by Lexi C. Foss
Cyrus smiled and uttered the next part.
“To cherish and respect, through all the eras and time that may fall before us, until our souls do us part.” This was the same as my mating to Cyrus. However, the circumstances were very different. I’d spoken the vows in a dreamlike state within the Water Kingdom. Now, oh, Exos was making this extremely difficult.
Keep going, he encouraged through our bond. I’m just warming us up.
Some warm-up, I thought back at him while Cyrus spoke the next part.
“I give unto him the center of my essence, the heart of my being, my very spirit, and accept his in return,” I recited, my voice far breathier now than it was when we began. Because Exos’s warm-up? Yeah, it was turning into something far bigger.
Cyrus kissed me again before delivering the final words.
Which I parroted in a sultry voice I barely recognized.
“My element is now his just as his is now mine, to the fae heavens may we never part. And I shall never forsake him for another, my spirit forever belonging to him and to him alone.”
“Mmm,” Exos murmured, the vibration pushing me near the edge of oblivion.
And he sat up.
I half growled, my thighs quivering from the pending climax he’d denied me. But then he started speaking, the vows ones he clearly knew by heart. A warm aura settled over us, our spirits mingling intimately on a plane only we could access together. It was the place where our elements bonded, where promises were made and feelings were realized.
With each word he uttered, I felt the finality of our joining clicking into place, tying me to him indefinitely.
I sighed, the burning in my veins subsiding beneath a euphoric wave of rightness.
Mine.
Mine, he agreed in my mind, his palm settling over my heart.
Cyrus placed his hand over Exos’s, creating a powerful burst of energy that swirled around the three of us.
Two finalized bonds.
Water and Spirit.
Royal ties on both ends.
Titus, Vox, and Sol came to life in my mind, their elements aware of my deepened ties to spirit. But I didn’t feel any animosity or jealousy, just a sense of understanding and acceptance.
I was a Halfling with access to all five elements. I needed my fae mates to ground me, to complete the elemental circle we’d all started.
And two of those threads were now absolute.
Nothing could come between us.
Not even my evil-as-fuck mother.
Exos stretched out on top of me, his mouth sealing over mine. A kiss to bind us together forever. I felt it all the way to my toes, the finality of our embrace. And the welcome of a new future.
My tongue met his in a dance filled with promise and intent. All the heat he’d awoken between my legs roared back to life with a vengeance, my need for him consuming my every thought.
Please, I whispered to him. Please, Exos.
After months of him exploring me sexually, I needed him to let me return the favor. I craved his intensity, his touch, his intimacy.
He cupped my breast, his touch similar to Cyrus’s and yet so entirely his own.
Cyrus, I thought, remembering his presence.
Only, he was no longer standing beside the bed.
Try not to kill my brother, little queen. He’s still recovering. His words caressed my mind, his touch fluid and strong and commanding.
Pretty sure he can handle himself. As Exos was proving with his mouth.
Cyrus mentally slid away with a chuckle that warmed me all over. A warmth Exos seemed to follow with his hands as he traced my curves. “My brother had you for a week, Claire,” he said softly, nipping at my lower lip. “Today you’re mine. And only mine.”
I had no reply for that.
Which was good because he didn’t give me a chance to even try before taking over my mouth again.
His hips settled between mine, his pants an unwelcome barrier. But my wrists were still bound, holding me hostage as he took his sweet time kissing me. I could taste myself on his tongue, a flavor that only heightened my arousal and need for him.
All these months of foreplay.
Culminating in a fiery moment of passion.
One he seemed hell-bent on prolonging.
“Exos,” I moaned. “You’re killing me.”
“Seems only fair to give you a dose of how I’ve felt these last few months.” He pressed a kiss to my throat before dipping down to tease my breasts. “I’ve burned for you, Claire. So fucking hot. And now you’re mine.” Those dark blue eyes glimmered up at me. “Mine, princess.”
