“And what did we say about it?”

She frowned. “That you marked your chests with my virgin blood.”

“And what else?

“The fire of the phoenix is in your hearts.”

“Your blood was—is—the fire that gives life to the phoenix in our hearts, Winter.”

“I….”

“We didn’t need to claim you that way. We didn’t need to use the most sacred part of our virgin ritual on you, Winter, if we weren’t claiming you as our virgin.”

“It’s done. You’re our fire. And nothing and no one can take that away or change it.”

“Why?” She whispered, afraid she was hearing only what she wanted to hear.

“Because we love you.”

“We loved you from the first moment we saw you.”

“No matter what we had to do, we were always going to bind you to us by any means possible. Breeding you is the easiest form of revenge we’ve ever had, Winter.”

“You love me?” she asked, frightened that she had misinterpreted them.

“With every fiber of our being, as ordinary men and as rulers of the Phoenix Monarch.”

“But now it’s time to show what loving you really means to us, Winter.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Winter took a step back as they undressed before her eyes. Her gaze widened to take in their splendid form as if she were seeing them naked for the first time.

It happened every night when they stripped off their clothes.

Every muscle, every line, and every angle were put together to create three of the most magnificent men on the planet. Raw power resonated from their pores, and all they had to do was breathe.

She basked in the dark glow of their tattoos while her pussy soaked her panties right through.

As with every time they came near her, she found herself being overwhelmed by their male beauty and their lethal power while also just wanting to throw herself at their feet and beg them never to stop touching her.

They reached for her now, cupping her face and kissing her while she was stripped of all her clothes. They kissed her bruised knuckles and vowed to kill Lester all over again, and the only way she could stop them from citing the ways they were going to take him out was to kiss them and press her body against them.

They loved her.

They loved her.

They truly loved her.

This time, she clung to them freely and begged them to take her and not make her wait too long. The sizzling need in her body to be filled with their cocks engulfed her in a dark, lascivious cloud.

“We claimed you as our virgin. And now we’re going to claim you as our woman. Do you know what that means, Winter?”

She shook her head, desperate for them to touch her again.

“Fuck. It means putting all three of our cocks inside you at the same time. Your ass and your pussy. And fuck, it means we can’t do this slowly, Winter. It means it’s going to hurt—”

“I want it to hurt,” she whispered. Panicked tears flowed down her cheeks. She was so afraid that if they went slow, she would lose them. If it didn’t hurt, she’d have nothing to hold onto if they left her. If they waited a minute longer, they would forget her. It was crazy and stupid in her head, but for her heart and her body, it was two different things.