Page 72 of Owned By Four Alphas

Castien stumbled backwards slightly, holding the baby close to his chest. She screeched in protest, and Selena’s heart wrenched. From his robes, he withdrew a dagger.

“I’m supposed to throw her into the pit,” he said, his voice wobbling, “but I’ll slit her throat here and now if you come any closer. As long as she dies, Theldir will be free.”

Malek snarled, crouching low over her. Her silver light shone against his black fur. His eyes were black, utterly devoid of any humanity. There was only the beast, but that didn’t matter. He answered tohermagic.

“Malek,” she said, her voice echoing, cracking and breaking, her hold on her magic paper thin. “Malek, free Kaelen.”

Malek roared and launched forward, leaping over Castien and the baby, paws thundering against the stone. With his teeth and magic, he ripped the iron net open, and Kaelen spilled out in a pool of fire and rage.

Castien staggered back towards her, and her magic lashed out against him, uncontrolled and furious. She gasped, clutching it, reining it back in. She couldn’t hurt her baby. Shecouldn’t.

Malek and Kaelen advanced, teeth snapping, eyes furious.

Another set of growls behind her. She turned, seeing Ronan and Elian stalking forward, covered in blood. At their feet, pools of blood and bodies.

They had decimated everyone.

“You weren’t supposed to come,” Castien yelled, waving the knife, her baby shrieking.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t doanythingbut watch, her heart pounding, her limbs trembling and useless.

Ronan stepped in front of her, hackles raised, lips peeled back in a snarl. Elian crouched onto one knee next to her, pulling her onto his thigh, his magic coursing through her, healing what he could. She clutched his bloodied clothes, desperate and wild. “Get her back! You have to get her back!”

“Hush, Omega,” he said, a knife glinting in his free hand.

“Don’t come any closer, I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her right now!”

Her three mates didn’t stop their slow, relentless advancement on him. Dragon, wolf, and beast.

Selena let hope glimmer momentarily in her chest.

Castien spun towards Kaelen as he snapped his jaws. He raised his hand, dagger glowing red. A blur of movement from Elian.

A sudden, wet, gurgling gasp.

Castien falling to his knees, the dagger clattering uselessly to the ground, Elian’s knife embedded in his back.

Kaelen lurching forward, shifting midair, his human hands catching their baby before she hit the ground.

Castien slumping to the floor, eyes turning glassy.

Selena sucked in a choking breath.

“SELENA!”

The voice howled from the pit, terrible as a sea storm cracking a great ship in two, terrible as the oncoming storm of winter.

It promised fire, it promised death, it promised despair.

Selena screamed, her magic exploding out of her, silver light thrashing against fiery red.

He was coming. Theldir was coming.

The rock around them groaned as her magic erupted against it, battering into it, her fear and panic andpainpouring from her.

As the rocks fell, thundering to the ground, a furious roar echoed from the pit.

She glanced up, her eyes locking on the baby clutched to Kaelen’s chest, her heart stopping as a hand, clawed and terrible andvast, reached up. It was followed by a horned head, the skin made from the very cracked volcanic rocks that held it, and raging eyes of pure fire.

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