He leans back enough that he can hold my gaze. “It will happen again. Even if you manage to break it this time, the bond is part of being a seraph. I’m not leaving you. I’ll just end up bonded to you again.”
“You’re a fucking coward, Rylan. You were full of plans and strategies to free Malachi from his prison, but the moment we found a way through—a way that you suggested and participated in—you start crying about regrets. Why are you willing to keep playing the victim and holding yourself at a distance from what you truly want? We are right here.”
“Poor Rylan, knocked on his ass by a pretty little seraph and her magic pussy.” Wolf snarls. “It must be fucking terrible to love the chains she’s unwittingly wrapped around you. That’s the real problem isn’t it? It’s not that you hate the bond. You fucking love it.”
“Is it true?” Malachi’s words are so low, they’re almost lost in the crackle of the fire. Rylan curses. “Yes.” Malachi drops his hands. “Stop punishing us for what’s going on in your head.”
“I suppose it’s not a bad thing to have an abundance of love.”
“I’m done fighting it. I want everything. You. Mina.” He glances at Wolf. “Even this asshole.” “Be still my heart.”
“You might have the bond, little dhampir, but we do, too. You’re ours as much as we’re yours.”
“I’m done fighting this. Are you?”
“There’s no going back after this.” “There wasn’t going back the moment we chose this method of breaking the blood ward.” Rylan devours me with his eyes. “I’ve adjusted my expectations.”
“Please!” “Not yet,” Malachi murmurs. “Rylan made us wait for an entire month. A few more minutes won’t kill either of you.”
“I enter you, you enter her.”
Even as tired as he obviously is, there’s heat in his dark eyes. An answering pulse goes through me. No matter what else is true, I love having sex with these men. Love it. I…love them.
“Fill her up, Rylan. I want all three of us mixed inside that perfect pussy.”
“You can take more,” he murmurs.
“You look happy.”
Rylan pours coffee into a mug and passes it to me. “I’ll learn to cook.” When all three of us stare at him, he shrugs. “It’s a necessary skill if we have someone who consumes food.”
“Bar the door behind me. If the worst were to happen, there’s a hatch below the desk that will take you out. It’s narrow and uncomfortable, but you’ll be free.”
“You okay?” Grace gives a rough laugh. “You’re not like, pregnant or something, are you?”
To be thorough, I scan myself from head to toe. There, nestled in my lower stomach, I find it.
“Turns out you were right.” I swallow hard. “I’m pregnant.”
“The bond?” “That would be my best bet.” That’s comforting, though I would feel better if someone had a full explanation. “Is this a dream?” “It must be. I’m not hungry.”
“I have exactly two people to breach the compound. We can’t win. Even with the pregnancy, we can’t win.” “Even with the what?”
“For fuck’s sake, Malachi, no one is blaming that thing.” Rylan swipes his hand across his mouth again, as if he wants to scrub the taste of me right off his tongue. No reason for that to sting, but my logical side isn’t online right now. He shakes his head. “Something’s off, and it has nothing to do with this realm, if it’s even a realm. She might have simply pulled us into her dreams.”
Wolf speaks right over me. “She asked me how to summon Azazel. When I refused to tell her, she compelled me.”
He frowns. “What’s the matter with you?” “Just special, I guess.” He frowns harder and leans down to coast his hand over my body. He doesn’t touch me, keeping a careful few inches of distance between us, but it still feels too intimate. Especially when he hovers over my midsection and huffs out a laugh. “I suppose that would do it. You’re cooking quite the little beast in there, aren’t you?”
“What did you do?” “Supplemental shield. It won’t stop the beast from growing or gaining the necessary sustenance to survive, but it will stop the constant drain of power.” He considers. “Think of it as a funnel rather than a waterfall. Better for both of you, I imagine.”
“Mina.” Malachi cups my chin gently and lifts my face until I meet his gaze. His handsome face is oh so serious, dark eyes intense. “I know we thought this was the only way, but if you don’t want this, we’ll find a different option.” “Just like that?” The question catches in my throat and comes out jagged. “You told me you couldn’t wait to knock me up.” “I know.” He shrugs, though his intensity doesn’t waver. “But I care about you more than anything else, little dhampir. If you don’t want children, then we won’t have children.”
“I do want it, I think. I haven’t really had time to process, and I—” Right here, right now, I can tell him the truth. The awful feeling in my throat gets worse. “I’m afraid to want it. Wanting something is a good excuse for the world to take it away. To have my father take it away.” I press my hand to Malachi’s broad chest. “I dared to want you and look what happened. You spent a week being tortured by him.”
“I love you, Mina.”
I lick my lips. “I…I love you, too.”
“Take as much as you need. Everything I have is yours.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “There she is,” Wolf says. He sounds relieved. “Had us worried for a minute, love.” “I’m sorry,” I repeat. I can’t look at them. I just acted like a monster. I wasn’t thinking about them as men and people I care deeply about. The only thing that mattered to me was drinking as much of their blood as I could. “I don’t know what that was.”
I can’t keep burrowing into Malachi’s chest like a coward. This—whatever this new complication is—needs to be faced. “You’re not a coward,” Malachi says softly. “Nah, not a coward.” The bed shifts as Wolf tosses himself down onto it. “Just a cute little dhampir-slash-seraph in over her head.”
“My parents were even more unhinged than I am; it didn’t make for a restful childhood. I haven’t seen them since I left a very long time ago. It’s better for everyone that we don’t congregate often.” He won’t quite meet my gaze. “I take great pains to ensure I don’t cross paths with my sister more than strictly necessary.”
“Get that look off your face.” He presses his thumb to the spot between my brows. “You could use a little less worrying. Malachi and Rylan are both too brilliant not to figure this out.” The right words, but the wrong tone. I frown. “There’s something else you’re not telling me.” “Wolf.” His name is barely more than a rumble from Malachi. A warning.
“What he’s trying to figure out how to bend over backwards to avoid saying is that there’s a distinct possibility that Rylan’s mother will take the questions about seraphim as an excuse to hunt you down and kill you.”
“Eh.” Wolf shrugs, totally relaxed. “We just need to kill your father, convert all his little followers to being your followers, and you’ll be set. Our enemies come after you, we’ll kill them. They send others, and we’ll kill them, too. Eventually, they’ll realize we’re too powerful to fuck with and don’t have any intention of repeating history and they’ll leave us alone.” He grins. “Except for the odd assassination attempt to keep us on our toes.”
“No one’s tracked them properly because they’ve died trying.” He flicks Malachi’s hair off his shoulder. “Might be a fun challenge in a couple hundred years when the baby bats are grown and have flown the nest.”
A reluctant smile pulls at the edges of my lips. “You can’t even turn into a bat.” “Rylan can.” Wolf makes a show of shuddering. “Freakish thing. Too big. Could probably carry you on its back if you wanted.”
“When seraphim became pregnant, they would retreat into their fortified locations for the duration. Based on when they’d go missing, it was estimated that the gestation cycle is similar to a vampire or human. Forty weeks, give or take.” He looks at me, dark eyes conflicted. “We don’t have information on what happens during that time. They would disappear with a retinue of vampire…servants…and reappear with a brand-new seraph baby. Most of the time, the vampires that went with them were never seen again.”