“Yours,” I agreed, my hips arching in a desperate plea for friction.
He sucked my nipple deep into his mouth, the act almost punishing but also deliciously appeasing. Such a twisted and convoluted sensation.
Exos repeated the action with my other peak before drawing back onto his knees to admire my bound form. “You’re turning a beautiful shade of pink, Claire.”
“Because I’m on fire,” I admitted, squirming. Fuck, if my hands were free, I’d pleasure myself at this rate.
Which was probably why he tied my wrists above my head.
Evil mate.
“Fuck me,” I demanded.
His full lips quirked up. “Oh, I’m going to do more than you fuck you, baby.” He slowly slid down his zipper. “I’m going to devour you—mind, body, and spirit.”
I had no idea what he meant by that, but I welcomed all of the above.
My acquiescence with his plans only deepened as he revealed his perfect cock. Long, lean, and strong, just like him. He swept his thumb over the head and brought the essence to my lips.
He didn’t even need to issue a demand.
I sucked the pad into my mouth without a word and moaned as his masculine flavor touched my tongue. Yes… I’ve been craving him for so long. Too long.
And finally he was naked.
Hard.
Ready.
But not moving, his gaze riveted on my weeping center.
“Exos,” I hissed, my body strung so tight it felt ready to shatter.
He stroked his shaft, his expression thoughtful. “You look beautiful like this. Hot. Needy. So fucking wet.”
Oh God, if he kept talking to me like that, I’d burst. And wouldn’t that be a feat?
His smile told me he knew, too.
“I missed you, Claire,” he whispered, crawling over me. “Do you want to feel how much?”
“Yes.” I swallowed and repeated, “Yes.”
His lips ghosted over mine as he positioned his hips right where I wanted him. “I’ve wanted this from the moment I first saw you,” he admitted softly. “I fought it at first only because you needed time to acclimate, but there wasn’t a second between us that I didn’t think about this. About having you.”
He pressed against my entrance, his body shuddering over mine and revealing the truth of his words.
“I’ve never wanted someone so much in my life.” He spoke the words against my mouth, his heart beating hard in his chest against mine. “And now you’re truly mine.”
Exos slid all the way inside, sheathing himself to the hilt with a thrust so powerful I gasped.
A sense of completion washed over me, sprouting goose bumps up and down my limbs. That was the finality of our vows, marrying our spirits in eternity. I thought I’d felt it earlier, but this was the consummation.
And as he began to move, I felt our souls stitching together in an unbreakable knot, sealing our fates for eternity.
I groaned, the wholesome feeling consuming me, leaving me light and buoyant and full. My hands ached with the need to touch him, something he must have sensed because he released the binds while capturing my mouth beneath his own.
My nails scored his back, drawing my name into his very flesh as he claimed my body below. He wasn’t soft or tender. No. Exos was all strength, his movements done with purpose and fulfillment. Every upward stroke hit me deep, and
every flex of his hips grazed my clit.
He was skill personified.
Experienced in the best way.
Flawless and thorough and amazing.
My spirit seemed to detach from my body, sprinting toward our plane to find his element, to join in a gyration of heat and intensity.
With each shift and touch, I flew closer to the edge, my limbs tense and shaking.
And then I was falling on a scream I swore reached the stars.
Exos caught the sound with his tongue, feeding off my pleasure while giving me more, his pace increasing as he chased me into oblivion.
Where we met and moaned and reveled in a rapture I felt with every fiber of my being.
Joined. That was how I felt. This had gone beyond fucking and directly into the art of making love. Exos had redefined it, adding his own flavor to the twist, his own technique to the act of bonding.
I shuddered beneath him, nowhere near done.
And from his continued movements, I knew he wasn’t either.
“Take me to the stars, Exos,” I whispered.
He smiled. “Oh, Claire, I’m going to take you to a whole new galaxy.”
And he did.
