Page 48 of Bound to Four Alphas

“Why would Elian’s mother be visiting your territory, Ronan? And sleeping in your tent, no less?”

As Elian sputtered with indignation, Ronan reached over to slap Malek on the back in a friendly way, booming with laughter. “Trust me, sleep wasn’t what she was after!”

Malek frowned, and Selena wondered that he had ever frightened her at all. He looked almost sweet in his innocent confusion, and she felt inclined to take pity on him.

“Ronan’s mocking him,” she said, elbowing Kaelen when he snorted. “Ignore him.”

“You wound me, sweetness,” Ronan’s grin was feral. “Then again, you’re the only one I wantsleepingin mytent.”

She rolled her eyes, something deep within her warm and content at the easy banter between her mates after the fear and terror of their journey. Something just felt so right about it, so natural. She was struck with a sudden vision of the five of them, surrounded by a few children tumbling over each other and hanging off their fathers’ arms in bids for attention. And her, in the middle of it all, basking in the warmth and security of afamily.

Of a pack.

It seemed too good to be true. How had she gone from weeping sacrifice to willing mate so quickly? Perhaps it wasbecause part of her knew from the moment she first laid eyes on them that they weren’t actually the monsters she had thought them to be. And now, she knew with all her heart that they weren’t.

“Come on,” she smiled at Kaelen as his rumbling stomach broke her from her reverie, “let’s get you all something to eat. The Gods only know how you manage to consume so much, you must be starving.”

“Oh yes,” purred Ronan, his grin feral, “absolutelyravenous, sweetness.”

Their gentle laughter followed her as she haughtily climbed out of the bath, sticking her tongue out at all of them.

Chapter 22 - Selena

Dinner had been a similarly gentle affair, and Selena sat back with Caeda and watched her mates snark and banter and talk to one another, her tiredness only allowing her to appreciate the conversation rather than try and get involved.

She had fallen asleep curled in between Kaelen and Elian on the massive four-poster bed, Ronan already snoring in his wolf-form by the fire, and Malek preferring to stay awake through the night to thumb through the books from the enormous bookshelf. Despite the comfort, her exhaustion, and the proximity of her mates, her sleep was not easy. Malek had leaned over Elian several times to shake her awake from a nightmare, earning himself a strike from the startled Fae more than once.

When she woke, groggy and exhausted, she had to fight the urge to smack Elian herself due to his chipper mood.

“Come on,” he sang, half-pulling her out of Kaelen’s slumbering embrace and into the cold air. “We need to go to my laboratory and work out what’s going on with all that magic of yours!”

Ronan opened one yellow eye, the irritation clear. “Just because the Fae can recover faster than us shifters,” he growled, “doesn’t mean I won’t injure you enough to be bed-bound for days if you don’tshut up.”

“Oops,” Elian said with a cheeky wink to Selena, “I think we woke the dog up.”

Ronan’s snarls followed them as Elian pulled her out of the room and down the corridor.

Elian’s laboratory was the result of centuries of research, and it showed. It was a vast space deep underground, half taken up with dusty shelves filled with bottles and scrolls and boxes, enough trinkets to keep her occupied for hours if he hadn’t warned her not to touch anything. She was tempted to ignore him, but then she swore she saw somethingmovein a dust-coated jar right at the back and decided perhaps he did know best.

The rest of the space was filled with a myriad of workbenches, herbs and plants meticulously labeled and within easy reach of a gorgeous jade pestle and mortar set, alongside a variety of instruments that ranged from rustically sweet to downright terrifying.

“What do you even make down here?” she asked, eyes wide as she picked up a long metal needle nearly as thick as her pinky finger.

He snatched it off her, returning it to its set. “When you’ve been alive as long as I have, eventually you want to try anything and everything out. Now, where in the name of the Forest God did I put my black salt, everything seems to have moved around!”

“I always forget you’re technically the oldest,” she said, her forefinger tracing over the spines of ancient, leather-bound tomes, the smell of ink and parchment thick.

“Technically,” he rolled his eyes, still digging through his things, “although biologically I’m actually the youngest. Different rates of aging.”

“How old are you?”

His brows knitted together as he considered the question. “Eight hundred and thirty-six, I think.”

Her jaw dropped. “You think? You’re not actually sure?”

“Hey, you asked! That’s like me asking you how many weeks old you are, you would have to guess. If I was to compare myself to ahuman,” he physically shuddered at the word, “I’m about twenty-five.”

“And the others?”

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