If asked later, a few of the villagers would remember that she had been at the festivities all night long. She had been sweet and friendly, but a little sad. They would shake their heads and feel sorry for the woman who had lost her husband to an accident and her lover to the Queen.
She hated their pity, but it was a useful thing.
Liadan withdrew to the woods as Ain curled herself around Bri’s ankles. It wouldn’t be long, and Liadan had to be ready.
Meg followed Beck into the bedroom. He moved slowly and deliberately, but Meg knew it had nothing to do with the ale he had imbibed and everything to do with the act he was determined to perform.
“Beck,” she said quietly, tugging on his hand. “We can wait, if you want. I’m happy with what we have. I don’t have to do the whole visual tour of your life if it makes you uncomfortable.”
Beck’s gray eyes were very serious as he looked down at her. “I would be seeing into your soul, too, wife. Do you only want to share yourself with Cian?”
Meg rolled her eyes. “Now you’re being deliberately obtuse. I 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.
“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.
“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.
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 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.