With each thrust, kiss, lick, and caress, he introduced me to the novel world of spirit. Our own personal paradise where only we belonged.
For eternity.
Claire
The gown Exos slid over my head felt too heavy, too suffocating. I didn’t want to wear anything, every part of me too alive from Exos’s touch. But attending his coronation naked would raise a few questions.
Unlike our mating ceremony, there would be more than just Cyrus at the ascension.
Exos’s lips ghosted across my bare shoulder. “You look beautiful, Claire.” The silky material hugged my curves, the color the same shade as his dark blue eyes.
I met his gaze in the mirror and smiled. “You look pretty handsome yourself.”
He chuckled and fixed his tie. Considering how we’d spent the afternoon, we both cleaned up pretty well. The shower had helped. But seeing Exos dressed in an all-black suit just had me wanting to return to the bed again.
He grabbed my hips and pulled me back into him. “After the formalities are finished, I’ll take you up on that thought.” His lips brushed my racing pulse. “Maybe Cyrus will join us.”
My lips parted. “Cyrus?”
Exos nipped my earlobe and released me with a vague hum. I tried to grab his hand, but he was already on his way to the door. He opened it to reveal his brother waiting in the hallway in an identical suit.
Despite spending my afternoon with Exos, my hormones did a little dance. Because, holy Fae, the two males were sin personified.
And their matching grins said they knew it, too.
Cocky males.
I heard that, Cyrus replied, holding out his arm. Come here, little queen.
I smirked and shook my head. You’re incorrigible. But of course I went to him anyway. Because he was Cyrus. In a suit. And he smelled like the mist from a fresh waterfall.
He hugged me close, his lips pressing into my temple. “Mmm, I see my brother took good care of you today.”
Exos closed the door to his room with a snort. “I took more than good care of her.”
Cyrus laughed. “Yes, I felt that through the bond.” He kissed me again before sliding his arm to my lower back. “Shall we? The crowd has already started to gather in the town square. Feather is managing the roast, while several others have created an assortment of side dishes. Gale handled the spritemead, which I’m sure shocks you.”
“Gale? Spritemead?” Exos feigned surprise. “And here I thought he hated alcohol of all kinds.”
Neither name meant anything to me, but the fondness in Exos’s and Cyrus’s auras told me they meant something to them.
“Are they Spirit Fae?” I wondered out loud. It seemed an appropriate deduction since we were in the Spirit Kingdom, but I also knew over ninety percent of the Spirit Fae had perished after my mother unleashed a plague a little over two decades ago.
“Yes. Gale helped raise us after our mother died.” Exos threaded his fingers with mine, walking to my left, while Cyrus’s arm remained snug around my waist, his heat a blanket against my right side. “Feather is the oldest matron of the Spirit Fae, but only about fifty human years old. She looks closer to twenty-five, like the rest of us.”
“The plague took out all the eldest fae among us,” Cyrus clarified.
“And it’s happening again with the Earth Fae,” I added, swallowing. “At least, that’s how Sol described it.”
Exos nodded. “Something similar is happening to his kind, yes. But rather than wipe them out in a single day, it’s taking years.”
“Almost like something—or someone—is feeding off their energy,” Cyrus murmured, his expression falling into serious lines.
“Someone like my mother,” I translated.
“Maybe.” He cleared his throat, his arm tightening around my waist. “But that’s a discussion for tomorrow. Tonight is a joyous occasion. My brother has finally decided to grow the fuck up.”
Exos snorted. “Okay, Prince of Water. If that’s how you want to play this.”
“Who served as Spirit King for the last decade because his brother preferred playing warrior?” Cyrus pretended to think about it. “Oh, right, me.”
“Playing warrior.” Exos shook his head, but his grin said he didn’t mind the jibe. “I’ll play warrior with you later and see how you fare.”
My eyebrows rose. “That sounds like an innuendo.” One I would really enjoy watching unfold.
