Soulbound: Dual Cultivation

Lucas's gaze lingered on the three women before him, their faces still flushed with the pleasure of his dick, tongue and fingers.

Selene leaned slightly toward him, her smirk lingering though her breath was uneven. Beneath that sharp tongue and stubborn pride, there was a yearning that betrayed her act of defiance.

Nyx on the other hand, her eyes softened when they rested on him, carrying both admiration and a hint of wonder. It was not just his strength that stirred her but the strange freedom she felt when she was with him, a freedom she had never known within the walls of her father's palace.

And Lira, sat with her hands fondling his chest, her head slightly lowered, but her gaze flicking up toward him whenever she thought he would not notice. Of the three, hers was the purest devotion. She needed no words, no declarations, because her entire being radiated her trust in him.

Lucas leaned back, his expression calm, but his thoughts stirred deeply. He had seen many kinds of desire in his life...desire for power, for wealth, for survival, but what he saw now in these women was something different. They were fawning, yes, but it was not just lust or fleeting infatuation. It was submission. It was vulnerability. They had each opened themselves to him, whether knowingly or not, and in that moment, he realized something that made his decision clear.

He had already done what few men could dream of. He had conquered their bodies, satisfied them in ways that left them trembling and yearning for more. But that was only the beginning. What he wanted now went beyond the flesh. What he saw in their eyes told him he could take what no one else could ever take from them. Their very souls.

The thought sparked in his mind and settled there with certainty. Binding them would mean they would never betray him, never abandon him, never look at another man as they looked at him now. Their destinies would be tied to his, their strength feeding his strength, their lives entwined with his own.

Henrietta had been the first. The memory of that moment was still vivid in his mind, the way her soul had intertwined with his in a blaze of energy, the way her body had melted into his embrace afterward, utterly his in every sense of the word. That bond had changed him, sharpened him, made him stronger than he had ever been. And now, as he looked at the women seated before him, he knew he would do it again.

Each of them had different strengths, different energies, different flaws. Yet together they would make his foundation unshakable. He would be their master, not only in body but in soul, and in return they would be his shield, his strength, and his devoted companions.

His eyes narrowed slightly as the carriage continued its steady journey forward. Each of them sat vulnerable before him, hearts already leaning toward him, waiting without even knowing what they waited for.

Lucas drew a slow breath, his decision firm. He had bound Henrietta first, and now… now he would bind them as well.

"If you will have me, if you will bind yourselves to me as I have bound to some who stood before you, then know what I offer in return: my protection, my name, my life, and an oath that whatever dangers come our way I will stand between them and you with everything I have; give me your souls and they will be safe in my keeping, and I will give you mine so that our fates are entwined and none may pull you from me without passing through me first."

Nyx's eyes shone, not with the coquettishness of a courtly flirtation but with a clear, fierce gratitude that had been carved by fear and tempered by relief, and she answered first with a calm that left no room for doubt, "I will be yours, Xavier, you have given me what I most wanted, which was freedom and the chance to choose my own path, and binding myself to you is a promise I give willingly and without regret."

Lira, whose loyalty had always been quieter than the rest but no less fierce, spoke in the simple, honest cadence of someone whose words mean what they intend to, "Master, I have loved and served you for a long time and I would rather have you as my life than any safety a name could buy, so yes, take my soul into your keeping if you would have it, and I will trust you to guard it as you guard our hearth."

Selene's reply came after the others, and though her lips twitched in that familiar smirk she could not disguise the tremor that threaded through her voice as she said, "You have put me in the noose and handed me the key at the same time, Xavier, and I will not pretend I am not afraid of what that means, but I will rather have fear with you than false safety apart from you, so take my oath as I take yours and I will stand by it."

There was a small, private breath between them, the kind of silence that is not empty but full of the small, steady things that bind people together, and Lucas reached out, taking each of their hands in turn with a gravity that made the act feel more like a covenant than a ceremony, promising in words that were not loud yet could have toppled mountains if whispered into the wrong ear, "I will protect you, I will care for you, and my soul will be yours to hold as you choose to hold it," and when he looked up the three women returned his stare with faces that had shed armor and put on something gentler and truer in its place.

So they agreed, not with the trembling uncertainty of half a vow but with the full, clear consent of hearts that had weighed risk and chosen one another, and in that carriage beneath the slow rocking of wood and the plain sky slipping by outside they bound themselves in a circle of trust and loyalty so that from that moment forward their lives would be threaded together in ways both tender and irrevocable, and they all agreed without hesitation and they trusted him completely and felt safe around him.