Chapter Nine #2
Taurus felt all the same things. Had all the same questions.
Stygian didn’t realize what they felt for each other transcended love.
They were one soul. Finding a mate was an instant lightning strike.
They felt every bit as much for each other as a couple who had been mated for two hundred years.
The slightest dawning began. Stygian was made from dark magic.
He had said they didn’t realize he was still evil.
Stygian wouldn’t understand their bond. His kind never got mates.
There was no way for him to know what was happening to him.
His confusion had to be terrifying, just as Taurus and Stellar were afraid for him now.
“All the guards have been sent to search. I have no doubt Stygian is wherever those flowers are.” What Taurus meant as a pep talk transformed into even more fear.
Those flowers were with Bodhi. That being was way stronger than anyone had imagined.
He had tricked them, pretending to be trapped.
There would be no caging him. It didn’t matter what Celeste had done, Bodhi could never be controlled.
They had been dropped into the middle of a mess as old as time.
Taurus didn’t want the god’s drama. He wanted to get the same newly mated glow everyone else got.
Rage owned Taurus. He had no way to release it.
Hand in hand, Stellar and Taurus headed into the bedroom to wait.
Their defeat was equal. Neither of them knew where to start.
A slight motion caught Taurus’ attention.
He turned toward the glimmer. All he could see was a knee and flowers being rolled between two hands.
Taurus rushed to where Stygian’s cage had been kept in an alcove of Stellar’s room.
On the only chair he had been given, Stygian stared at nothing as he rolled the flower stems absently between his palms. He jumped slightly when Taurus and Stellar came into view.
Without looking their way, he held out the bundle of cosmos.
“I found them. There’s no need for a search.”
Taurus passed them to Stellar, and Stellar set them aside. He moved to Taurus’ side. Together they stared at the man they never expected to have and couldn’t live without.
Stellar spoke first. “Why are you sitting over here in the corner?”
Stygian made a slight gesture toward the space between them. “Redo your barrier. I recognize being trapped is what’s best for me.”
Together, they stepped forward. They each grabbed a hand and tugged.
“That’s enough of that bullshit.”
At Stellar’s statement, Stygian snorted. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You don’t need my bullshit. I won’t even try to get away this time. My mates will be right here, so maybe we won’t suffer. But I can’t be trusted unrestrained.”
Taurus stopped and held Stygian’s gaze. “You were caged when all this happened. We have the flowers back. Even if we missed one or two, they don’t matter.
According to information we gathered while you were missing, while Bodhi could create mirrors to almost anywhere, he can’t create one to get into Hell. He needs the key to open that gate.”
“A key?” At Stygian’s question, he locked even tighter against him. He hid something he didn’t want them to see.
Stellar pulled Stygian into bed, and they squished him between them.
He brushed light kisses along Stygian’s jaw.
“Yes. A key. It’s a deeply hidden secret, so you know how much I trust you by telling you that.
You could go rushing off to Bodhi with that tidbit of information he needs, but I know you won’t. We feel you. We know your heart.”
Taurus jumped in. “We shared a body. I know your mind as if it were my own.”
Stellar nodded. “You’re part of our soul.
We love you. This will blow over. Bodhi is no problem of ours.
He might be mated to a fairy, but—apparently—I have no real control over him.
You heard Celeste, Bodhi won’t harm River.
That would weaken him, and that guy won’t relinquish an ounce of power.
The world is good without us for a while. Our sole focus is you.”
“You love me?”
Taurus snorted. “Of course we do. Don’t pretend you don’t feel us the same way we do you. This is love. Truthfully, this is bigger than love. There’s no connection stronger than mates. You were chosen for us, but we were also given to you. We’re yours.”
Stellar ran his hand across Stygian’s stomach. “Read our minds and hearts. See for yourself.”
Stygian closed his eyes.
Taurus felt Stygian prodding at his brain.
He kept his defenses down, allowing Stygian access to whatever he wanted.
Taurus caught himself checking out Stygian’s mind as well.
All his fears were real and valid. He truly believed Celeste meant to hurt him.
