Chapter 14

Lysander and Arden are purposely sitting on different sides of the room, the map table spread out in front of them. I haven’t dared move from the middle of the table, not with the building tension rising between them in the room . Lysander clearly feels bad. Arden has refused to give him an inch of forgiveness, and now they still hate each other.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and tell Arden what Lysander was doing from the beginning. I shouldn’t have let it go that far, and the way it all came out in the Fire Court was not how I wanted Arden to learn the truth. “Right,” I say quietly, and they both look at me, that same intense burning in their eyes. I know fire and water are elements that rarely mix, but here we are, linked forever through my mate bond. I can’t live like this anymore. This pull and tug is destroying me. It’s destroying them too.

I wave my hand, wrapping the room in shadows until they cover every wall, including the door. “We’re not leaving until you two sort this out. We have got a war going on, and you two are brothers. Whether you want to admit that or not. You might not be in blood, but you are in every sense of the word, and this is destroying us. You two are my mates, and it is tearing me apart that you two hate each other right now.” I blow out a breath and look at Arden, his fiery eyes ablaze. “I should have told you everything that day you gave me the ring and kissed me. Lysander was watching and made an ice dagger in my hand. I knew right then I wouldn’t ever be able to hurt you, Arden, and that should have been the moment I ended the lie. He came to see me after while I was in the bath, freezing it and holding his hand around my throat to scare me. I was going to tell you then because I knew from that moment Lysander wasn’t going to kill me or my grandmother.”

“You did fucking what?” Arden roars, and I wince. Maybe he didn’t know about that.

Lysander shrugs. “If it helps, I wanted you dead for just kissing her and I had to touch her too. I was jealous.”

I softly gaze at him. I didn’t know that either. I suspected it when he cornered me in the bath, but I wasn’t sure. “Arden, he hurt you. He knows that he used me to hurt you, but he also saved my life after I was hurt. He helped me in the water test. He is sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t enough, princess,” Arden coldly replies, his eyes set on Lysander.

They are back to glaring at each other. One side of the room feels like a sauna, and the other is as cold as the depths of the sea. Standing here in the middle is nothing short of uncomfortable. I’ve always been in the middle of them, like a boat tossed adrift at sea. “Then fix this. I don’t care how, but please, for my sake, can you fix it?”

They look at each other, these two powerful kings, complete opposites. Water and fire, everything in between is just me. I link them forever. “Punish me if you want,” Lysander offers, widening his arms. “Do you want me to say that I was wrong? I. Was. Fucking. Wrong.” The world seems to pause around us. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Lysander say he was wrong before. “I made a mistake choosing my love of my father over everything real. I was desperate to avenge him, so fucking desperate that I didn’t look around at what I would lose by avenging ghosts. I was angry and fucking jealous of your life. I couldn’t admit how much of a monster my father was because I was conditioned by him to think it was normal. He was a monster, and I blocked out so many memories to protect myself that I was almost convinced it wasn’t real. I wanted your court…everything you had that was so normal and nice. The opposite of everything I had ever known from my father. My mother was his mate, and she never opposed him. She never stopped him either…and it made me bitter.” My heart breaks for him.

Lysander looks down before continuing. “I hated everything about myself, and I believed I was so terrible that everyone else would see that too. That there was nothing good left, so why should I bother trying? Elle…” He looks at me, his eyes softening before focusing on Arden. “She didn’t believe that was all there was to me, and fucking hell, I’m glad she saw through it. You’re still my brother, and I fucked up. Families fight, but they also forgive each other…if you’ll have me. I’m sorry.”

Sorry. The word seems to snap something in Arden. “You’re sorry?” He laughs, but it’s hollow and empty. “You used my mate, and sorry really isn’t going to be enough.” Arden walks over to me, pushing me against the table, one of his large hands wrapping around my waist. His other pushes my dark hair over my shoulder. He tilts my head to the side and slowly kisses my neck, making me gasp. “Arden.”