“Because you have fae cock on the brain.” Cyrus glanced over my shoulder as we descended one of the palace’s many stone staircases. “I’m starting to think you left our little queen unsatisfied, brother.”
“She’s insatiable,” he drawled.
Cyrus grinned. “Tell me about it.”
“If you both keep talking about me like I’m not walking between you, I’ll make sure you’re both very unsatisfied.”
They laughed, their confidence a palpable cloud around us. “We’ll see,” Cyrus mused. Yeah, he sounded pretty sure of himself. And, well, I couldn’t blame him. Not with them both resembling gods in their matching suits. They would have me naked and panting in seconds if they put their minds to it. Especially if they worked together.
Just thinking about it had me clenching my thighs.
An Exos and Cyrus sandwich? Uh, yes, please.
I’ll keep that in mind, Cyrus replied.
Stop playing in my head, I muttered, my cheeks heating from how easily he read my thoughts.
Stop telegraphing so loudly, he returned.
“I rather like how open she is to sharing,” Exos said out loud. “Something to consider later.”
“Can we not do this right now?” Because if they kept it up, I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face in front of the other Spirit Fae. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I could stand before them at all without melting into a puddle of need. Mating Exos had left my body primed and ready and needy.
It’d taken almost a week in bed with Cyrus to work it out.
I’d only indulged in an afternoon with Exos.
To say I wanted more would be an understatement.
Don’t worry, princess. I’ll take care of us both, Exos whispered, squeezing my hand. But I need to ascend first, to stabilize the Spirit Kingdom.
Right. Because Cyrus had essentially renounced his throne when he mated me in the Water Kingdom. He was the king’s only heir, leaving him with no choice but to ascend now that he’d chosen a mate for his water element.
And Exos had to become the Spirit King.
Making me the mate to not one but two Royal Fae.
Just another day in the life of Claire Summers, I thought with a snort.
My heels clacked against the marble ground as we reached the first floor and started toward the main hall.
This place was a vacant maze where sou
nd echoed due to the lack of people. Stepping outside almost relieved me, until I felt the cruel pull toward the death fields.
Fortunately, we were headed in the opposite direction, toward the town in the distance.
Cyrus stopped beside a vehicle—or I assumed that was the purpose of the strange three-wheeled contraption. It looked like the kind of thing I saw back in the Human Realm, with a few distinct modifications.
Like the open-air seating.
And the lack of a steering wheel.
It looked like what would happen if a car mated with a motorcycle.
“Hop in, princess,” Exos said.
“Hop in,” I repeated. “Right.” A magical fae car wasn’t the most exciting thing I’d been introduced to over the last few months, so why not? I allowed him to help me onto the soft, leather-like seat while Cyrus climbed in behind me. “I didn’t realize fae had cars.”
“Not really a car,” Exos replied as he slid over to sit beside me. “More like a teleporter.”
“A wh—”
The wind whooshed from my lungs as the contraption began to spin. I grappled for something to hold on to, which turned out to be Exos’s arm, and held on for dear life as the scenery morphed into a cloud of dust.
Within seconds, we were surrounded by tiny cottages and cobblestone streets. I blinked. We’re in Bavaria, I thought, bewildered. Thoughts of my high school geography class populated my mind, flashing images of Southern Germany left and right.
No, little queen. We’re still in Spirit Kingdom.
Looks like Germany to me.
Well, sometimes fae travel to the Human Realm and create inspirations. Where do you think supernatural tales came from? Cyrus nibbled the back of my neck before jumping out of the teleportation transporter thing. He held out a hand. “Claire.”
“Cyrus,” I replied, allowing him to help me find my footing. “What do you call that thing?”
“A convenience.” He smiled. “Much faster than walking.”
“But that’s not how we got here from the Academy.”
“No, we used another method of transportation,” Exos said as he came around the front of the teleporter thing. “Portals take us between the kingdoms, and the realms, too. Same idea in terms of technology and power, but different execution.”
