Elena didn't get a second to breathe.
Darius curled his fingers deeper, crooked them, found the spot that made her hips jerk against his hand.
The fire crackled beside them. Heat on one side, cold stone on the other, and three feral alphas closing in like wolves on a fresh kill.
She grabbed his wrist, nails digging in. "Wait—"
"No." His voice stayed calm. The king who had already decided. He pumped his fingers once, twice, slick sounds loud in the quiet room. "The bond doesn't wait. Neither do we."
Kane's teeth closed on the junction of her neck and shoulder. Not hard enough to break skin yet, but the promise was there.
Rylan caught her other wrist, pinned it to the furs above her head. His free hand shoved the torn dress up to her waist. Cold air hit her bare skin.
She should have been terrified. Instead the latent thing in her blood; the alpha blood her pack had buried woke up snarling.
She bucked against Darius's hand and felt herself clench around his fingers.
A moan slipped out before she could kill it.
Rylan laughed against her ear. "Hear that? She's already dripping for us."
Darius pulled his fingers free, held them up so she could see how wet they were. Then he licked them clean while he stared straight into her eyes. The sight punched low in her gut.
They moved her to the bed without asking.
Furs swallowed her back.
Darius settled between her thighs, knees spreading her wide.
Kane and Rylan flanked her, hands roaming. Kane's palm settled over her breast, thumb brushing the nipple until it tightened.
Rylan traced the bruises on her ribs like he was memorizing every mark the guards had left.
Darius freed himself from his trousers.
Thick, heavy, already leaking at the tip. The knot at the base was swollen, angry red.
Elena's stomach flipped. She knew what that meant. Every wolf story she'd ever heard whispered about it.
He notched the head and brushed it against her entrance. "Last chance to beg, nicely."
She bared her teeth. "Fuck you."
He drove in with one thrust.
The stretch tore a cry out of her. Full, burning, too much. He didn't pause. He fucked her in short, brutal strokes that forced the air from her lungs. The bond sang. Her body opened for him anyway, slick and greedy.
Kane caught her jaw, turned her head, and kissed her. It wasn't soft. It was teeth and tongue and the taste of blood.
Rylan sucked a mark onto the inside of her thigh while Darius pounded into her.
The first orgasm hit her without warning.
She clenched around Darius so hard he growled. His rhythm stuttered. The knot started to catch on every thrust.
"Not yet," he ground out. "Not until all three of us have had you."
He pulled out. Elena whimpered at the sudden emptiness. They flipped her onto her stomach.
Kane took her next, from behind, one hand fisted in her hair. He was thicker, longer and meaner with it. Every thrust shoved her face into the furs.
She came again, screaming into the pelts.
Rylan went last. He pulled her up onto his lap, back to his chest, and lowered her onto him slow enough that she felt every inch.
His grin pressed against her shoulder blade. "Ride it, little fighter. Show us what that mouth can really do."
She did. Hips rolling, nails raking down his thighs. The bond fed on it. The more she gave, the hotter the fire in her veins burned.
They took turns for hours. One inside her while the others touched and bit and marked.
By the time Darius finally knotted her the room smelled like sex and blood and pine. The knot swelled, locked them together. He came with a groan that sounded like it hurt. Hot pulses deep inside her.
Elena shook through her own release, tears she refused to call tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
They stayed locked like that while Kane and Rylan stroked her back, her hair, the fresh bite marks on her shoulders.
Outside the windows the moon hung full and red.
Inside, the curse had its anchor for the first time in twenty years.
Elena closed her eyes and wondered how long she could hate them before the bond made her love them instead.