Chapter 32

32

KASSANDRA

F or a long moment, no one answers me, and my patience begins to fray like centuries-old rope.

“Don’t you dare lie to me. Tell me the truth. Now!” I clap my hands together as anger rushes through me like magma.

Treyton quietly translates my request to Aleksander, who doesn’t look away from my face. I study each of their reactions carefully, knowing that I’ll get a surprising amount of insight from simply watching .

Treyton appears guilty, his eyes lowered, while Aleksander stares at me in contemplation. Blaze, behind me, has gone perfectly rigid. When I glance at him over my shoulder, I see that his features are set in an impassive mask.

It’s Aleksander who speaks, his words ripping apart the fabric of my reality.

“Yes. We’re your mates.”

The air whooshes out of me. I suddenly feel lightheaded, as if my brain isn’t getting nearly enough oxygen. Dark freckles dance across my vision.

“We were going to tell you…” Blaze rasps out.

His arms are still around me, but where his embrace once felt comforting, it now feels like a prison. I tap at his wrist repeatedly, indicating for him to let go, and he does so with a reluctant sigh.

I scramble away from him and then position myself so my back is against a tree and all three males are in front of me.

Treyton’s pink eyebrows bunch together. “I promise you, Kassandra. We were going to tell you. Maybe not when we first met you, but after we got to know you…”

He agitatedly runs his fingers through his hair, causing the strands to stick straight up.

“I didn’t know that we were all your mates until just recently.” Blaze scowls and folds his arms over his chest. “I didn’t want to believe it. Still don’t.”

Aleksander waves a hand in the air like he’s a school child waiting to get called upon. “I suspected for a while!” He smiles cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to the anger emitting from me in palpable waves. “But I’m the most smart, smartest elf that ever smarted.”

Aleksander’s attempt at levity does very little to lighten the mood. If anything, the metaphorical storm cloud hovering over us all darkens even further, the promise of rain imminent.

“Why don’t I feel this so-called bond?” I demand. “How do I know you’re not lying to me?”

Maybe they want me to think they’re my mates to use my powers. After all, most females would be more willing to help someone if they think they’re fated to be in love.

Yet…

None of the princes have asked me to use my powers. Maybe at first, that was their intention, but now? Treyton and Blaze both actively insisted I never use my gift because they didn’t want to see me hurt.

Was that just an act? A way to get under my defenses? Slither their way into my heart?

“I knew from the first vision,” Blaze tells me, his features grave. A muscle in his jaw twitches nearly imperceptibly. I imagine he doesn’t like being vulnerable in front of Treyton and Aleksander. “When we were standing on the two platforms. Do you remember?”

My brows shoot up in surprise. “I thought that was just a dream or a hallucination! I didn’t know you experienced that too.”

I turn towards Treyton for confirmation, and he nods once.

“I did some research, and some scholars believe that the platforms represent your souls. It’s only when the two fae meet in the center of the bridge does the mating bond complete. It represents a merging of souls, when two become one.”

And I haven’t ever dared step foot off my platform. I certainly didn’t walk across the bridge towards the males in question.

But…

But they weren’t the only two I shared that vision with.

Images of Calan pop into my head, and trying to stop them would be like halting the ocean’s waves with my bare hands. Some things are impossible to do.

Instead of voicing that to the three males in front of me, I turn towards Aleksander. “I never had that vision with you.”

I narrow my eyes in a silent accusation.

Treyton reluctantly translates for the elf, who simply grins at me in response.

“Ah. Those platforms, or whatever they’re called, are a part of fae mating rituals. Elves don’t have that. We simply…know.”

“Know?” I arch an eyebrow.

“It’s a feeling in our chest. When I saw you, I wanted to protect and care for you, despite being sent to capture you. I couldn't look away—no pun intended.” He chuckles, no doubt remembering the period when he was blind. “It’s only when I got to know and talk to you did I realize the bond went deeper than simple attraction. You are my mate.” He shrugs, as if his words don’t completely obliterate the world as I know it. “I’ll die for you. Kill for you too. My loyalties used to belong solely to the Elvin royal family. Now, they belong to you. Only you.”

I swallow. “Is that why you killed that elf?”

I still remember standing in those tunnels beneath Gaia’s temple, Patric unconscious at my feet and Aleksander standing in front of me. In his hand, he held the head of an elf I spotted following me and Calan.

“Apparently, I was taking too long to bring you in.” Aleksander’s chuckle is dark and devoid of any true humor. “My…employers, so to speak, hired the elf to check in on me. And to take you, if I were to fail.” He shrugs yet again, a lazy, arrogant gesture that belies his tension. “I took care of him. Did you not like the present?”

I rub at my forehead, hoping to fend off the encroaching migraine.

“I don’t know what this all means,” I sign at last, focusing first on Treyton, then Blaze, and finally Aleksander. “It’s a lot to take in. I’m not sure I want to be your mate.”

Treyton flinches as if I slapped him, Blaze nods gravely, and Aleksander simply grins.

“I’m always up for a challenge, cherub.”

I ignore him and contemplate my next words. I don’t want to talk about Calan or even Draven. Nor do I want to mention the strange fae I felt connected to in Draven’s dungeons.

But I know I have to.

Focusing on my hands—on the way my fingers twitch and contort to form words—I sign, “You three may not be my only mates, if what you said about the platforms is true.”

“Did you have…?” Blaze swallows and begins again. “Did you have visions like that with other males?”

“It was with Calan, wasn’t it?” Aleksander asks, sounding unsurprised.

“Calan?” Treyton barks, his tone incredulous.

“The fucker who kidnapped you?” adds Blaze.

“I don’t know if I believe it. Any of it. Especially since I’ve been having these strange dreams…” I allow my hands—and words—to linger in the air.

I don’t know how to even begin articulating the strange dreams I’ve been having featuring Draven and the fae in the dungeons. Are they real? Fake? A product of my overactive imagination?

“What do you mean by dreams?” Blaze’s voice is dark. Bitter. Tinged with something akin to jealousy but more potent.

“I don’t even know if they’re real or not,” I confess. “I don’t know if any of this is real.”

“It is,” Treyton inserts quickly. “Kassie, you may not want to believe it, but you know in your heart that it’s the truth.”

What I know is that my head is throbbing, my stomach is in knots, and I’m terrified of what the future holds. Everything else is up in the air.

Could these males be my mates? Truly?

“We’re going to travel to Amorite to remove this mark,” I decide at last. “But I’m not promising anything else.”

Not when it’s my heart on the line.

All three men nod, albeit reluctantly. I can tell that my answer wasn’t what they wanted to hear.

“Is there anything else I need to know?” I demand.

Silence stretches between the three of them, and they all exchange uneasy glances. Treyton swallows convulsively, and Blaze’s face drains of all color. Only Aleksander appears unperturbed as he grabs his favorite dagger and uses it to file his nails.

And then the two princes speak at once, and my world—for the second time that day—spins on its axis, tilting upside down.

“I’m immortal,” Blaze says, at the same time Treyton breathes, “I weaponized the black virus and may have caused the end of the world.”

Oh…

Oh fuck.