Page 32 of Owned By Four Alphas

But she wouldn’t beg. She wouldn’t give in and accept the prison walls he had built around her. She couldn’t, not without betraying everything she believed herself to be.

The rift had trickled out, poisoning the whole pack. Elian was perfectly happy to let Kaelen dictate her life to her, claimingwith a mischievous wink that her guaranteed safety put him at ease to pursue his plans.

She hadn’t asked what they were. She couldn’t find the energy to care, either. Elian would always scheme and plot, and now he had Kaelen as his playmate, the two were a force. They commanded every room they were in, masterfully pitting the nobles against each other, weaving the threads of their control until it was near absolute. Caeda, who had wanted to go and explore the world, had vowed never to talk to her brother again after he prohibited it. So far, she was doing an excellent job keeping to her word.

Ronan they sent away on an increasing number of missions to his territory to try and stop Ordovic from digging his claws further into the wolves. It was essential they kept control of the wolf shifters and their land to guard against the human threat. He never liked leaving her. But she couldn’t ask him to stay, not when his people were in danger. At least he would be returning today for a meeting with the nobles. She shuddered. She was dreading it.

Malek had not done well in the face of Kaelen’s domineering. Selena was amazed that the situation hadn’t devolved into an all-out fight between them. She had sensed it, looming and dangerous, a storm on the horizon threatening at any moment to sweep in and decimate.

It was always the same. Kaelen would make an order, Malek would challenge him, and the two would stare each other down wondering if the other would break first. Malek always broke first. He would retreat to the woods to shed his human skin and let himself lose control. He would never risk hurting her by attacking Kaelen.

A small part of Selena was glad of it. She had seen what formidable warriors all of her mates were, both when they fought together or against each other. But Malek was something different. He was vulnerable to Elian’s magic, but Kaelen’s was not strong enough to rein him in. And if the two of them ever lost control, she didn’t know if they’d be able to stop themselves from killing one another.

She wouldn’t survive the heartbreak.

Malek knew that. So he escaped to the woods, to his Nightwalkers, and lost control there instead.

She missed him terribly when he did.

She missed all her mates.

Her baby kicked suddenly against her, shocking her out of her spiraling thoughts. She glanced down, caressing a hand over the spot where the baby’s solid little foot had fluttered.

Her baby.

A tear slipped down her cheek.

Her sleep had been terrible, more and more nightmares of her father plaguing her. At this point, she was certain he was alive and calling to her. But she couldn’t reach him. The frustration was enough to make her want to tear her hair out.

Despite the trove of books from the archives, her research had only gotten her so far. Confirmed what she already knew to be true. More tears fell and she sniffled, wiping her nose against her sleeve.

“Selena?”

She whipped around, furiously rubbing her tears away, painting a smile on her face. “Castien! It’s good to see you, I think I’ve found something interesting here!”

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing, hovering awkwardly at her side, fingers drumming against an ancient book.

“Really,” she said, her voice high and thin, “I’m fine, I promise! It’s just…the pregnancy. Just the pregnancy.”

He nodded slowly, his expression making it clear that he didn’t believe her. After all, this wasn’t the first time he’d caught her crying.

Clearing her throat, she gestured to the book. “What do you have there?”

Glancing down in surprise, as if having forgotten that he carried a book, he let out a nervous laugh. “Oh, this? Could be nothing. I found it on one of the furthest shelves. I think it might help us translate that book you found. What was it again? Something about prophecies?”

“The Prophecies of the Great Gods: The Language of the Divine?” she asked, gasping in sudden delight. The book she had spotted the first time she had found the archives. The one Elian had begrudgingly allowed her to take. The one that constantly mocked her with its unidentifiable language.

Castien nodded, letting the book fall with a dull thud to the table, coughing as it kicked up a cloud of dust, “I was doing inventory when I stumbled across it. Didn’t understand it at first, so was happy to leave it, but then some of these symbols caught my eye.” He traced his finger over the spine. “They’re the same as in your book, right? So I had a closer look and sure enough, this seems to be a translation guide!”

“Castien, you’re amazing!” she cried, the thrill of the new discovery enough to banish the heavy cloud above her head for just a moment.

He flushed, biting back a smile at her praise, “Oh, I’m not sure about that. Come on, let’s see what we can work out.”

Hours passed in companionable silence as they scoured through the book together, comparing the two texts, trying to find a thread of something,anything, that could help them work out how to locate the Forest God.

After a while, Selena leaned back with a groan, her joints aching from craning over the words. “It’s going to take us days to get through all of this! Maybe we should just translate it from cover to cover, make sure we don’t miss anything!”

Castien winced slightly, but Selena ignored him. She had to do this. Finding her father was the key to all of this, she was sure of it. If she could find him, then he could teach her how to control the magic, and then there wouldn’t be nearly so many claiming she was nothing but a danger to the realm. And then maybe, just maybe, her pack could be happy.

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