I look around nervously, listening for any sound, but there’s nothing more than the water streaming down. If there was someone, they definitely would have heard the combat drones coming to life.

Or the barrels of wine smashing into their front door.

I rub my temples. It’s weird having the three…auras of the Aurelians in my mind. It’s not unpleasant, exactly, just takes some getting used to. The strangest thing is that though I have three sort of spheres of their being in my head, it doesn’t feel like I have less space for my own thoughts. The Aurelian consciousness is right at the top of my head, these three pinpoints of light that grow bigger when I focus on them.

Right now, they’re like ice cubes in my mind, these three focused warlords dealing with the attack, or malfunction, or whatever happened with the guns. The hot water runs down my body, scrubbing me of the dirt and grime, and I run my hands over my face. It’s a shame to waste Nash’s amazing make-up, but I need to get clean.

I run my hands down my body, cleansing myself of their seed.

I didn’t think I’d lose it like this. Twenty-eight years old and I’d barely kissed a guy. Early on in my contract, I came close to sleeping with one. I nearly let one of the most handsome guards convince me to take me to his bed after we made out on the walls under the moonlight. We were up on the walls, and we heard a scary sound from the hidden garden that made me jump, and he grabbed me, holding me to my chest and telling me not to worry, that he’d keep me safe.

I had slipped out that night after we spent months giving each other glances during work. At first, I thought I had a stain on my white robe, or something in my teeth, but then glances turned to little conversations as we worked, stealing perfect little moments together, and the dull days started to brighten.

But when I was up on the ramparts with him, in that moment that should have been perfect, him standing tall and strong under the light of the moon, my instincts told me to run. Something felt wrong, and though he got handsy, I slipped away. Since I wasn’t supposed to be out at night, I walked back through the long way to get to my room, past the cellars and the guards’ quarters, and I overheard the other guards laughing, betting each other whether he finally got “the stuck-up servant girl’s cherry”.

It was just a game to them, sport to pass the time.

I promised myself I’d wait until I was done with my service. The kind of guy who would get into a fling with a woman working a ten-year contract wasn’t the kind of guy I wanted to be with.

I’m not sure how I expected it to be, but this certainly wasn’t it.

I run my hands gently over my body. My nipples are sore from their hands, my ass painful anew from where Kriz spanked me as he took me, but to my surprise, it doesn’t hurt between my legs. That’s what I was most scared of. One of the other servant girls told me the first time hurts, and when I saw what the triad had between their legs, I was terrified they were going to ruin me forever. Something in their pre-cum, or their seed itself, soothed me from the inside.

I look at my hand, turning it up and down. That wasn’t just sex. It was like a breeding ritual, one taking me after another. Nothing had even come close to the intensity of what I experienced. Not even being posted up in a tower with a rifle, fighting off Scorp that wanted to pump me full of venom and rend me with their claws. Looking up at Ra’al, his huge, marble cock stretching me open, feeling how helpless I was in front of his dominance, the pure ecstasy flooding my being when he seeded me…

My nipples tighten when the Bondthrums.

It is a chord through my being, a chord of yearning and desire, and I ache to have the three men’s hands all over my body, melting under their dominance.

Orr’s aura spikes with lust in response to my pangs, and I blush, wishing I knew how to control my emotions better.

“They are safe. I will bring them to you.”His voice is calm and deep in my mind, despite the need growing in his being. He is able to control himself better than I.

I’m flooded by relief that the two women are okay. I just met them, but I’d feel like it was my fault if anything happened to them. They’re my servants, after all, whether I’m comfortable with that or not. And that means I have a responsibility to them.“Thank you!”

“Water off,” I say, and after a few seconds, it sputters to a halt.

I bite my lip. I promised Orr I’d stay in place. He’s going to know I left, didn’t he? I tear through the bathroom, opening drawers, until I finally find a stack of white towels. They have a strange smell of desiccation to them. They’ve been sitting here for hundreds of years, if this place was built before Independence.

I want to wrap the towels around me like a robe, but if I have even the slimmest chance of pretending I was sitting and waiting like some obedient pet, I’m going to have to be naked. I dry my hair as fast as I can. At least it looked messy from the escape as Orr ran with me, so I don’t have to get it nice again.

I stuff the towels back and look at myself in the mirror. Okay, I’m a little less dusty, and I’m flush from the hot shower, but maybe Orr will just think I’m hot and bothered about him. It’s worth a shot. I walk quickly back, knowing if I run, I’ll be out of breath and it will be obvious.

I blink to myself as I pass the shadowy shapes. I’m walking quicker than I normally would, and it feels easy. Come to think of it, I raced twenty minutes down the winding staircases built for massive aliens, and though I was breathing heavy, I should have been panting and sucking in air.

I pick up to a jog, then a run, sprinting down the hallway and back to the entrance room. I take my seat exactly where I was, as if I never moved, and marvel that I’m barely breathing heavier, my heart rate steady.

The Bond.

It didn’t just link me with the triad. It’s changing me. Making me stronger. Healthier…

And I swallow hard when I remember why. The Bond is shrouded with mystery. Some say it makes your darkest aches more intense, so that you can’t hide your hidden desires, no matter how shameful they are. I never thought I’d want to be displayed, to be owned in public, submitting publicly to the powerful men. It’s the way Kriz made me admit I needed it, the way he smelled my need to be claimed completely, that made me feel like I couldn’t hide anything from them.

Others say the Bond exists for one purpose. To turn the Fated Mate of a triad into their perfect breeding stock. The alien race was dying out, their numbers dwindling until Queen Jasmine became the first Bonded human in over a thousand years. She had—how many sons now? Twelve? I’ve seen holo-vids of her firstborn, Doman, the golden lion, a massive Aurelian with fiery golden eyes. It’s the only way a natural birth can happen for the alien species, and the children born of the Bond are so much more human than the ones born of however the alien species normally reproduces. It’s the slate-grey eyes that make the Aurelians so strange. A babe born of the Bond has colored eyes from birth—but golden eyes are no less alien.

I blink, wondering what an alien son would look like. They have the same marble-colored skin. Would I see anything of myself in him? Or would he look exactly like one of his fathers?

The Bond wants me healthy and hearty and craving their seed. It doesn’t help that deep down, I want them, that deep down, the three men are the only ones to make my stomach flutter, the only ones to send tingles down my spine. There’s something in them that draws me to them, as if it is the most natural thing in the world, and the Bond only enhances my ache to be taken by the three brutal warriors.