Music filtered in, and there was a cheerful buzz about as everyone chatted and rejoiced the end of the Legionnaire Games. Every few seconds, someone passed by and congratulated us.
I was wearing John’s oversize sweatshirt, puffing on my pipe.
Coziness seeped through me.
Both the twins’ arms were flung over my shoulders.
“I can’t believe you both want to marry me,” I said with a chuckle as I took a long sip of the demon brew and chased it with some enchanted smoke from my pipe.
A nice full-body buzz had my limbs feeling light.
Head buzzing pleasantly, I poked at my cheeks and wondered when my face had gone numb.
John’s fingers were tracing a circle on my arm, and it was highly distracting.
Luka’s spicy scent made my mouth water.
Their thighs were pressed on either side of mine.
The buzzing in the room increased as more and more people filtered in. Someone closed the curtains, and the room was once again shadows and flames.
There were so many people that I couldn’t see any of my other teammates. Sadie had disappeared with her mates, and the bedroom was a sea of strangers.
“I can’t believe you agreed to marry both of us,” John countered as he nudged me with his shoulder.
I took a bigger gulp of demon brew and nudged him back.
“Do you…” I couldn’t get the words out and tipped my head back to chug the drink like my life depended on it.
John elbowed me and flashed his dimples. “What were you going to ask?” He grabbed the bottle from my hands and took a swill.
Luka stared at both of us with an inscrutable expression, the one he always wore.
His silent energy was intimidating.
I sucked on my pipe with so much force that it hurt my cheeks, and my lungs burned from a large quantity of enchanted smoke.
“Spit it out, dude.” John clapped me on my back, above where the wings protruded from my shoulder blades. He flashed a dimple as he grinned at me. His eyes were glassy, dark hair messy, and energy easygoing and friendly. Familiar.
“Are you sure—” I paused to grab the bottle out of John’s hands and chugged. “Are you sure you like me as more than a friend?” I blurted out.
The thighs pressed against me tensed.
Both John and Luka straightened their spines and looked down at me with similar expressions.
Eyebrows raised.
I felt a blush burn my cheeks, and I stared down at my cut-covered hands. Why would you ask them that when you still haven’t healed? What are you thinking?
They’d told me they loved me, but John had said it before with Sadie when we were talking about friendship. A marriage proposal seemed black and white on the surface, but in the realms, alliances were all about power and strength. It could have nothing to do with romance.
“Aran,” John whispered.
I couldn’t swallow around the lump in my throat. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” I mumbled as I stared down at my blurry pipe.
There was a pressure behind my eyes, and everything became blurry.
Somewhere among John taking care of me after the first competition, the punishment, and Mr. Hyde being Luka, I’d stopped thinking of the twins as friends. I’d started noticing how entrancing their dark eyes were and admiring their whipcord strength.
It hadn’t happened all at once; it was gradual.
But now the emotions were real. Suffocating.
My lower lip trembled.
Luka moved his hand and rested it on the back of my neck gently.
His grip tightened. He choked me and yanked my head back.
Luka’s dark eyes stared down at me intently. “I thought John made it clear what we felt.”
I opened my mouth to respond, and soft lips stole my breath away.
Chapter 49
Aran
MOMENTS
Rebirth—Day 62, hour 23
John kissed me like he was trying to crawl under my skin. He pressed me back with his punishing lips as Luka choked me.
Demon brew made my head spin.
Enchanted drugs gave me a full-body tingle.
Little zips of pain streaked down my spine, but I was so intoxicated I barely felt them. I was really glad I had decided to keep the side effect of the enchantment a secret.
The twins wouldn’t be touching me like this if they knew.
But there was nothing else in all the realms I wanted to be doing.
When John pulled his head away from mine, he was breathing heavily and his lips were deliciously swollen. I reached up and ran my fingers through his dark locks. His hair was soft as silk.
“We seem to have an issue here,” Luka said with an odd tilt to his voice. I looked over to find him studying me and John with a gleam in his hooded eyes.
During the kiss, the three of us had shifted closer together.
I was sandwiched tightly beneath them.
The bed was comfy. Bodies danced and mingled around us in the darkness of the party.
My heart pounded, and my breathing was erratic.
A tingling sensation coursed through my bloodstream and made everything fuzzy in the best sort of way.
John leaned closer so his face was inches from mine. “Did Aran just ask if we thought of her as more than a friend?”
Luka’s face hovered right beside his twin’s. “I think she did, brother.”
“I think I know how to rectify that.” John’s minty breath mixed with Luka’s spicy scent and made my mouth tingle.
John activated his powers, and a wall of sparkling black spread along the bed and created a barrier. It shimmered, translucent, and I could still see the party beyond.
“We can see them, but they can’t see us,” John explained. “But they can still hear us.”
I dragged my tongue across my lips. I tasted them.
Luka groaned, and John made a rough noise.
John placed his hands on either side of my hips. His fingers trailed gently across the skin underneath my sweatshirt.
Music played softly.
People laughed and talked.
Luka pressed the demon brew bottle to his lips, then he leaned forward and captured my mouth with his.
“Drink, Aran,” John whispered as Luka pressed the warm liquid into my mouth with his tongue.
The intensity in Luka’s dark eyes was overwhelming. He looked wicked in the firelight.
I tipped my head back and swallowed.
“Good girl, taking it from his tongue,” John whispered in my ear as his twin took another sip from the bottle and kissed the liquid into my mouth.
Little pinpricks of pain shimmered down my spine.
Everything was hazy and I barely felt any pain. All I could concentrate on was the spicy taste of Luka on my lips and the way John’s callused fingers danced across my skin.
Luka licked across my lips and groaned roughly into me.
John reached further up underneath my sweatshirt and he tweaked both my nipples.
Stars exploded behind my eyes, and it was my turn to moan into Luka’s mouth.
“So perfectly sensitive,” John whispered in my ear as he casually rolled my nipples between his fingers like he wasn’t making my core spasm with need.
Luka’s tongue pressed further into my mouth as he said, “She’s exquisite.”
The pain dancing down my spine was far away, and it felt like it was happening to someone else.
The twins were all I knew.
Where they began, I ended; where they ended, I began.
A drunk partygoer stumbled into the side of the bed and looked confused as they hit the shield. We bounced on the impact. Neither John nor Luka looked over at them. Their attention was focused on me.