ADAM
Can two people’s lips taste the sa?
The question stalked all the way back to my quarters, pacing my thoughts with the sa relentless rhythm as my boots against stone.
The night air should have cooled , cleared my head. Instead, it sharpened everything—mory, sensation, doubt.
Maya’s lips had tasted like rain and iron. Like sothing wild caught between fear and defiance. I rembered the way she used to smile before she kissed , like she already knew the outco and was daring fate to interfere.
Dora’s had been different. Softer. Warr. A quiet promise layered beneath the fire. Kissing Dora had felt like coming ho to a place I hadn’t known I’d been searching for. There had been grief there too, always grief, as if she carried endings in her bones.
And Sage.
Sage’s lips tasted like both.
The realization made slow my steps, my chest tightening as the royal gates lood ahead. Stone and iron parted for , familiar and unyielding, but my thoughts refused to fall into order.
I told you so. My wolf’s voice was calm, maddeningly certain. They are the sa.
"No," I muttered aloud, dragging a hand through my hair. The sound echoed strangely in the empty corridor beyond the gates. "That’s not possible."
You felt it.
I had. By the goddess, I had.
The way my body had responded to her without permission. The way sothing ancient inside had recognized her before my mind could catch up. The way the kiss hadn’t felt like discovery—but return.
How could they be the sa person still?
Maya was dead. Dora was dead. I had buried them both—with my belief and my reluctant acceptance of a queen’s report that had never sat right with .
What would it an if Sage was them?
Reincarnation? Resurrection? So cruel joke crafted by a goddess who delighted in twisting devotion into suffering?
My stomach churned.
Dora had spoken of Maya once. I rembered it now with startling clarity—her voice low, guarded, eyes distant as she spoke of betrayal. Of pain. Of being hunted by those she trusted.
She had said you and your brothers killed her.
At the ti, I’d dismissed it. Assud grief had tangled truth into sothing unrecognizable. I’d thought Maya might have escaped, might have crossed paths with Dora, confided in her.
Now, standing beneath the torchlight of my own palace, that explanation felt thin.
I had searched for Maya. For years. Turned over lands, questioned rogues, questioned humans.
After Dora’s death—after the queen’s convenient declaration, her thinly veiled hunger for war—I had searched for Dora too. Quietly. Obsessively. Refusing to believe she was truly gone.
I had found nothing.
And now Sage stood in my path like an answer I wasn’t ready to hear.
I reached my quarters and paused before the door, suddenly reluctant to enter. As if stepping inside would solidify sothing I wasn’t prepared to face.
I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
Except this: whatever restraint I’d been clinging to had shattered the mont I kissed her. She had flooded my thoughts since then, invaded every corner of my mind with her voice, her expressions, the way she looked at like she already knew my secrets.
I exhaled slowly. What if she disappeared too?
The fear hit harder than I expected, sharp and imdiate. What if she vanished like the others—leaving nothing but questions and ghosts behind?
The door opened before I could knock.
The common room lights were low, fire crackling softly. And there they were.
Daniel sprawled across one sofa, arms crossed. Noah leaned forward on another, elbows on his knees, eyes already locked on . Waiting.
Of course they were.
I closed the door behind without a word. The silence stretched, thick with unspoken accusation. I didn’t need them to say it—I could feel Sage on still, her magic, her scent. They could too.
Daniel broke first, rising to his feet. "You did it, didn’t you?"
I arched a brow. "Did what?"
"You had her." His voice was sharp, edged with sothing ugly. "I can sll her on you."
I shrugged and crossed the room, dropping into a chair opposite them. The leather creaked beneath my weight. "I told you I would court her. We need answers."
The words tasted bitter. Half a truth, and I hated how easily it ca. I didn’t say what I couldn’t afford to say—that I wanted her, that sothing in had already chosen her.
Noah scoffed. "Really? She’s that cheap then?"
My jaw tightened.
"So she won’t be hard to fall for us too," he continued coolly. "We want a taste."
For a heartbeat, I saw red.
My hands curled into fists before I could stop them, nails biting into my palms as I forced myself to stay seated. Violence would only confirm what they already suspected.
"I told you it won’t be possible," I said evenly. "She’s not stupid. Three kings chasing one woman? She’d see through that imdiately."
Daniel tilted his head, unimpressed. "Or she’d think it’s a ga. A bet. Who gets her into bed first. Maybe she will take us three... she is daring enough."
My chest burned. "I told you," I said through clenched teeth, "that didn’t happen."
Noah’s brows lifted. "So?"
"We talked," I snapped. "We walked. We kissed."
The admission landed heavier than I intended.
Both of them stiffened.
Noah’s jaw tightened, the muscle ticking visibly. Daniel’s eyes darkened, sothing calculating flickering there.
And in that mont, an unsettling thought surfaced—one I didn’t want to examine too closely.
What if she was their mate too.
Or was this just ego. Possession. The sa old hunger we’d always shared without consequence.
Noah leaned back, exhaling. "All the sa," he said casually, "we’ll go for her. She agreed to do the do. That puts her in our orbit."
I stood. The chair scraped loudly against the floor. My patience finally snapping. "I’m done with this conversation."
They watched as I crossed the room, neither stopping . I could feel their eyes on my back, their confusion, their irritation.
If I stayed, I would hit soone. If I stayed, I would say sothing that would change everything.
I reached my door and paused, my hand hovering over the handle.
Should I tell them? That she was mine.
That my wolf had already chosen, had already marked her in ways they wouldn’t understand...
If I did, would they back away?
Or would it only sharpen the rivalry, turn desire into war?
I didn’t know. And for the first ti in a long while, that uncertainty frightened .
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