Bound

wasn’t trying to hold myself back because of my grand passion for

  Ci.”

  “Hey,” Cian said, tossing his big body on the bed.

  “Though I do love him passionately,” Meg allowed.

  “That’s better,” Cian said, patting the mattress beside him. “Stop

  worrying about Beck, lover. He’s nervous because he knows my half

  of our soul is so much prettier than his.”

  “I remember our teen years, brother,” Beck snorted. “I’m sure our

  poor wife was assaulted by the sheer number of your sexual

  encounters.”

  “It was an education,” Meg allowed with a grin.

  “I was a curious lad,” Cian admitted.

  “You were a pervert,” Beck shot back, but Cian’s mocking had

  done its job. Beck seemed more relaxed.

  Cian sat up on the bed. He crossed his legs. Beck took the

  opposite position. They were near-perfect twins, and she was going to

  be in the middle. She started to climb onto the bed.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Beck’s eyebrows arched in

  arrogant surprise.

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  “What Cian told me to do,” Meg replied. “He said I had to sit in

  the middle with my legs around your waist, since you’re the one I’m

  bonding with. I’ll be in the circle, touching you both so it flows from

  you to me to him.”

  Cian had explained how the formation of a permanent bridge

  between the three would work. She would fully bond with Beck, and

  then Cian would open the connection between them. Once both

  brothers were connected to Meg, they would be able to tap into each

  other. She was the intersection that connected their roads.

  “All that’s fine, wife, but I wanted to know what you’re doing

  wearing clothes when we’re alone in our bedroom.”

  Meg contained her smile. He wasn’t hiding from his nature

  anymore. He’d made that plain this evening. Beck was true to his

  word. He’d kept her close to him all night, kissing her, touching her

  whenever it suited him to do so.

  When one of the village men had requested a dance with his

  queen, Beck had sent him such a dark look Meg was surprised the

  poor man hadn’t peed himself. Meg had been forced to content herself

  with dancing with Beck and Cian.

  “You two are still dressed,” Meg pointed out, knowing it wouldn’t

  do her any good.

  “That can change,” Cian offered helpfully.

  Beck just stared and sent his will outward.

  Meg shook her head and pulled her clothes off. He would want

  her naked as often as possible. It was his nature. He liked her

  vulnerability and softness. He wanted her naked and draped across his

  lap. She was glad all her time with Cian had gotten her comfortable

  with her body.

  “That’s better,” Beck commented as Meg climbed onto the bed

  without a stitch of clothes.

  Cian’s hands “slipped” and teased her soft pink parts as she settled

  onto Beck’s lap.

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  243

  “Damn it, Ci,” Beck admonished his twin. “This is a serious

  ceremony.”

  “I’m completely serious about fucking our wife again,” Cian

  replied.

  Beck pulled Meg into his lap, and Cian leaned close, completely

  encircling her. “I swear, brother, I have no idea how they consider

  you to be the intellectual half of us. Your brain is constantly full of

  sex.”

  “I am also calculating the approximate amount of rainfall we’ll

  need in order to bring in the spinach crop within the month. If we

  don’t get it, I have diagrams in my head for an even better irrigation

  system,” Cian explained helpfully. “Another part of me is giving

  careful consideration to the argument I got into with Flanna about the

  monarchial system of government and its impact on the peasant class.

  I am thinking about the fluctuations in the vampire stock market when

  they realize we’ve bonded. Sue and Dante are going to make a killing.

  But mostly, it’s just sex.”

  “Are you sure you want to experience what it’s like to be him?”

  Meg asked with a smile. “It’s crowded in that head of his.”

  “I’ll take my chances, wife,” Beck replied and kissed her hard

  before resting his forehead to hers. “Is tù mo ghrà.”

  Meg held his head in her hands and gave him back his words.

  “You are my love.”

  She pressed her forehead against his, thankful for the strength

  Cian was lending her. He held her shoulders and let her feel his

  devotion. Meg opened her mind and, in a second, became Beckett

  Finn.

  Such rage. The emotion flooded her like it had the first moment

  they had connected. It was different this time because he wasn’t

  pushing it through her. There was no madness to this. This was just a

  part of Beck. Meg heard Cian groan behind her and knew that he’d

  formed his connection. Cian pushed nothing outward, but helped her

  to take in what Beck needed to give her.

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  Need, she thought as she fell into Beck’s mind, he needed so

  much. He was a lonely child. He missed his brother. They had spent

  every second connected from the moment they were conceived until

  they turned five years old. That was when his father decided it was

  time for the warrior to learn to be a king. He discounted the

  importance of Cian’s input. In their father’s mind, the warrior was all

  that mattered. Cian was an afterthought. Beck often wished he could

  trade places with his brother.