Lysander’s hands tighten into fists as I watch him. Arden deepens the kiss on my neck, nibbling and sucking just the spot he knows I love. “You used her to punish me. Now, how about I do the same to you?” Arden’s hand slides up my shirt, cupping me, and I gasp, arching my neck back. I barely hear Arden over the need burning through me. I can feel his cock pressing into my stomach through our clothes, and I can feel his emotions alongside mine. Desire, burning like a flame. “You’ve not been with her yet, have you? I would know. I feel it every time that she comes, whether she’s with me or not.”

My cheeks burn. Does he really? “Arden,” I whisper in warning. My body’s buzzing and the attention of them both is too much. Arden reaches down to the bottom of my shirt, pulling it over my head, and I lift my arms to let him. He kneels down behind me, kissing his way down my back and slowly pulling my leggings down. My panties too. His hands slide up my bare legs, and I step out of the pile of my clothes. His hands slide up the middle of my legs, my upper thighs. He’s still kissing my legs, then my ass, my back and all the way up to my shoulder before he unclips my bra and lets that fall away, too. The energy in the room, the tension, is near enough swallowing me, but I couldn’t care less. I’ve been with Arden and Emrys together, but this is different. Lysander…we haven’t been together fully yet, and this is cruel of Arden.

Just like Lysander was cruel to Arden.

Gods, being in the middle of them is terrible, but right now…it might be something much different. I feel like I’m burning with fire and drowning in shallow water, like I’m somewhere stuck right in the middle of it. Arden hums as he cups my breasts, rubbing my nipples right in front of Lysander, who looks tense enough to break. “You want us to be even, then you deserve to be punished too, with her. You can watch and do what I say. I’m in fucking charge here.” The punishing commanding tone in Arden’s voice does something for me, and I squirm—I need more. Arden reaches down between us, dipping his fingers between my wet folds. He growls low. “She is soaked for me. Not you. Look how wet your mate is for me.”

“You’re in charge.” Lysander bites out.

“Good,” Arden murmurs in my ear. He turns me around, passionately kissing me, and I moan as his tongue devours mine. Fire literally burns away his clothes, leaving him fully naked and very hard as he pushes me back on the table, widening my legs. “She is beautiful, our mate. But this…” He looks right at my core. “Wet, dripping and so fucking tight. She is delicious when she is like this.”

I dare to look at Lysander, seeing nothing but the tension that is literally rippling throughout his body. But he’s as hard as a rock underneath his trousers, and I gulp at his long length. His hands are still in fists, tightly at his side. He doesn’t say a word. I know this is his way of accepting Arden’s punishment.

I don’t have time to think about it as Arden’s hot tongue finds my clit, and I scream with pleasure as my back arches. I can’t think of anything else as his tongue swirls and he pushes two fingers deep inside me. I gasp, needing a release. I’m so close. He slows down, teasing me, fast and then slow, getting me closer and closer but never letting me crash over the edge. He growls at me. “Look at him as I make you come around my fingers.” I look up at Lysander, his hot gaze crashing through me to my core, and I’m doing exactly as my king tells me. “Good girl, Elle.” I cry out as I orgasm, tightening around Arden’s fingers, and he groans right alongside Arden. Shakily I lie back, wave after wave of pleasure still crashing through me as Arden takes his time, licking each one of his fingers. Tasting me.

Parts of the map, the mountains in particular are digging into my back, but I don’t give a damn. Arden slowly undoes his trousers, slow because he is making Lysander watch, before pulling his thick, long cock out into his hand. He is rock hard, and he makes sure he’s looking right at Lysander as he lines himself up with me. I moan as the tip of his cock slips inside me, and the tension builds in the room, stronger than ever before. I can almost taste it.

Arden slowly, torturously thrusts deep inside me before looking down at us, at how we perfectly fit together. Lysander groans at the same time Arden does as he parts me to look right at his cock, sunk deep. “Princess. Fuck.” He leans down, kissing me deeply as he thrusts out and then slowly back in, savouring every second. I dig my fingers into his back as he lifts his head to glare at Lysander. “Watch as I take your mate and fill her. Take your clothes off, but do not touch yourself.”

