The Price of Loyalty

The Trinity Merge

Chapter 14: The Trinity Merge

​The bedroom felt like the center of a dying star. The ambient magic rolling off my skin was making the lamps flicker and the glass of the windowpanes vibrate.

​Mateo was on me in a second, his hands tearing away my heavy leather jacket and the soaked fabric of my shirt. He didn't do it with cruelty, but with the frantic, possessive urgency of a mate who knows his other half is dying. His chest was heaving, his golden eyes locked onto mine. "I've got you, mi alma," he breathed, pressing his hot, bare chest against mine.

"I’m here."

​Dimitri stepped to the edge of the bed. The ancient vampire shed his tactical vest and shirt, revealing skin that was pale, flawless, and carved with centuries-old battle scars. His obsidian eyes were completely dilated, swallowed by a predatory, ancient red. "The wolf anchors the body," Dimitri commanded softly, his velvet voice slicing through my panic. "The vampire anchors the mind. Jax... you bridge the soul."

​Jax knelt beside the bed. The brilliant, calculating billionaire was trembling, his hybrid nature warring with his logic. He took my burning, sweaty hand and pressed it against his chest, right over his racing heart.

​"The Merge isn't just a physical bond, Loyalty," Jax whispered, his heterochromatic eyes shining with unshed tears. "We have to weave our life forces into yours to create a lock that the Void cannot pick. You have to let us all the way in. Everything you are, all the pain, all the fear... give it to us."

​"Take it," I gasped, arching my back as Mateo’s mouth trailed fire down my neck, his teeth scraping against my collarbone where the mating mark belonged. "Take all of it!"

​Mateo’s fangs extended. With a deep, possessive growl, he sank his teeth into the crook of my neck.

​I screamed—not in pain, but in absolute, mind-shattering euphoria. The moment his teeth broke my skin, a surge of golden, earthy energy blasted through my veins. It was like pouring ice water over a raging grease fire. The frantic, agonizing heat of my body instantly localized, turning into a deep, heavy, rhythmic thrum of pure power.

​But the Void wasn't giving up that easily. I felt a shadow creeping at the edges of my consciousness, an icy, oily dread trying to slip through the cracks of my mind.

​"No you don't," Dimitri hissed.

​The vampire leaned down, catching my lips in a bruising, breathtaking kiss. As his mouth opened over mine, I felt a shockwave of cold, crystalline energy rush into my skull. Dimitri was in my head. I saw flashes of his five hundred years—wars, blood, ancient cities, and an endless, hollow loneliness that had only vanished the second he laid eyes on me in that alley. He built a fortress of iron and ice around my mind, slamming the heavy gates shut against the Void’s creeping shadows.

​Jax moved over me next. He didn't bite. He didn't invade my mind. He placed his hands on either side of my face, his thumbs stroking my cheekbones. "I am the bridge," he murmured.

​Jax pushed his magical signature—a brilliant, crackling blue electricity—straight into my chest.

​The three energies collided inside me. Mateo’s earth, Dimitri’s ice, and Jax’s lightning. For a terrifying second, I thought I was going to explode. My body arched off the mattress, my eyes flying wide open. The emerald green of my irises shattered, bleeding into a brilliant, glowing silver that illuminated the dark bedroom like a flare.

​I felt their souls wrap around mine, twisting and braiding together until I couldn't tell where I ended and they began. The panic was gone. The agonizing heat was gone. In its place was a well of power so deep, so vast, it terrified me.

​We were merged. We were one entity, four souls strong, bound by blood, magic, and a love that defied the laws of the universe.

​Mateo pulled back, his mouth stained with a drop of my blood, a look of absolute reverence on his face. Dimitri rested his forehead against mine, his chest rising and falling as if he finally remembered how to breathe. Jax collapsed against the edge of the bed, a breathless laugh escaping his lips as the magical storm in the room finally settled.

​I sat up slowly. I didn't feel like a 21-year-old girl anymore. I didn't even feel like an MC Princess.

​I felt like a Queen.

​"Get dressed," I said, my voice resonating with that deep, melodic, otherworldly echo. I looked at the three most dangerous men in the world, and they looked back at me with unyielding loyalty. "We have a God to kill."