They were taking too much.
I tried to tell them, to warn them, to beg them to stop, but each pull sucked me deeper into a web of euphoria I couldn’t escape from. Two mouths at my neck, one at my breast, and a pulsing need blossoming between my thighs.
As if Zeph knew, he released my breast to slide his mouth down to my nipple, his green eyes meeting mine as he gently teased the tip with his tongue.
I weakly arched off the ground, my body responding while my mind fought to catch up. Only, he sucked my nipple deep into his mouth, causing my brain to flicker out of existence.
Kols chuckled against my neck, his tongue dancing over the wound he’d created. “That’s fun,” he mused, tracing a wet path up to my ear. “If I didn’t want to kill you, I’d indulge in that reaction more.”
I shivered, uncertain of how to react to that threat.
“You won’t kill her,” Shade said, his mouth whispering over my jaw as he moved to hover against my lips. “It’ll hurt too much.” He kissed me tenderly, his tongue slipping between my lips to give me a taste of my own blood.
Zeph nibbled my breast sharply, causing me to gasp, and Kols mimicked the motion against my earlobe. “What the fuck are we going to do now?” he asked.
“Mmm, you’re the future king,” Shade murmured, speaking each word against my mouth. “I imagine you’ll figure it out. In the interim, I’ll tuck our sleeping beauty into my room for the night since you destroyed hers.”
“Don’t you fucking?—”
I never heard the end of Kols’s statement, his words disappearing beneath a cloud of smoke. One that seconds later unfurled to reveal a bed adorned in rich purple silk.
Shade’s bed.
“Fuck!”Kols shouted, his focus on the space Shade and Aflora had just vacated. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”
“That’s assuming you’ll be alive to do it,” I muttered, looking around the field. “You fucking mated her, didn’t you?”
Kols expelled a long breath, several curses following before he said, “All three of us just fucking did.”
“Oh, I know that part.” I pressed a palm to my chest, irritated by the strand circling my heart and linking back to a woman none of us had any business claiming as our own. “I was referring tobeforeour little quad formation. Aflora was drenched in your power.”
Kols grimaced, his palm gripping the back of his neck as he blew out a long breath. “We, uh, fucked.”
I gathered as much by her half-dressed state. She’d run out here without shoes on, her hair a mess, and her shirt on backward. It was part of the reason I’d chased after her from the Elite Residence. The other part was driven by guilt. I’d been hard on her today. Maybe a little too hard.
And now everything had gone to hell.
“I get fucking her”—more than I ever wanted to admit—“but why the hell did you bite her?” I knew Kols. He had better control than that, even around someone as alluring as Aflora.
“I didn’t. Not until just now, anyway.” He shoved off the ground to his feet, his focus shifting to the damage around us. “Her Elemental Fae bond initiated, taking us to the third level.”
My lips actually parted. “That’s why I smelled her all over you.” I’d known it was deeper than sex, but I couldn’t figure out why she practically oozed his magic. Now I understood it. “She mated you.”
“She did.” Anger colored his tone, but I suspected he was more furious with himself than with her. Kols knew as well as I did that the bond between Elemental Fae required mutual agreement to take form.
Which meant that deep down he’d wanted to mate Aflora.
And that had to be pissing him off.
“It caused our powers to merge,” he added gruffly, taking in the destruction. “She exploded as a result.”
“Your power sent her over the edge.”
“And straight into the deep end.” He shook his head, his annoyance palpable. “I have no idea how we’re going to fix this. The consequences will be severe.”
“They’ll absolutely kill her for this, and likely me as well.” Because I’d failed to protect Kols yet again. I’d also partaken in the four-way bond, not to benefit Kols but to save an abomination. That wouldn’t be forgiven lightly, if at all.
“Yes,” Kols agreed softly. “They’ll slaughter her publicly to punish the three of us. Then they’ll take your life as well to hurt me specifically. And my father will definitely postpone my ascension.” He uttered the words in a dead tone, his golden irises flaring with power and knowledge.