He growls before he starts thrusting in me, punishing Lysander. But gods, it feels so good. Lysander starts stripping his clothes off until he’s naked too, and I moan, arching my back. Arden grips my hips, slamming in hard enough to shake the entire table. The room grows hot, boiling and flames flicker to life in the air around us as the fire king makes his claim. And his revenge, too. He slams harder and harder into me, and I can’t help loving every second of Arden losing control.

He groans, running his hands over my nipples, tweaking them just twice before I’m crashing into another orgasm. As I tighten around his cock, he groans one more time, thrusting hard before filling me with his seed. Breathless, I watch him holding onto my thighs with his massive hands and his neck arched up, muscles stretching as he enjoys every second of me.

He leans down, kissing the space in between my breasts. “I love you, Ellelin.” He winks at me as he pulls out, and my eyes drift to Lysander. Arden tilts his head to the side. “Now I watch, and then we’re even.”

He steps away, just to the side, and Lysander is on me in a second. I moan, wrapping my legs around him as he picks me up off the map, turning us and pushing me against the wall. His tongue invades my mouth, devouring me just before he’s slamming straight inside me with his hard, long cock. He’s a little thicker than Arden is, almost to the line of being painful as he stretches me. But gods, it feels so good to have him finally inside me, even as full as I already feel. Lysander is like a man who has snapped, uncontrolled, and he bites down hard on my shoulder.

He reaches between us, rubbing his thumb around my clit, his teeth still biting down on my shoulder. The mixture of pain and pleasure is too much, and I’m so close. I didn’t know it was possible to come so much in a short time, but fuck, I am. “Come for me, spirit witch. I want to feel you around my cock, squeezing the life out of me and driving me insane like you’ve done from the second we met.”

He growls as I orgasm, hard and tight around him, unable to even mouth a single reply. His hands are almost punishing me, digging deep into my hips as he comes too with a roar, ice spreading around the room in shards that shatter into snow as he comes. He keeps thrusting until I feel full, spent, and so breathless as I lie in Lysander’s arms. He pulls out of me, kissing my shoulder softly. Arden is waiting with a cloak and a wet towel, both of which I have no idea where he got them from. It’s mortifying if the castle gave them to him.

I clean up with them before dressing and sitting back on the edge of the table. Arden offers his hand to Lysander, who accepts it. Arden tugs him into a hug, patting his back. “You’re loyal to your family, and that isn’t ever something to be ashamed of. When I really thought about what you did, I was so fucking mad that you didn’t see me as your family, too. We have been through so much, and I’m sorry about your childhood, and I promise I did not know, or I would have found a way to have protected you even when I was a kid. Gray and Emrys didn’t know either. We all actually admired your father. He was a good liar and could convince anyone of anything. One day, I want you to tell me every horror, every bit of it. I did not have the perfect childhood either, Ly. Our fathers…they were fucked up, and we loved them. Love is tricky.”

I feel Gray and Emrys in my mind, connected to them, too. Terrin is even listening in.

“I would like that conversation,” Lysander admits, quiet. So unlike him. “And betraying you is always going to be one of my biggest regrets in life. I do not deserve your friendship.”

Arden leans back, shaking his head. “Fucking hell, you do. We are family, linked through our pain and power. Through our courts…and our beautiful mate. We fight every battle at her side from now on. No more enemies, no more backstabbing. Just us, our family, against the world.”

Lysander looks right into his eyes. “One elemental court.”

Something about that title lingers with me long after we leave the room together and get some food. One elemental court, not five separate ones. Is that our future? Lysander takes my hand, kissing my knuckles and looking deep into my eyes. “Can I convince you to come to my room? I want to taste you this time. Slowly.”

Blushing, I nod. I might be a little sore, but what girl is going to say no to that? Arden chuckles, kissing my cheek before opening the door for us. “I’ll make sure dinner is ready when you’re both done.”