My heart squeezes with delight at that.Princess.
He stands, drawing me up with him. The robe is soft against my clean skin, Julian's touch still warm on my legs, Tyler's tea still warming me from the inside.
They lead me to the bedroom.
The space feels different tonight. Lamps turned low, casting everything in gold. The bed was made with care, pillows arranged, blankets turned down. This is a ceremony.
We’re actually doing this.
Calder's hands are gentle as he helps me onto the bed, settling me against the pillows. "Tell us if anything doesn't feel right."
I nod, too full of emotion to speak.
They arrange themselves around me with the same reverent care Calder showed in the shower. He takes my left side. Tyler my right. Julian settles in front of me, angled so he can reach the right side of my neck from a different position.
A constellation. Four points. About to become permanent.
Julian’s fingers tilt my chin, exposing the curve of my neck. “On three,” he says, calm, though his pulse betrays him.
Calder is already too close.
I feel his restraint like a wire pulled tight.
Tyler’s breath stutters against my skin.
I smell mint on all three of them, toothpaste, clean heat, an almost ritual neatness beneath the rising musk of alpha scent. Cedar deepening. Honey warming. Winter sharpening.
“Ready?” Julian asks.
I nod.
“One.”
Teeth graze skin. Not biting yet. Just promise.
“Two.”
Calder’s control fractures first. He doesn’t wait for three.
His teeth sink into the left side of my neck with a low, involuntary sound that tears from his chest, half growl, half unbearable desire. It’s not coordinated. It’s instinct finally breaking through discipline.
Pain blooms, sharp and immediate, and I gasp.
The other two follow a heartbeat later.
Tyler bites higher on the right, slowly, as though he’s sealing something sacred rather than claiming it. His breath shakes when his teeth break skin.
Julian is last, deliberate even in surrender. He positions carefully, then commits fully, pressure precise, controlled, unrelenting.
Three separate bites.
Three separate wills.
All converging.
The pain is real.
It slices through me, heat and blood and instinct colliding, and my hands twist into the sheets.
