The Cursed Mate

POV: Eve

They were both asleep, and yet I couldn’t close my eyes.

Not with their warmth wrapped around me like armor. Not with the soft sound of Gavriel’s breath on my neck or the weight of Caelum’s hand splayed low across my belly, possessive even in sleep. My kings. My mates. My ruin and my salvation.

The night was thick with the scent of them—earth and smoke and something darker that belonged to Gavriel alone, like midnight forged into flesh. And Caelum, wild and evergreen, the storm I’d always been drawn to. I could taste them both still on my tongue. My thighs ached, my skin tingled, and yet there was a hollow part of me that refused to settle.

It had been years, but I still burned.

Even now, after everything we’d lived through—after blood and betrayal and the crown we built from the ashes—I still woke some nights needing to feel it all. To remember that we survived. That we were real.

That I was real.

I turned slowly, careful not to wake them. Gavriel stirred slightly, a faint crease between his brows that I brushed away with my thumb. He was always the first to feel my unrest. Even in sleep, he reached for me.

Caelum’s grip tightened instinctively, pulling me closer, his nose buried in the hollow of my shoulder. His growl was soft, almost unconscious. Like a wolf still dreaming of the hunt.

I smiled into the dark.

“Still mine,” I whispered. “Every gods-damned inch of you.”

I pressed a kiss to Gavriel’s jaw, then Caelum’s lips, slow and reverent. I could have stayed like that forever. And yet something tugged at me. A shadow at the edge of thought. The kind that prickled down your spine, too quiet to name.

It wasn’t fear. It was instinct.

I slipped from the bed, their groans of protest warm behind me. I stole one of Caelum’s shirts—threadbare and far too large—and padded barefoot to the balcony. The night air bit at my skin. Far below, the courtyard stretched silent, silvered in moonlight. Peaceful. Still.

And yet—

My eyes found the training field in the distance.

He was still there.

Of course he was.

Theron moved like a storm contained in muscle. Shirtless, drenched in sweat, blade in hand. His movements were brutal, relentless, precise. Again and again he struck, spun, dodged an invisible enemy. The moon caught the curve of his shoulder, the flick of his hair. Gods, he was beautiful.

And mine.

I watched him for a long time. Our son. Our legacy. A nineteen-year-old alpha who carried the weight of three bloodlines in his bones and yet still moved like he was trying to outrun something.

He didn’t know I watched him most nights. Didn’t see the way I reached for Caelum’s hand when Theron stumbled, or how Gavriel’s breath caught every time our son stared too long at his reflection—as if he was searching for the wolf that still refused to answer.

He hadn’t shifted. Not fully. Not once.

We’d never told him what that meant. What we feared it meant.

He was strong. Fierce. Respected by every warrior in the court. And still—there was a part of him that looked in the mirror and saw lack.

I felt it like a wound inside me. Because I remembered what it was to be marked as other. To carry power that didn’t behave the way the world expected.

And maybe that’s why I sensed it before anyone else.

The storm on the horizon. The coming dark.

Something was shifting. In the earth, in the wind. In him.

I placed a hand to my chest.

Let it come.

We survived fire before. We’d do it again.

I didn’t realize how tightly I’d been gripping the railing until Caelum’s arms wrapped around me from behind.

“You’re brooding again,” he murmured against my neck, voice rough with sleep. “It’s too late for that. Come back to bed.”

His mouth found that sensitive spot just below my ear, teeth grazing the skin like a promise.

I leaned into him, letting his warmth melt into my back, but didn’t answer. Gavriel joined us silently, always quieter than Caelum, always watching. His fingers brushed my wrist, grounding me.

“You’re thinking about him.” Not a question.

I nodded, unable to hide the ache in my chest. “He doesn’t stop. He trains until he bleeds. He thinks we don’t see him, but I do. I see everything. The way he stares at his hands like he’s waiting for them to turn into claws. The way he listens at the edge of the forest like something in him is broken and he’s waiting to hear the fix.”

Caelum sighed against my skin, his arms tightening. “He’s strong, Eve.”

“He’s hurting,” I shot back, voice low and raw. “And I don’t know how to help him.”

There was a long silence.

