“About the jealousy you were feeling earlier,” Rowen commented nonchalantly, but it felt like I was being doused with cold water.
My lips pursed as I contemplated denying his words, but before I could, he made it clear that wasn’t going to work.
“Your face is an open book, Sera. Any of us can tell what you’re feeling by your expression,” he mused, his lips curving into his signature smirk. It made me scowl in response, hating that they knew everything simply because my face was too animated.
Sucking in a deep breath and pulling up my big girl panties, I blew out the air and admitted, “I was jealous at the thought of you all touching one another or someone else before me. I’m sorry.”
Sylan’s silver-sparked eyes bore into mine, radiating compassion and understanding. “You don’t have to apologize for how you feel, Sera. Does it make you feel any better to know we have not touched one another—or anyone else, for that matter? We have been waiting for our mate—and we only want you.”
His words sent a thrill down my spine, and I had to hold back the triumphant smile that wanted to grace my face instantly. “Oh, I thought… When I, um, touched your cocks together, you might have because of the groans of…satisfaction,” I trailed off in embarrassment, and Axton chuckled, making my cheeks tingle with a slight blush.
“We enjoyed it because you seemed to be enjoying it. Your pleasure brings us more fulfillment than you can imagine. And for the record—I love this possessive side of you, precious.”
His words brought me up short. I hadn’t even contemplated this, and now I felt a little foolish for my jealous reaction earlier. Thankfully, the end of his statement assuaged the embarrassment a bit. I was being possessive, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it to prevent myself from instinctually feeling that way.
I needed to figure out if I was going to give in fully to this dynamic, because I was doing none of us any favors with my indecision, but damn was all of this a tough pill to swallow in such a short time.
Straightening, I pushed myself off the floor, wrapping an arm around my naked stomach, suddenly feeling slightly chilled. My eyes darted to the bronze eyes currently gazing at my pebbled nipples, and instantly some of my fire returned.
“And what about you, Rowen? This entire time you’ve been smirking. Care to tell me what amuses you so? Or your problem with me in general with the distance you randomly put between us?”
The glee fizzled out of his eyes, which became shuttered and distant once more. Shocker. He turned away, and I knew he didn’t intend to answer me at all. Disappointment bloomed inside my chest at the dismissal.
I’d answered him truthfully when he asked me a question, but he couldn’t reciprocate? I quickly raced until I was in front of him, blocking his exit. He wasn’t leaving until we talked.
Whether Rowen liked it or not, we were hashing out our shit now.
Chapter Twelve
SERA
Rowen stared at me as if he couldn’t believe my audacity—even I was surprised at my boldness, but I was quickly realizing that the Serafina Adler from The Above was not the real Sera. Who I was down here in The Below with these monsters was my true identity. I finally felt safe enough to explore who I wanted to be, and maybe that was why I was so scared of this new world.
They made it feel like my heart was home.
We all had our secrets, and I wasn’t demanding that Rowen had to tell me all of his, but a relationship was give and take. The longer we were together here, the more confused he made me. His reactions to me varied so much, ranging from treating me like I was this precious treasure to him to treating me like my presence was a nuisance. The whiplash was driving me mad, on top of my own conflicting emotions about everything going on.
“Do you not want me as your mate?” I asked quietly, staring up at him, trying to get a read on him but failing epically.
Heaving out a deep sigh, he hedged, “It’s not that…” making my stomach twist in knots.
“Then what is it?” I pleaded, tired of this game between us. “I know something’s wrong.”
Rowen’s lips twisted into a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’re not ready to hear my secrets, gem. Besides, just like you’re not ready to spill yours, I’m not ready to tell mine.”
I looked away in irritation. “I don’t have any secrets,” I muttered unconvincingly.
“How about you both just talk to one another,” Sylan intervened, playing the peacemaker. I heard him mumble under his breath at the end, “So similarly stubborn.”
Rowen and I both glared at him, proving his claim correct, but I knew Sylan was right deep down. If I wanted Rowen to talk, I needed to do the same.
“I’ll go first,” I offered to Rowen, clearing my throat and looking up at him once more. “I think you hide behind your jokes and put up a wall any time you see Axton and Sylan growing closer to me.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sylan’s silverish eyes rolling upwards and guessed this wasn’t what he had in mind. Maybe he thought I would talk about my feelings first, but I was still feeling a little vulnerable. I wanted to test the waters of how he would respond before I opened up.
Rowen narrowed his bronze eyes at me in challenge. “And I think you hide behind a false bravado and are scared deep down about our connection.”
I pursed my lips, looking away for a moment. This would be a deciding moment for us, and finally I gave in and tore down my own walls. Flicking my eyes back to him, I confessed, “You’re right. I am afraid. I didn’t know what to expect here—still don’t know what to expect. I was thrown out of my world into one I’d never been taught about, and granted, you’re not the monsters that we’ve been trained to fear, but you’re still strangers.”
