Damar stood in the doorway, his chest heaving, his silver hair a wild mess, and his emerald eyes burning with a murderous light. His fist was still clenched, trembling from the effort not to throw a second blow.

"Six days," Damar hissed, his voice a lethal, low-frequency vibration that seemed to shake the very walls. "Six days of listening to her scream your name while her scent called for us."

It was enough to run mad. Who knew how hard it was to control their instincts and keep to themselves even as my scent filled the hallways and my moans echoed in the ceilings.

Thalor slowly turned his head back, a thin trail of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He didn’t look angry; he looked remarkably calm, almost smug. He adjusted me in his arms, pulling the furs tighter around my pale, sleeping face.

"She wanted me, Damar," Thalor rasped, his voice a shredded melody. "She asked me to stay. She asked me to fill her. Would you have had me deny her?"

Damar’s scales rippled violently along his tail, and a predatory hiss escaped his teeth.

He looked ready to tear the merman apart, but his eyes dropped to my face—pale, exhausted, but peacefully asleep. He forced his claws to retract, though the tension in his body looked painful. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"That punch was a mercy," Damar growled, stepping into Thalor’s personal space until they were chest to chest. "And the only reason it wasn’t a lethal scratch is because I know Ari likes your face too much to see it ruined. If you ever keep her locked away in her heat again, I won’t be so considerate of her tastes."

Noah and Fenric stood just behind him. Noah looked like he was vibrating out of his skin, his dark eyes fixed on me with a hunger that was borderline feral, while Fenric looked like he had aged ten years in the last forty-eight hours.

Just imagine having to deal with the scent of my heat and take care of three growing babies.

"Move," Fenric rumbled, stepping between the two post-rut males before the hallway became a tomb. "She needs the bed. And you both need to get out of my sight before I lose my own temper."

Thalor didn’t argue. He handed me over to Fenric, who carried me past the seething Damar and toward the other room in the Sovereign wing, dropping me on the soft bed.

There was a war of nerves among them, but no one said a word. They just watched as I snoozed peacefully, a satisfied smile playing on my lips as I muttered, "Mine."

The silence in the room was suffocating, thick with the lingering scent of sea salt and the fading pheromones of my heat. Even as the three of them stood there, a volatile mix of exhaustion and territorial aggression, that one whispered word from my lips—"Mine"—seemed to act as a tether, pulling their focus back to the only thing that mattered.

​Damar didn’t look away from me, but his gaze drifted downward, following the line of my sleeping form to where Thalor stood. His emerald eyes narrowed, sharp as glass, as they settled on Thalor’s ankle.

​There, glowing with a soft, steady violet light, was the mark.

​It wasn’t a mirror of Damar’s. Where Damar’s mark was a sprawling masterpiece of silver scales and roaring water, Thalor’s was different.

It was delicate yet profound, a series of interlocking ripples and abyssal crests that looked like moonlight trapped under the surface of a deep, calm lake.

​It wasn’t as intricate as Damar’s, but it was undeniably beautiful. It was a map of a different kind of love—one born of rescue, of quiet understanding, and of the sea-prince’s unwavering devotion to the ’Land Mother’ who had saved his life.

​Damar’s jaw tightened. He could see the truth carved into the merman’s skin. I didn’t just care for Thalor out of obligation or gratitude; I held him dear to my heart, a permanent piece of my soul now anchored to the depths.

​Thalor noticed the gaze, but he didn’t pull away or hide the mark. Instead, he stood a little taller, his own violet eyes meeting Damar’s in a silent challenge. He didn’t need to speak; the mark on his ankle spoke for him. ’He was claimed. He was loved. He was hers.’

​Noah let out a long, heavy breath, the sound somewhere between a sigh and a growl.

He looked at the mark on the serpent’s neck, then at the one on the merman’s ankle, and then finally at me. The envy was there, raw and stinging, but so was a strange, grim respect.

​"The pair of them," Noah muttered, finally turning toward the door. "Marked like prize cattle and looking twice as smug."

​"Go, Noah," Fenric ordered, his voice low. He didn’t look at the marks. He kept his eyes on my face, making sure my breathing remained steady. "Take them both with you. They’ve done enough for one week."

​Damar gave one final, lingering look at the mark on Thalor’s ankle—a visual reminder that his monopoly on my heart had officially ended—before he turned and glided out of the room without a word.

Thalor followed, his steps silent, leaving a trail of damp footprints that slowly evaporated in the warm air of the Sovereign Wing.

​As the door clicked shut, the room finally felt empty of the storm. I shifted in my sleep, my hand curling into the furs as the two marks on my own body—the silver on my neck and the violet on my ankle—pulsed in a slow, harmonious rhythm.

​The kingdom was growing. The family was binding. And in my dreams, I was already counting the days until the next one was carved.

The heavy silence of the Sovereign Wing was eventually broken by the soft, rhythmic sound of the spring water circulating in the stone pool. When I finally blinked my eyes open, the world felt steady, and that frantic, burning fever of the heat had finally retreated, leaving me in a state of blissful, heavy exhaustion.

I sat up slowly, the furs sliding off my shoulders. I felt... Steady. Sore, but steady.

I reached down and pulled my leg up, tracing the skin of my ankle. The delicate crest of the fish tail that had always been there was glowing with a deep, pulsing violet light, looking alive and vibrant as it responded to the new bond I had carved into Thalor’s own skin.

It wasn’t just a mark anymore; it was a heartbeat.

I could feel him—his calm, his triumph, and his lingering devotion—humming through my own bones.

I’m glad nothing went wrong.