I fuck him slow. Brutal. Deliberate. His body arches, wings splayed. And behind me, Bastion is a storm waiting to break, his cock slick and ready, his breath burning against my shoulder.
“You ready?” His voice is low, feral.
“Do it.”
His hands grip my hips like iron. The next second, his cock presses against me, thick, demanding.
It burns. Gods, it burns. But not pain. Power. My head drops forward, a ragged sound tearing from my throat.
Cassiel moans beneath me as I thrust deeper into him, our rhythm syncing to Bastion’s drives behind me. Locked together. Flesh, sweat, blood. One pulse.
Cassiel’s hands claw the stone. Bastion pounds into me like thunder splitting earth. And me? I’m the fulcrum, the blade, the center of this storm.
Sweat slicks my spine. Magic thickens in the air—wild, sparking, predatory. We’re close. All of us. The bond strains at the edge of breaking open.
“Now,” I rasp, voice shredded. “Shift. Bite. Bond.”
Bastion moves first. And he doesn’t shift—he erupts.
I feel it in his hands first—clawing deeper, hotter. Then in his cock, swelling inside me as if his body is remaking itself with every thrust. His breath breaks into a snarl, no longer human. His power rolls over me like firestorm, cracking the stone beneath us. His form stretches, runes igniting under his skin, searing where his chest presses my back.
He thrusts harder, transformed, feral. And gods help me, I want more.
Cassiel doesn’t change shape—but his wings blaze wide, radiant, holy fire shattered into sin. His magic flares like a cathedral burning down.
I grab Bastion’s arm and bite—deep, savage—at the thick muscle of his bicep. He snarls, bends low, and bites into my shoulder until blood slicks his teeth.
Cassiel watches, undone, but his eyes are steady. Resolute.
“You don’t need to bite me,” he whispers, voice trembling with ecstasy and faith. “Not for this.”
Panting, I meet his gaze. “Then how?”
He presses his palm to my chest, searing hot.
“Your hand,” he says, fierce and soft. “Over my heart.”
I obey, pressing my palm flat against him.
The instant we connect—fire.
It surges through him first—angelic flame, holy and terrible—but it doesn’t reject me. It brands me. It winds around the dark scaffold of my soul and binds.
I scream, guttural, ripped apart as it consumes me. Cassiel arches, Bastion snarls, and the three of us detonate together—pleasure, pain, bond, rapture.
We break as one.
Three voices. Three bodies. One pulse.
Not to fate. Not to crown.
But to choice. And to her.
SEVENTY
The silence is too loud.
Even with the curtains drawn thick and the lanterns dimmed to embers, the room won’t rest. Shadows stretch too long across the walls, prowling shapes that twitch and shiver at the edge of sight. The fire in the hearth has long since died, leaving only the scent of char and ash. I lie curled on the bed, my back to the door, my spine rigid despite the silken sheets.