  Meg was suddenly staring out a palace window. In the

  background, there were men droning on about something or other.

  They usually complained about taxes or crop yield. Beck’s seven-

  year-old self didn’t care. He gazed out the window and watched Cian

  running after their cousin, Dante. He caught the young vampire and

  screamed something about him being “it.” Beck wanted to run and

  play, but his father had explained that he was different. He was better.

  He could best his brother at running and fighting. He could best

  anyone at those things. He trained only with the greatest warriors. His

  physical skills were not things to play with.

  But Beck wanted to play.

  Beck was only twelve the first time he killed a man. It was the

  first time someone tried to assassinate him. He could still remember

  the feel of the bright sun of his face as he followed after his father.

  There was an Unseelie ambassador in town, and it had almost caused

  a riot in the square. His father was trying to normalize relations with

  the Unseelie, but there was a faction of sidhe who would never accept

  it. They hated the Unseelie tribe. Many had lost relatives in the wars.

  Beck shadowed his father through town. His father was arrogant

  and sure of his peoples’ love for him. He only brought one guard with

  them. His name was Geary, and he’d been the one to teach Beck how

  to play cards. Geary had been sympathetic to Beck, sometimes

  slipping him a candied fig. He had two sons of his own, after all.

  The arrow hit the guard
squarely in the chest, knocking him back

  and off his feet. He was dead before he hit the ground. Meg felt the

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  245

  anger that suffused young Beck’s being. His father tried to pull him to

  safety, but Beck had pulled his sword and opened his senses for the

  first time. It had been instinctive. His eye followed the logical track of the arrow. He rolled out of the way of the next one to come after him.

  Meg felt a charge of excitement as he shot to his feet and pursued the

  assassin. She heard his father’s anxious cries.

  She felt the blood on his hands when he caught the assassin. He’d

  ignored the man’s cries for mercy. Beck’s beast was loose, and he had

  no mercy. The large man had taken something Beck valued. He’d

  taken from Beck, and he would never do so again.

  It was the first time Beck realized his father was afraid of him.

  Meg groaned as the scene in his head changed. Sex, she sighed.

  This was Beck’s outlet.

  A woman named Sorcha, one of his mother’s ladies, had taken it

  on herself to teach him. She gave him permission to do what he

  wanted, and Beck had taken her at her word. He’d dominated her.

  He’d owned and possessed her. He fucked her when and where he

  wanted, and she obeyed. It took the edge off his rage knowing

  someone soft trusted him. Only Cian ever trusted him. Even Bronwyn

  looked at him with fear sometimes. Sorcha had begged him to fuck

  her. She cuddled in his arms afterward. That time was sweet, too. He

  enjoyed taking care of her after.

  Meg felt the pain of his father hitting him with the flat of his

  sword. He’d done it in front of fifty of his strongest soldiers. He’d

  humiliated his son for his perversity.

  Beck had sworn to never give in to those urges again.

  Then all was blood and carnage.

  She smelled the smoke and felt Beck’s heart pumping with rage as

  he realized his father was dead. There was a tiny part of him that

  reveled in the old man’s death. He was king now. He was in his

  rightful place. No one would tell him what to do or how to act again.

  If they did, he would take care of it. He would be king not by right of

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  ascension, but because he could kill anyone who questioned his place.

  Torin had given him this gift.

  Meg felt his disgust at the thought. He was torn by his own nature.

  His father had abused and humiliated him, but Beck had loved him

  anyway.

  The sword Beck held as he surveyed the decimation of Torin’s

  guard was the sword of the rightful King of the Seelie. He had used it

  to kill a hundred of Torin’s advance guard. He’d sliced through them

  with an easy efficiency. His body hummed with anticipation of more.

  He enjoyed it. He liked the blood and the feel of his sword penetrating

  flesh. He loved the dance of battle.

  Through the smoke he saw Torin. He was surrounded by guards.

  It was easy to kill them, too. More were coming. Beck could hear

  them. They were making their way through the chaos toward their

  leader. It wouldn’t matter. Beck circled his uncle. Torin would be

  dead as they walked into the great hall, and then they would join their

  brethren.

  Torin wasn’t willing to go down easy. He held his sword, and his

  eyes were no longer arrogant. “Even now, my soldiers are hunting

  your brother. They will cut him down where he stands.”

  Beck’s blood was up. “It will not kill me.”

  Torin looked disturbed by that statement. “It will, eventually. He

  is your brother.”

  Beck smiled. He knew it was a ghastly thing. Beck nodded to the

  throne where his father’s body lay, still and cooling. “There lies your

  brother. Perhaps we are more alike than you think, Uncle.”

  Torin, who had always been a pale imitation of his younger

  brother, twisted his unhandsome face into a mask of jealousy. “The

  crown should have been mine. My father always favored Seamus. It

  should have been mine.”

