Page 15 of Eternal

She didn’t need them to say the words. She felt their love as if it were carried to her on a whispered breeze, that came to her from a dimension that was unquestionable. The truth of their silent declaration, enhanced by the way they held her, was so undeniably strong, it blinded her.

They had done this for her. So that she need never feel that wretchedness of having them choose between her and the pack. Because either way, she wouldn’t be able to live with either outcome. They had been supremely confident in their abilities to rescue her then to seed her until their pups grew inside her. If they thought for a moment they were putting her life at unnecessary risk they wouldn’t have attempted this potential fatal ritual.

They had done it for her.

I love you, my alpha kings.

She belonged to them until eternity.

Chapter Six

Farren stirred awake slowly then basked in the familiarity of her surroundings. Ashton and Duncan both stepped out of the en suites from the opposite ends of the bedroom.

With nothing but fluffy white towels around their waists, their hair gleaming wet, and rivulets of water zigzagging down between the phenomenal structure of their abs, Farren sighed again. How could they look so incredibly beautiful, even though they carried fresh scars on their bodies, courtesy of the seeding ceremony?

The memory of the ritual shadowed her mind, and her anxiety for their safety rose inside her as if she were reliving the whole event. She was still mad at them, but every time she brought it up, they’d kiss her soundly, proving that nothing had happened to them and everything was fine. And when she persisted, they didn’t hesitate to take her over their knee and sent her spiraling out of orgasmic control as they spanked her. But still, she couldn’t stop thinking about dangerous their undertaking had been.

“Hey, Beautiful,” Duncan said, leaning down over her and balancing his beautiful body on his fists. He kissed her as if he had read her mind and saw her worrying over something that had already happened.

In one smooth slow motion, he dragged the sheet off her naked body and nuzzled his way down to her tummy, droplets of water from his wet hair sprinkling over her skin.

At the lower part of her belly, he pressed his lips to her, and Farren’s entire body sizzled with heat. But then he planted a kiss on her pussy and her head lifted off the pillow. She was still a bit sore down there. Her last soak in the tub which they had arranged for her had helped but had not completely eradicated the tenderness between her legs.

After not seeing her for seven days leading up to the ritual and then having to fight off monsters before they could hold her between their concrete-hard and mind-blowing bodies, Ashton and Duncan had spent very few short intervals not touching her. Not when they were in their private jet flying home, or the last few days here in their den where they had kept her in their bed.

“Stay in bed for the rest of the day,” Duncan said as he climbed off her, his towel parting against his muscular thighs and making her breath catch. Ashton approached her and, leaning over her, he littered her legs with kisses, all the way up to her thighs, her pulsing pussy, and then finally to her belly, at the place where she would carry their pups if she ever became pregnant.

He rose over her and kissed her lips.

“That’s an order,” he added on to Duncan’s instruction to stay in bed before he lifted himself off her.

She had every intention of following their order to rest, mostly because Amanda had warned she was the topic of all discussions. Not only had her mates conquered the hazardous forest and its array of lethal creatures, but that they had also knotted her under a magical moon with the blessings of the forest angels raining down on them.

She would be the envy of every single female. Her noble and powerful mates had defeated nefarious creatures and a monstrous beast of epic proportions to rescue her. She was basically one of a few in a thousand years. Farren bit her tongue and opted not to correct Amanda, that well the only reason they had to rescue her from the haunted forest was that they put her there in the first place.

But they had done all that to get her pregnant. They had done it for her.

And now streaks of anxiety clouded her mind. She rose from the bed, and slipped into a thin kimono, unable to contain her sudden agitation. She felt as if she should be remembering something—that it was important she remembered—but her brain remained too fuzzy, and the haze made her more jittery.

“What if it doesn’t work?” she asked, all her concerns thrown into the tone of her voice. She fiddled with her hands, clasping, and unclasping them, clenching her fists, and trying to relax at the same time. “What if you risked your lives for something that was never going to happen because of what I am. I’m not a purebreed. I—” She jerked her head to push aside her tears. “What if I’m just broken in that way and I can’t have your baby pups and not even magic can help me.” She frowned for a moment when she realized that wasn’t what had been bothering her.

As her fears spilled from her mouth, she began to believe it less and less, and instead, she now believed wholeheartedly that she would become pregnant. The certainty of that happening was clearer than the next day's break happening.

“No, I mean,” she said in the very same breath as she touched her belly, “I… It will work. I don’t know why I said that. It will work and I will fall pregnant.” They had taken her and filled her with their seed and the whole coupling had been blessed with the flickering lights of the angels. It had felt surreal and magical and yet she knew now without a doubt she would become pregnant.

“Farren?” Ashton said sternly. Just saying her name that way created a million pathways inside her, and they all joined in the tightening of her womb. Their dominance would always speak to her mind and her body in a burst of light and darkness, of submission and arousal.

“Something else is troubling you.” The fierce heavy frown on Duncan’s face made him ten times more formidable. At once the air became laden with tension. By the set position of their jaws, the squareness of their shoulders, and the clenching and unclenching of their fists, she knew they had stepped over the threshold into super-protective territory.

“Did he touch you? Before we got there?” The ferocious growl in Ashton’s voice would have been enough to make any man cower in fear. She knew instantly he was referring to the wolf-beast.

“No. Not at all. I’m fine,” she said, smiling. “And I’m going to listen to you and stay in bed,” she added as cheerfully as she could while slipping between the covers.

They had enough to worry about with the war with the Remnants fast approaching. And not to mention they also ran a giant conglomerate and were astute, feared, and utterly respected businessmen worth more billions than she could possibly imagine, and that came with its own stresses.

She touched her hand to her belly and feasted her eyes on them as they got dressed. They kept casting glances at her, their eyebrows drew to the center of their foreheads in suspicion and concern that she wasn’t telling them everything.

She herself wished she knew what else was bothering her. But she couldn’t shake the darkness and it involved the wolf-beast.