Then Gavriel stepped closer, his hand sliding up my throat, tilting my chin until I met his eyes. Those gold-flecked hazel depths I could drown in.

“You don’t have to fix him. You just have to love him. Like you did us.”

A shiver rolled down my spine.

He kissed me. Slow, deep, like he was pouring years of heat and heartbreak and devotion into my mouth. I melted under it, under him. Caelum’s hands drifted lower, sliding beneath the shirt I’d stolen, finding the heat between my thighs like he belonged there—because he did.

I gasped into Gavriel’s kiss as Caelum’s fingers slid deep inside me, slow and sure, curling just right. My knees buckled—but they were there, as always, catching me. Two gods forged in flesh. My protectors, my ruin. I was wildfire in their hands, and they didn’t fear the burn.

“I need—” I tried to say, but Gavriel swallowed the words with a kiss that stole the breath from my lungs.

“We know what you need,” he murmured against my lips, voice velvet and heat.

Caelum’s growl rumbled low in my ear, thick with hunger. “Let us take it from you, little queen. Let us take everything.”

He withdrew his fingers with a wet, deliberate slowness that made me whimper, and then Gavriel took my hands, his smirk dark and knowing as he pulled me gently inside the room. But they didn’t let me get to the bed—not yet.

We stood at the edge of it, my chest rising and falling fast. Caelum moved behind me again, sliding his fingers back inside me, deeper this time. My moan tore from me, raw and needy, as my head fell against his shoulder.

“You’re soaked,” he whispered, biting lightly at my neck. “So ready for us.”

Gavriel dropped to his knees before me, worship in every movement. “Let me taste you, love.” He pulled my shirt over my head in one smooth motion, his gaze drinking me in like he’d never seen anything more sacred. Then his mouth followed the path of Caelum’s fingers, his tongue hot and relentless as he licked me, sucked me, devoured me.

My hands flew to his hair as he groaned into me, as if the taste of me drove him mad.

Caelum whispered in my ear, low and rough. “You carry too much. Always trying to be strong. Let us bear it. Let us take you apart.”

His free hand came around to roll my nipple between his fingers, teasing it until it peaked hard. I couldn’t stop the sound that tore from my throat—somewhere between a sob and a moan.

They knew me too well.

Gavriel’s tongue moved in tight, perfect circles over my clit, unrelenting, wicked. I couldn’t hold back—I shattered, crying out their names, thighs trembling as the orgasm hit like lightning. Sharp. Devastating. Pure.

But they weren’t done.

. They kissed and claimed every inch of skin like it belonged to them—because it did. I was their fire, and they needed to burn.

By the time they carried me to the bed, I was shaking, breathless, undone.

Their hands roamed, mapping me again, as if they didn’t already know the way. Teasing. Awakening. Igniting every nerve until I was writhing beneath them.

“I need you,” I whispered, voice wrecked. And it was all it took.

Caelum took his place behind me, sliding into me with one long, slow thrust that made me cry out. His hand tangled in my hair, pulling just enough to make me arch back into him.

“Fuck, Eve,” he growled. “You feel like heaven.”

Gavriel kissed me through it, slow and deep, his fingers finding my clit again as Caelum moved inside me.

“Come for us, Queen,” Gavriel whispered against my lips, reverent.

And I did. I shattered again, pleasure crashing through me like a wave, dragging me under. My body pulsed around Caelum, and with a groan, he followed, thrusting deep as he came with my name on his lips.

But I wasn’t done.

I collapsed onto the bed, boneless, but Gavriel was already there—hard and ready, eyes full of fire. He slid inside me with a groan that vibrated through both of us, filling me completely.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered. “So fucking perfect.”

My body was sensitive, electric, every nerve ending alight. And they knew exactly how to unravel me.

Caelum’s fingers brushed my clit again, gentle but sure. My back arched as another orgasm slammed into me, and I clenched around Gavriel so hard it dragged a strangled cry from him.

“Eve—fuck—I’m coming—” he gasped, and then he was spilling into me, his body shaking above mine, mouth pressed to my shoulder.

And in that moment, wrapped in their heat, marked by their mouths and hands and love, I believed them.

For a little while, the storm inside me quieted.