SAMANTHA
They laughed.
All three of them. Darlington's voice was deep like a rumble and Finnian quietly chuckled.
Jayce—the most evil of all, threw his head back and laughed like I had just told the funniest joke in the world.
Then he spread his wings.
The golden feathers caught the light from the halos behind the thrones. They shimmered and shone. They seemed to go on forever. Jayce took one step, then another, then he pushed off the ground and flew straight up toward the ceiling.
I watched him rise.
He moved like water and smoke. He was so seamless. Acting like a male bird performing for the female just to mate. He moved like something that had never known the weight of gravity. His wings beat and then he was at the top of the room.
He reached out one hand and touched the ceiling.
It was such a small gesture. A single fingertip against the stone. But the way he did it—the ease, the grace, the complete lack of effort—made my chest ache.
Was this his was of rizzing me up? This particular move made my nipples hard. Although Jayce was a bastard, I had to admit he had some pretty good moves.
He hung there for a moment, suspended in the air, his golden eyes looking down at me.
"We are not going to reject you," he said.
His voice echoed off the walls. It bounced off the marble columns and the crystal thrones and came back to me from every direction.
Not going to reject me?
My eyes popped open wide. "What?"
I looked at Darlington and then at Finnian. My eyes waiting for their faces to give me a signal. Then, I looked back up at Jayce, still floating near the ceiling like some kind of angel in a old painting.
"I was waiting," I said, my voice shaking, "for you to tell me that you hate me. That I am the worst thing that has ever happened to you. That you wish I had never come here. That you want to reject me and send me away."
They all laughed again.
Clayton—no, Finnian, I had to remember their names—rose from his throne. His wings spread wide, wider than Jayce's, wider than anything I had ever seen. They were not gold like Jayce's. They were silver and pale as moonlight. They caught the light from the halos and threw it back in soft, white beams.
He flew down from the platform and landed in front of me. His feet made no sound on the obsidian floor.
"You are cute, Bunny," he said. His voice was soft. Gentle. Nothing like the cruel tone I expected. "But we are not going to do that."
He circled around me. His wings brushed my shoulders as he moved.
Then Darlington rose.
His wings were different too, darker. Almost black, but with hints of deep blue and purple woven through the feathers. Like the night sky just before the stars came out.
He flew down and landed on my other side.
Now I was inside a circle.
Three winged creatures. Three glowing halos. Three sets of golden eyes all fixed on me.
Wait...was this why they were statues of the princes outside? Statues of wolves with wings? We're they really hybrids? Was this a well kept secret that no one knew?
"Yeah," Darlington said. His deep voice rumbled through my chest. "Why should we reject our mate? Do you know what that would do to us?"
I shook my head. I did not know. I had never been taught what rejection meant for the one doing the rejecting. Only for the one being rejected.
"It would hurt," Finnian said simply. "A lot. For a long time. Maybe forever."
"We are not interested in forever pain," Jayce added from above. He finally descended, his wings catching the air, lowering him slowly until his feet touched the ground. "We are interested in you."
My wolf went crazy.
Rynn.
She was scratching at the walls of my mind. Pacing. Snarling. Growling with a need I had never felt before.
'Wow,' she said. 'Wow wow wow.'
"Calm down!"
"I cannot calm down. Look at them. Look at their wings. Look at their eyes. They are ours. All three of them. We should claim them right now," Rynn slurred. She was getting me impatient and agitated.
"We cannot claim them. They are princes. We are a slave."
"I do not care. I want to mark them. I want to kiss them. I want their wolves to acknowledge me. I want to howl at the sky while they mark me!"
Rynn!
She did not listen. She kept pacing, kept scratching and kept making trouble everywhere inside my head.
And I felt heat.
Not the heat of embarrassment or shame. Something deeper. Something that made my skin flush and my breath come faster.
"Mate," Rynn whispered. "Mate mate mate."
I swallowed hard.
The triplets watched me. They could probably see the heat on my face. Probably smell the confusion rolling off me in waves.
Jayce broke the tension.
He stepped closer. Not close enough to touch. But close enough that I could smell him—smoke and pine and something sweet, like honey.
"Do you want us to accept you, Bunny?"
I swallowed again.
My throat was dry. My mouth was open. No words came out.
"Say yes," Rynn urged. "Say yes right now."
I cannot.
Why not?
Because I do not trust them. Because they have been cruel. Because Jayce cornered me in the garden and....
"That was before. This is now," Rynn intercepted. I suspected this was a mind game. Someone was playing with my head. Who it was and why they were doing it? I didn't know.
It is the same men.
It is the same mates.
I could not argue with her but she could be right. They were the same. But something felt different now. The way they looked at me. The way they spoke. The way they surrounded me with their wings like they were protecting me instead of trapping me.
Finnian started to hum.
It took me a moment to realize he was singing under his breath.
"Do you want our mark on you?" he sang. The words floated through the air like feathers.
My skin prickled.
"Yes," Rynn screamed. "Yes yes yes."
Still,I said nothing.
Jayce stepped closer, his wings folded behind him. His golden eyes locked onto mine.
"We will not reject you," he said.
I held my breath.
He smiled. That cruel, beautiful smile that made my stomach flip and my heart race.
"But we will torment you."