Page 34 of Bound to Four Alphas

Elian glanced to the side to let Ronan take the lead, following the scent of his mate. It was stronger now, laced with terror, and he couldn’t help the snarl that escaped him.

Skidding to a halt in front of her door, he tried the handle, but it was bolted shut.

But there, he could hear her now, she was behind the door.

And she was fighting.

“Move,” he bellowed to Kaelen and Elian, taking a few steps backwards so that he could ram into the door with his shoulder. The oak creaked, but otherwise held.

Elian snarled in frustration as his shadow magic curled a few inches from his hand before fading out, hindered by the temple’s own restrictions.

Ronan rammed into the door again. And again. And again.

Still it held.

Fuck.

He was in a frenzy now, wildly slamming into the door with every ounce of his human strength. If he was in his wolf form then a mere swipe of his paw would reduce the oak to splinters, but he couldn’t fucking turn.

His nose was full of Selena’s desperate scent, her muffled cries echoing in his ear. He had to get to her, had to protect her, had to, had to,had to—

“Fucking hell,” snarled Kaelen. He withdrew a sharp dagger and, with no warning at all, embedded it into Elian’s thigh.

Elian bellowed with pain and outrage, but Kaelen’s idea had worked. Elian’s shadows burst from his hands in white-hot anger, and Ronan barely had time to leap out the way before they battered into the door, wave after wave of relentless power.

It didn’t last long, the shock of the injury only able to negate the magic binding them for a small time, but it was enough.

With one last solid kick, the door flew from its hinges.

And Ronan saw red.

Selena was on her knees in the center of the room, her beautiful silver gown torn and smeared with a few smatterings of blood, tears staining her cheeks and sliding over a cut at her lip.

Five human males were backing away, clutching their weapons, pure terror reeking from them.

Five human males. Versus the three of them.

It was but the work of seconds.

Ronan struck the closest one with enough force to shatter his skull and the man dropped dead in an instant. The next one, he took slightly more time, grasping the wriggling human by the neck and lifting him from the floor with one hand, squeezing the very life out of him before snapping his neck.

Dropping the body to the floor, where it crumpled in a heap, he glanced over to see that Kaelen had brutally but efficiently killed two of his own. Elian, on the other hand, hadn’t ripped into the fifth at all. He had instead forced the man to his knees, fingers digging into his temples, Elian’s eyes closed and his face oddly serene.

And then the man started screaming, blood pouring from his nose and ears.

He fell forwards with a dull thud, and Elian stepped aside on his already-healed leg.

There was a beat.

Selena drew in a shuddering breath, her eyes meeting Kaelen’s, before she launched herself into his chest with a fresh wave of sobs.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’mso so sorry.” Her voice was muffled against Kaelen’s shirt as his arms wrapped around her, his face burying into her shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, his voice still frantic. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault. Are you hurt? Are you alright?”

She sobbed harder, and under any other circumstances, Ronan would have laughed at the sheer terror on Kaelen’s face. He clearly had no idea how to soothe a bawling female.

“I shouldn’t have left you,” he said into her hair, “I should have stayed by your side. You were right, of course you were right, I was being controlling, I’m so sorry. I’ll never leave your side again.”

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