Page 56 of Bound to Four Alphas

The cold, harsh reality crashed into Kaelen, threatening to knock him from his feet.

“If I’m right,” Elian snarled, “then he can steal her power for himself. All the power of the Forest God. She will die.”

“Come on,” Kaelen said, striding forward and gesturing to Ronan, “we have to find her.”

As Ronan and Elian resumed their tracking, Kaelen choked over Elian’s words. Selena. Beautiful, brave, infuriating Selena.

Offered up on an altar for an ancient Fae Lord to massacre.

There was nothing he wouldn’t do to get her back. He would rip Phaendar limb from limb, string him up to rot from the beams of his throne room, burn his city to ash.

Anything to get them back.

Their path led them back west through a network of tunnels through the mountain, emerging into the forest beyond. As they got closer, her scent rapidly fading, Ronan sharply reared back.

“What is it?” Kaelen asked, taking a step back from the enormous spooked wolf.

“Humans,” Ronan said, “I smell humans.”

“Maybe they attacked Phaendar?” Malek suggested, his sleek black form prowling through the shadows in the trees, “This is close to where we fought them.”

“No,” Elian’s voice was hoarse, “no, I think something much worse has happened.”

His eyes flicked to Kaelen’s. “I think my father has made an alliance with them.”

Sure enough, as they crept up a small hill, careful to remain downwind despite Elian’s shadows concealing them, they were met with a vast war camp. Blood-red tents in neat rows, all flying the flag of the Silverthorn Kingdom, seemed to have sprouted from the earth. Soldiers marched up and down, the sun catching the tips of their spears. At the very center, the crumbling ruins of a temple.

“There,” Elian hissed, “if they’re holding her anywhere, it’ll be there. The ritual needs to take place in a sanctified temple.”

“The ritual?” Kaelen turned, his voice dark.

Elian didn’t turn back, only nodded stiffly, the tendons in his neck jumping out.

A ritual. Kaleen felt the urge. To transform into his dragon skin and burn the war camp to the ground, incinerate every single one of the soldiers and Fae that dared stand between him and his mate.

“What’s the plan?” Ronan growled, muzzle pulled back over his teeth, “Storm the place?”

“No,” Elian said quickly, “the object that Phaendar has. I’ll bet it’s the mystery weapon the humans have been threatening us with. We’ll never make it to the center of thecamp before we’re stopped by it. Our only chance is to infiltrate the temple and make our stand there.”

Kaelen’s eyes combed over the camp, caught by every movement, every wave of fabric.

And then he spotted him. A great, hulking, beast of a man that he recognized from the ball thrown by the priestesses. Damien’s personal bodyguard.

A slow grin crept over his mouth. “I think I’ve just found our way in.”

Chapter 25 - Elian

Elian had no time to consider his foolishness as light dimmed, the long evening fading away into inky darkness. Later, once Selena was safe in his arms, he would torture himself over his own stupidity. His own father. How had he not seen it?

He shook his head to clear it. Later. He couldn’t let anything get in the way of his current mission.

Namely, capture the bulky soldier and torture him for information.

In the end, the plan was almost irritatingly simple and yet devastatingly dangerous. Elian was to waltz right into the camp, using his magic to veil his appearance, take the form of something alluring, and lead the soldier right back out again and into the waiting grasp of his packmates.

So, as Malek concealed Ronan and Kaelen in darkness, Elian glammered himself to appear as one of the painfully beautiful Fae handmaidens that had emerged as the light grew low, looking to entertain or be entertained by the human soldiers.

“Can you tell?” he asked Ronan, his voice magically feminine and breathy as he batted his wide green eyes and twirled a lock of blonde hair around his finger.

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