  Beck pointed to his father’s crown. It lay on the palace floor,

  covered in his father’s blood. “There it is, Torin. Take it if you can.”

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  247

  Torin looked between his nephew and the bloody crown he had

  slain his kin for.

  Then Meg felt it. She felt Cian cry out in Beck’s brain. She felt his

  panic and anguish. Cian reached out for the only person he had left,

  and Beck felt the call in his soul.

  It went against everything in Beck Finn’s nature. His instincts

  cried out to kill the pretender. Beck’s prey stood before him, quaking

  in his boots. There was no question about the outcome of this fight,

  even as Torin’s backup stormed through the doors. He could kill them

  all.

  And lose Cian.

  Deep in his heart, Beck knew that he wouldn’t care once Cian was

  dead. It would free him in some ways. He could be the predator he’d

  always known himself to be. He could kill and kill and kill until

  someone was strong enough to take him out.

  But Cian wasn’t dead. He was alive, and he waited for his brother

  to save him.

  Beck could avenge his father. He could save his kingdom and all

  of its people, or he could save the only person in the world to ever

  trust him, the person who carried all the good parts of his soul.

  “I will return one day, Torin,” Beck promised. “I will return, and I

  will kill you. Never doubt it.”

  The years sped by, each more desperate. Beck was alone. He was

  alone even as he took lovers. He was alone even as he and his brother

  tried to build a life. He was alone until he walked into a marketplace

  and found his heart waiting for him.

  Meg sobbed as she came out of the bond. She threw her arms

  around Beck’s neck and clutched him. “I love you. I love you so

  much.” She looked into his deep gray eyes. They were still filled with

  uncertainty. “I would have no other.”

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  Beck squeezed her tight. “I hope you mean that because you

  won’t have another. You’re mine, and I won’t ever let you go.”

  He pulled her hair back and took her mouth savagely. He needed

  to imprint himself on her. She’d been so open. He couldn’t have

  imagined how good it would feel to truly bond with her. She had seen

  all of his bad parts, everything he loathed about his own nature, and

  she accepted him with a whole heart. He knew she had seen the very

  things he had been scared of her seeing, but instead of rejecting him,

  she told him she loved him.

  “I love you, Megan,” he rasped against her ear. He pulled her tight

  against his chest. He loved the warmth of her skin. He loved the trust

  she placed in him. It eased his soul. He looked behind her. Cian had

  gone pale. He sat back against the headboard. Meg might have

  accepted him wholeheartedly, but Cian seemed to be having trouble.

  “Ci? Whatever you want to say to me, just say it. It isn’t anything I

  haven’t thought about myself.”

  Meg looked back towa
rd Cian and reached her hand out to bring

  him into the circle. Beck worried that he would refuse, but after a

  moment’s hesitation he threaded his fingers through Meg’s.

  “You didn’t kill him because you had to save me,” Cian said

  quietly. “He was right there. It wouldn’t have taken long.”

  “If I had taken even a moment, the secondary front would have

  been on me,” Beck tried to explain. He knew Cian would be upset that

  he’d let their parents’ and sister’s killer live when he could have slain

  him. “I would have been too late. It was selfish.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Meg disagreed.

  “By saving Cian, I saved myself,” Beck replied simply.

  “No, brother,” Cian said, emotion thick in his voice. “I don’t

  believe it. I was there, just as Meg was. You didn’t want to lose all

  that was me. You value the person I am. Goddess, Beck, I never knew

  how bloody hard it is to be you.”

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  249

  “You valued Ci over your father, revenge, and your own nature,”

  Meg explained. “Don’t expect us to turn away from you for making

  that choice.”

  “I always trusted you, Beck,” Cian vowed. He pushed his chest

  against their wife’s back. “Nothing I felt tonight changes that. It just

  makes me proud to be your brother.” He grew very serious. “You

  don’t want to go back, do you?”

  Beck swallowed once, and then again. Of all the things it was hard

  to admit, this was the hardest. “I don’t want to be king. I never wanted

  to be king, not really. I want to be your brother and Meg’s husband

  and father to our children, but I’m not sure that’s possible. There’s a

  whole plane out there that will pressure me to go back and fulfill my

  destiny.”

  “Then we’ll have to make our own destiny, won’t we, brother?”

  Cian returned. “Whatever comes, the three of us are in it together.”

  “We’ll be beside you, no matter what,” Meg vowed. Her eyes

  were solemn and filled with promise.

  “Yes, whatever happens, Meg will make cookies for the

  occasion,” Cian swore with a long laugh.

  It broke the tension, and Beck breathed for the first time in a long

  time. He took a long breath and found himself happy to be Beckett

  Finn.

  “I’ll have to try one tomorrow, wife,” he said. He knew there was