Rowen’s eyes softened, making my hackles deflate at the kind expression. I had been prepared for an argument, so it was a welcomed surprise. “We’re all afraid, Sera, especially me. Axton, Sylan, and I have so much to lose. I don’t want to fall in love with you and then something happens to take you away from us. What would we do then? We would be broken.”
My heart fluttered his candidness, but my eyes widened at the veiled meaning I sensed in it. “What do you mean? Is something going to happen…to me?”
“It’s possible something could happen to us all.” Rowen looked over at the others, seemingly looking for help as to how best to answer my question further.
Axton’s golden eyes stared into mine, assessing me for a moment before he answered, “Without the true ruling Trifecta to fuel the main crystal, our land is unstable and unpredictable. It sustains the land and us. So, it is hard to say if something will happen in that regard.”
It still felt like he was beating around the bush a bit, so I raised a brow and pointedly asked, “What is the life expectancy of a human in this climate?”
“Our mates live as long as we do, a perk of receiving our seed. We cannot stay Specters forever, though. Eventually we fade out of existence if we don’t find our mate. Our kind lives much longer than humans in our full form.”
“Furthermore,” Sylan cut in, “without the crystal to sustain our lands, we will perish with the failing climate, according to the elders. Be us Specters or not.”
The way he just dropped that bomb without an ounce of emotion was beyond me.
“So…we’re all going to die?” I half screeched, eyes bulging out of their sockets.
Shadowy tendrils danced about my three monsters, making me question if they were nervous or agitated with me.
“Not any time soon, I hope,” Rowen finally answered. “Truly none of us have any idea how much longer we can survive in Paratiisi. It is a dire situation.”
“Our leaders have been demanding more women recently in the hopes that we find our True Queen soon,” Sylan added, understanding of the increased frequency of Selections finally dawning on me.
Shit. This further cemented in my mind that I needed to go back home and explain what was really happening dow
n here and that these creatures weren’t truly monsters the way they had been depicted. We needed to mend the rift between our kinds before we perished down here.
The truth was, the more I learned about their kind and their history, the more I wanted to help them.
“Who were you before you became Specters?” I wondered out loud, surprised I hadn’t asked this earlier.
“The Rumilus,” Axton answered, piquing my interest more. “After the usurpers took over and killed the Queen and her mates, the crystal’s light started to diminish, as you know. Immediately, our physical forms began to dissolve into what we call our Specter forms for those of us who were not mated. Those still in their full form fought and killed the bastards who killed our Queen and tried to reestablish our society, but nothing has been the same since the Great War that quickly followed.”
My brows furrowed together at the influx of information as I tried to piece it all together with what I knew. Huffing out a breath, I reiterated once more what we were under the impression of. “We aren’t taught much about it except that The Below is ruled by terrifying monsters who will slaughter us all if we don’t send women down. Care to enlighten me further?”
The three men snorted.
“The Great War started because of a human monster,” Rowen snapped. “Long ago, a human ruler grew angry at our kind coming and going to find human females as their mate. Although there were plenty of women for both populations at the time, he used this to rile other human rulers into a war against our kind, saying that eventually we would take them from the human men completely.”
Axton took over, continuing my history lesson, drawing my attention to him. “Unfortunately, it was on the heels of the True Queen’s death, as mentioned before. We were weakened, and the human ruler capitalized on it. The war started over the possibility of both species wanting the human women to keep their populations high, yet the war did more damage than sharing women ever would have.”
My mouth dropped open, but he wasn’t done. “From what we could decipher, the human ruler didn’t truly think they were at risk for extinction because of mating with our kind. He wanted the population to dwindle so he could control it.”
“Wait—you’re saying that the leader of the Great War purposefully started it just to become the ruler of the world?”
All the pieces were finally clicking into place, and I was disgusted.
“That’s exactly it. He used Rumilus as his scapegoat. Nothing unites people like a common enemy,” Axton murmured bitterly. “Knowing our time was limited with so many Rumilus transforming to Specters, we called a truce. We wouldn’t step foot in The Above ever again if they sent us women in return.”
Rowen mused sarcastically, “Your ruler of course accepted the conditions, knowing this would paint him as the savior of the humans, and thus giving him complete control over a smaller population that he could control, like he wanted from the very beginning.”
My head spun at the information. This was like a punch to the stomach. The leader during the Great War was long since dead, but his great-, who knows how many times over, grandson now ruled, continuing to spread his poison and lies.
“Are there ever any female Rumilus?” I questioned as my mind whirled, trying to find a solution to this dire population issue between the species. If female humans could mate with male Rumilus, couldn’t the reverse be an option?
“Never,” Axton replied. “That’s why our kind needs female humans—we are dependent upon our main crystal and human women to survive.”
I absorbed his words in fascination. How was it possible to not have a female in their entire species? It boggled my mind.
“What about your families?” I prompted, curious of how their society worked before the decline.
“Before the Great War and the assassination of the Queen, Trifectas worked together with one another. We were raised together as one cohesive community. But afterward, Specters became more secluded and distrustful. If we’re lucky enough to find a mate, we keep her hidden, protected, and safe from the perilous world we now live in.”