Stygian traveled a road now he had never been down before.
They scared him. He saw how much he had to lose.
Stygian had something to take now. They were a loss he wouldn’t survive, and Bodhi would one hundred percent find a way to separate Stygian from them if he could.
“You’re letting him do that right now.”
Stygian opened his eyes at Stellar’s comment. He held Stellar’s stare while Stellar explained. “He created you. Bodhi knows your weaknesses. He’s somewhere laughing his ass off, knowing he’s broken you down to being incapable of accepting us. He knows he’s shattered you.”
Stygian suddenly rolled, pinning Stellar to the mattress.
“He doesn’t know shit. You two are mine.
” The possessive growl in Stygian’s tone had a smile exploding across Taurus’ face.
They wouldn’t be kept down by a wizard with a god complex.
He didn’t belong in their world. Stygian kissed Stellar, and Taurus’ heart melted at the sight.
The pair hadn’t shared one mind the way Taurus and Stygian had.
That one detail had Stygian doubting Stellar’s feelings more so than Taurus’.
That fact wasn’t helped by how closed Stellar kept himself.
Taurus had been around long enough to know Stellar felt things even deeper than most, but being a prince forced him to be cold. Time was unending and cruel.
Before Taurus saw it coming, he was pulled into their kiss.
Hands and tongues played in all the right places.
Like that, his every thought vanished. Their clothes melted away like butter under Stellar’s control.
Taurus was lost in a sea of emotions and pleasure.
Their minds were one, and they felt everything the others did.
Nothing existed outside their bed. He wasn’t sure where one began and the others ended. He was in love.
Stellar fully recognized that he could be seen as cold.
Just as Stygian had been denied happiness, Stellar had been created in a gilded cage.
There was no escaping his royal bars. The furnishing and food were better, but everything else was kept from him.
He wasn’t safe to wander alone outside Faerie.
Everyone kept him on a pedestal. No one saw him as having feelings just like everyone else.
No one saw him as a friend or true lover, not even Taurus before they had been paired.
He wasn’t real to anyone. Stellar desperately craved something genuine.
Base. Primal. Before tonight, he didn’t think Stygian had seen him at all beyond the prince.
Like everyone, he, too, believed Stellar—even as his mate—was off-limits in some ways.
Stellar needed that to stop. He hurt. Stellar ached.
This one thing—his marriage—had to be a sanctuary for him.
A place to be seen and treated like a normal man.
Stygian chuckled against Stellar’s stomach. “There’s nothing normal about you. You’re extraordinary.”
Stellar sucked in a sharp breath at the feel of Stygian’s lips on his skin.
He wanted more. Stellar vanished from beneath Stygian and reappeared behind him.
He used Stygian’s surprise to press his face into the mattress.
With one thought, he had Stygian lubed and ready for the taking.
He positioned his dick against the tight ring of muscles surrounding Stygian’s asshole. Stellar thrust.
Stygian moaned. In a flash, Stygian grabbed Taurus’ upper thigh and yanked him beneath him, where his face pressed against Taurus’ pelvis and not the mattress. He sucked Taurus’ cock.
Taurus panted for air. His eyes were molten red.
He was lit like a volcano. He put out enough heat to warm the entire palace.
It was sexy as fuck taking Stygian’s ass while Stygian bobbed on Taurus’ erection.
Body fluids spilled and burst. The smell of sex clung to the air.
Soul-stealing orgasms had the room filled with sounds like the hottest music.
Positions changed. Partners swapped. No one was left out.
Stygian’s lips brushed the shell of Stellar’s ear.
“I love you.” The whisper sent Stellar to the stars.
He couldn’t feel anything other than the orgasm shaking him.
Stellar was completely defenseless at that moment.
Someone could have murdered them all, and it felt amazing.
Stygian set him free from himself. He had given Stellar exactly what he needed.
In their bed, he was only a man. A deliriously happy man.
They fell into a heap of arms and legs. Kisses were shared and savored.
Whispered words of love passed between them.
For once, life was unpredictable, and Stellar had never wanted anything as much.