Page 57 of Owned By Four Alphas

He smiled back, his face cracking, his eyes full of nothing but love.

Slowly, he lifted her hips, angling them so that he could push his hard length into her. She gasped as inch by inch she sank down onto him, bracing her hands against his chest, the pregnant swell of her stomach pressing into his rock-hard stomach. She giggled as she wobbled slightly, and he laughed too, the sound like the roaring crash of tumbling stone.

Holding her hips steady, he began rocking in and out of her, their breaths mingling, their eyes never leaving one another. Pleasure coiled low and heavy and she couldn’t help the moans and whimpers that escaped her.

Malek looked at her like she had hung the moon, like she had strung the stars together and decorated the night sky. He looked at her like she painted the morning clouds in swirling watercolor, like she was the very warmth of the sun itself.

As they reached their peaks together, his knot swelling and locking them together, she whispered promises against his skin, promises to love him, to deserve him, to care for him always. As he rolled them over, careful of her stomach, his arms wrapping tightly around her, she let sleep take hold, safe and content in the arms of her soulmate.

Chapter 22 - Kaelen

They had spent hours searching the woods. Kaelen no longer cared about being careful, about giving away their position. He shifted into a dragon and took to the skies, patrolling in widening circles in the hope of maybe catching a glimpse of his mate.

It was futile. She had disappeared at some point in the night, hours and hours ago. And he had no idea which direction she had gone in. Ronan thought he caught something near the border of the Silverthorn Kingdom, but the trail ran cold, and there was no way of confirming if it had even been Selena. A thorough search of the village beyond, what Ronan believed to be Selena’s village, showed nothing but charred remains and one solitary, frustratingly empty, cottage.

No scent. No hint of magic. Whatever tricks Selena had learned, they were astonishingly effective. For all intents and purposes, Selena had disappeared. And they were wasting precious time.

Landing with a thundering crash back in the clearing, he shocked Elian out of whatever magical meditation he had been deep in, and the Fae scowled.

“Anything?” Kaelen growled.

Elian shook his head.

“Fuck,” Kaelen replied, his keen eyes searching the tree line. Ronan crept out from the shadows, panting slightly, his eyes half-crazed.

“We need a plan,” said Elian. “If she’s truly gone after what she believes to be her father, then I need to do more research, figure out where that is.”

“We can’t go back to the Marble Halls,” Ronan snarled.

Elian’s eyes flickered to Kaelen, his expression guarded. “I wasn’t thinking the Marble Halls.”

“You want to go to the Palace of Embers,” Kaelen said, shaking out his wings.

Elian nodded. “If you grant me unrestricted access to your libraries and archives, I may be able to work out where she’s going. If we act fast, we may be able to intercept her. She can’t be moving very fast.”

Ronan growled, pacing the grass, his tail thrashing, “I want to continue searching for her. We’ll waste time travelling north.”

“If we haven’t found her already, it means we likely won’t find her at all. Our only chance is to anticipate where she’s going and meet her there,” Elian argued. “Trust me, I don’t like it either. But we have no idea how long it will take her to get there. What if it’s already too late?”

“Theldir is buried in a volcano north of the First Realm,” said Kaelen. “Nobody knows where precisely, but if it is him tricking her, pretending to be her father, chances are he’s leading her north anyway. And when we’re in my territory, I can command patrols to search the mountain ranges. It’s easiest to hunt that terrain from the skies.”

Ronan bared his teeth, but he looked to be considering it. “What about Malek?”

“Wherever he’s gone, I doubt he’s coming back here,” said Elian. “And if he does, he can follow our scent. We don’t have time to wait around and find out.”

“Agreed,” said Kaelen. “What about it, Ronan?”

Ronan growled, claws scraping the earth, thrashing as he paced. Eventually, he stopped, turning to face them. “We have to work together,” he said, his voice firm, “We can’t carry on like we have been. Whatever rifts, whatever arguments we had, we need to lay them to rest. We cannot fight each other and a buried god at the same time.”

Kaelen snarled, flaming heat licking the back of his throat. It was easier said than done. His alpha still sang for control, demanded respect. The chasm between them was practically a living thing, angry and hissing and crying for blood.

But Ronan was right. All that mattered was finding Selena. There was nothing he would not do to find Selena.

“Agreed,” he said. “I’ll fly ahead, how do you two wish to travel?”

“I’ll run with Ronan,” said Elian, smoothly shifting into some form of sleek, muscled mountain cat. “We’ll meet you there.”

Ronan grunted, turning north. “Try to keep up, Fae.”

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