Page 81 of Owned By Four Alphas

“Please!” she begged, her body writhing as Ronan drove into her, “please, Alpha, please!”

“What do you want, Little Omega,” Kaelen snarled into her ear, holding her still so that Ronan could take what he wanted from her. “You need to tell me.”

“I want you, Alpha! I want all of you! Please!”

She could feel it now, the ache, the unending insistentneedthat predicated her heat. Soon she would be nothing more than a keening mess, desperate for her mates, demanding and needy.

But as Kaelen’s hand drifted lower to rub against her clit, bringing tears of pure pleasure to her eyes as she moaned and bucked, she knew it would be nothing like the first heat with her mates. Nothing like the cold, lonely nights spent on her own in the cottage, terrified of the alphas in the village.

Here, she was safe. Loved. Utterly protected.

As another orgasm hit her, she could have wept.

This was all she had ever wanted. For a while, she thought she might have lost it all. But her pack, hermates, were stronger than any force that tried to tear them apart.

And now, she was free.

Epilogue

Long ago, deep in the mountains, something was born. Not a babe of flesh, but a God of fire and death. Prophecy hung from his shoulders like silk and he knew that he was mighty indeed.

Others knew it too. They saw his terrible power and knelt before him, begging for power and mercy alike. They called him Theldir, and the name dripped blood.

When Theldir looked over the land, south of the mountains of his birth, he saw it laid out for him, ripe for the taking.

He did not know why he wanted it. Only that it was right that he should have it.

But the land was not unguarded. A lone God, the Horned One, the Hunter and the Mage had made his home within the forest. And he would not let another take it.

The battle was long and brutal. Countless mortals perished. A whole generation of humans was born and died. The stronger beings, those with magic in their veins, were harder to kill. Great dragons flew at Theldir’s back, the Fae children of fire knelt at his feet.

The Forest God had followers of his own. Huge wolves with flashing teeth that fought with the power of a thousand men.

In the end, Theldir fell.

He did not know why. Perhaps it was because the Forest God was older. Wiser. Perhaps the magic of the Great Mother flew through his veins with more potency.

It did not matter. Theldir was bound in iron chains in the very mountain from whence he had came. And he was left there, with only the mountains for company.

They whispered to him. Over the millennia, they told him of the rising powers of the land above, the shifting seas, the changing order.

And then one day, they told him of The Breaking. Theldir had felt it, deep in the rocks of the Earth. The Forest God had fallen, and left his magic wild and unclaimed behind him.

The mountains also told of a prophecy. Of a child, born of the blood of the Forest God, with the power to destroy Theldir. To undo him entirely.

Theldir knew then that the child must die.

So when the babe escaped, clutched in the protective arms of a mighty pack, when Theldir was driven back into the pit by a dragon and a wolf together, he was almost willing to accept that the prophecy had come true at last.

But he wasn’t dead. Nor was he changed. He remained, buried under a mountain, with nothing left but his rage and fire.

And then the mountains began to whisper again.

They told him that it was not truly over.

***

Young Matty was thoroughly bored. He had been tending the goats, watching them slide and skitter over the rocks, unable to follow them up the treacherous mountainside. It didn’t matter. As long as he kept an eye out for any pesky dragons orhungry wolves, then he had done his job. This wasn’t a wild herd. These goats belonged to him and his family.

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