Chapter 77: Shared Claim II

They did not leave the chamber.

The first round had burned off the sharpest edge of jealousy. What remained was hotter, heavier, and more honest.

Selene recovered first. She sat up, silver-white hair spilling over one shoulder, and looked at Iris with a long, measuring stare.

Iris held it without flinching, cheeks still flushed, dark-blue hair a mess against the pillows.

"Again," Selene said.

Not a question.

Iris’s violet eyes narrowed, then dropped deliberately to Arthur’s body. He was already hardening again under the combined weight of their attention.

A slow, competitive heat moved through her expression.

"Yes," she answered. "Again."

Arthur did not get a vote.

Selene swung a leg over his hips and sank down onto him with a low, satisfied sound, taking him in one smooth motion.

She was still slick from the first round. The dual-cultivation bond flared immediately—pink-gold Eros mana rising between them, feeding Frost Sovereign in clean, greedy pulses.

Selene braced her hands on his chest and rode him with deep, controlled strokes, ice-blue eyes locked on Iris the entire time.

"Watch," she said softly. "If we are sharing the claim, you will see exactly how I take him."

Iris watched.

For a while she only watched—cheeks hot, breathing uneven, one hand resting on Arthur’s forearm as if refusing to break contact.

Then she leaned down and kissed him, hard and possessive, while Selene continued to move.

The contrast was sharp: Selene’s cold, precise rhythm and Iris’s warmer, hungrier mouth.

Arthur groaned into the kiss. His hands settled on Selene’s waist, helping her drop harder onto his cock.

Selene’s breath hitched.

"Better," she murmured. "Keep him present."

Iris bit Arthur’s lower lip, then trailed her mouth down his throat.

When she reached the join of neck and shoulder she bit harder—hard enough to leave a mark that would sit beside whatever faint bruises Selene had already given him.

Selene noticed. A faint, sharp smile touched her mouth. She answered by lifting almost all the way off Arthur’s cock and slamming back down, dragging a raw sound out of him.

The competition had not disappeared.

It had simply changed shape.

Iris moved lower. She cupped one of Selene’s breasts, thumbed the tight nipple, then closed her mouth around it while Selene rode. Selene’s rhythm stuttered.

A soft, startled sound escaped her. Iris did not stop. She sucked and licked with focused intent, free hand sliding down Selene’s stomach until her fingers found the place where Selene and Arthur were joined.

She rubbed tight circles over Selene’s clit in time with the thrusts.

Selene’s controlled expression cracked.

"You—" Her voice roughened. "That is not necessary—"

"Balance," Iris said against her skin. "You touched me earlier. I return the favor. Or are you the only one allowed to be pragmatic?"

Selene’s answer was to ride harder.

Arthur felt the shift in both of them—the jealousy transforming into something hotter and more collaborative, still edged, still competitive, but no longer trying to erase the other woman from the bed.

He sat up, wrapped an arm around Selene’s back, and thrust up to meet her. The new angle made her cry out.

Iris used the moment to kiss him again over Selene’s shoulder, the three of them locked together in a tangle of pale skin, dark-blue hair, and silver-white strands.

Selene came first.

She clenched around him with a sharp, broken sound, frost blooming in delicate patterns across the sheets.

The dual-cultivation current surged; Frost Sovereign’s mastery ticked upward under the intensity of the shared resonance.

Arthur held her through it, still thrusting, until the worst of the spasms faded and she slumped forward against his chest, breathing hard.

Iris did not give him time to recover.

The moment Selene lifted off, Iris pushed her back against the pillows and straddled Arthur in her place.

She sank down onto his cock with a low, needy moan, still slick and open from earlier. Where Selene had been controlled, Iris was urgent.

She rode him hard, hands braced on his shoulders, violet eyes burning with residual jealousy and raw want.

"Look at me," she demanded. "Not her. Me."

Arthur looked.

He gripped her hips and met every downward stroke, driving up into her until her mouth fell open on continuous soft cries.

Selene recovered enough to move behind Iris, silver-white hair brushing the princess’s back.

She reached around, cupped Iris’s breasts, and pinched her nipples with deliberate, practiced pressure while watching Arthur’s face over Iris’s shoulder.

Iris shuddered but did not stop riding.

"You are both insufferable," she panted.

"And yet you are still on his cock," Selene replied coolly. Her fingers tightened. "Take what you came for, princess. No one is stopping you."

Arthur felt Iris clench hard at the words. He sat up, wrapped both arms around her, and fucked her from below with short, powerful strokes.

Iris’s head fell back against Selene’s shoulder. The second climax hit her like a wave—violent, shaking, her inner walls fluttering and locking around him while she cried out.

The Eros current that poured off her sank straight into the Codex; Dreamweaver’s seal pulsed in answer, mastery edging upward under the renewed bond pressure.

Arthur was close.

Selene noticed. She reached down between them, gathered some of the wetness, and stroked the base of his cock where it met Iris’s body.

The added sensation pushed him over the edge. He drove deep into Iris and came with a guttural sound, spilling inside her while both women held him through it—Iris trembling through aftershocks, Selene’s cold fingers still wrapped possessively around the base of him.

They collapsed in a tangled heap.

For a long time the only sound in the chamber was heavy breathing and the soft crackle of residual frost melting against warmer skin.

Arthur lay on his back with Iris half-draped over his chest and Selene pressed along his other side, one pale leg thrown over his. Neither woman moved to claim exclusive space.

Neither pretended the jealousy was gone. But the sharp, unstable edge from the beginning of the night had blunted into something that could hold weight.

Selene spoke first, voice low and rough.

"This is not a permanent arrangement. It is a functional one. I will not pretend I enjoy watching her take what is also mine."

Iris turned her head just enough to meet the older woman’s eyes.

"Then we are even. I do not enjoy sharing him with you either. But I am not going to spend the next months starting fights I cannot finish cleanly. Balance. Or we all lose efficiency."

Selene’s mouth curved slightly.

"Pragmatic to the end."

"I learned it from necessity."

Arthur’s hands rested on both of them—one on Selene’s hip, one against Iris’s back.

"No secrets," he said. "No ranking. If the balance breaks, we address it before it becomes a blade. That is the only version of this that works."

Neither woman argued.

Outside the heavily warded chamber, the academy continued its night cycle. Mission departure was less than two days away.

Random groups. Unknown routes. Formal evaluation hanging over every first-year like a second sky.

Inside, the three of them lay in the cooling sheets with the evidence of the night still wet on their skin and the two permanent seals in the Eros Codex pulsing quietly in the background—Frost Sovereign and Dreamweaver, both fed, both deepened, both claimed.

The fragile equilibrium held.

For now.