“We don’t have the same social structure as humans, though. We age very quickly into adulthood before our growth plateaus. A Rumilus’s only purpose is to form a Trifecta and find a mate.”
“You can understand why I’m so hesitant to open up to you now,” Rowen whispered. “Sylan and Axton are literally the only family I have—and now you. We’re taught that our mate is everything, and I’m scared something will happen to you or our Trifecta. I’m afraid to give you my all, only for it to be cruelly torn away from me.”
“Don’t you think I feel the same way? Scared of the unknown?” I parried.
“We’re all afraid,” Sylan rationalized. “We have something to fear—but Sera, I can promise you that our relationship isn’t one of them. Rowen isn’t holding back because he doesn’t like you, but because he’s afraid to care too much and lose you. There are many outside factors that make him on edge, including your resistance—which we understand—but Rowen worries you’ll run away, putting yourself in peril in a land you know nothing about.”
“I wasn’t…” I started to refute his claims but trailed off, unable to lie. “You’re right. I promised myself—and my family—that I would return to The Above. A vow that became even more important when you told me the truths about Paratiisi and the lies my government is feeding the people. I still plan to keep that promise, but…”
“You can tell us anything, beauty,” Sylan reassured, causing me to take a deep breath. As I blew it out, I prepared to admit this both to them and myself.
“Whereas before I was planning on running from you, now I want you all at my side.”
Hope sparkled in the jeweled depths of my monsters’ eyes at my affirmation, but then it fizzled out again.
“Sera, we can’t go to The Above. To do so would be a breach of the treaty, an open declaration of war. We can’t do that to our kind,” Sylan admitted dejectedly.
“We aren’t going to let you return there alone,” Axton decreed. “But we have no way of protecting you, and frankly, your leaders are nothing but a bunch of murderers.”
My shoulders drooped because I didn’t want to betray my monsters or cause a war, but I knew in my heart the only right thing to do was to go back to The Above and spread the truth. Rowen was watching me in his assessing manner once more, gleaning information from my too expressive face.
“What makes you think anyone would believe you, even if you did return?” he pointedly asked.
It was a good question, and one I had asked myself already.
“I would be the only woman to ever return from The Below—people will want to hear what I have to say,” I answered, truly believing my words.
It would be a monumental moment for me to return to them, and their shock would lend me the chance to open their eyes. Their curiosity wouldn’t allow them to ignore me or the story I had to tell.
“And what do you think your leader would do when he found out you were back and informing everyone of the truth?” he quickly parried. “Do you think he would just allow you to change everything his forefather worked for and handed down to each generation since?”
My heart sank.
“No…” I murmured. “He would kill me.”
“Exactly. And I’m sorry, but that’s just not an option,” Rowen growled.
“But—”
“We have bigger issues to worry about,” he cut me off.
“Like what?” I demanded, genuinely curious how that was possible.
“If we don’t mark you, we could lose you to another Trifecta so that they can attempt to breed you.” My eyes bulged at Rowen’s announcement. “The crystal clearly chose you as our mate, but again, Specters are desperate and will do anything to restore our land and find a mate. We don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“But it still remains your choice,” Sylan reiterated, making me hug my shoulders in sadness.
It might be my c
hoice, but I still felt like I had no options. The recourse for not being marked was not one I wished to confront. I might not have been one hundred percent on board with being shipped down to The Below, but Sylan, Axton, and Rowen were my monsters. There was no way I was going to be taken from them by another Trifecta.
They were mine and I was theirs. I couldn’t fight it any longer.
“Okay,” I finally conceded, heart swelling as I said, “You can have my virginity.”
Rowen’s bronze eyes softened as he drank in my face. “I’m sorry I pulled away because of my fear of this connection. I just wanted to protect myself and my family..”
Biting down on my lip I tried to hide the smile that tugged at my mouth. “Truce?” I asked, holding out a hand. This was more than a truce, and we both knew it. It was us both agreeing to tear down those final barriers between us and give it a real shot.
A shadowy tendril wrapped about my fingers, squeezing them lightly in acknowledgement. “Truce.”
Taking a deep breath, I straightened up, looking each of them in the eye. “When did you want to mark me?”
“No time better than the present,” Axton purred, making my legs wobble in heated anticipation. My mind might still be working on catching up with all of the information I’d just learned, but my body was all the way in.
Rowen floated closer to me, erasing all distance, kissing my cheek as Sylan came to hover at my back, gently caressing my neck. “We’ll take it nice and slow,” the silver-eyed monster reassured. “All day and all night until you’re ready.”
I moaned at his words, already on fire from their proximity and light touch. How the hell would I survive hours of this without combusting?!
Sylan whispered in my ear, “Remember, beauty, you hold the reins. You control the speed. Whatever you want, however you want it. We just want to worship the perfection that is you.”
His promise loosened some of my anxiety. I was safe with these men, and no matter what, I knew they would always put me first. It was time to stop second-guessing my feelings and acknowledge what my body knew all along:
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