Filed to story: Owned by the Alphas Novel
Brax snarled at Kai. “Pin me to that fucking statue again and I’ll replace the head of it with yours,” he warned.
Kai’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t take her off me then,” he said almost casually, but the warning was there.
“You lost control.”
“I hadn’t yet.”
“You fucking had. So had she.” Then he turned to Derik. “And so did you,” he accused.
Derik clenched his jaw, still ashamed that he had.
“Stay in control or I’m sending her back,” Brax warned, then left the room.
Somehow I felt like I had been told off in that statement too. I probably deserved it.
I had used my shadows, channeled. I shouldn’t have let it go so far, but sometimes it just happened.
I blew out a breath and hated that Brax was angry with me too.
Derik pulled off his shirt and handed it to me. “Put this on. I’ll take you to your room. I need you to get dressed in one of the lesser dresses for dinner,” he instructed, and I pulled his muslin onto my body.
“Dinner?”
“With Cain’s mother,” he said, then led me out of the room.
Kai followed closely, shadowing me, his eyes narrowed everywhere. I tugged at the shirt, not used to being so exposed in the open, but there didn’t seem to be any other wolves in the estate at the moment.
“The one who put eyeballs in your stew?”
Derik smiled and nodded, still walking that little bit ahead. I almost had to jog to keep up with his huge steps.
“She appreciates promptness to dinner.”
“Oh.” I was in trouble then. I hadn’t been on time for anything in at least three years.
Kai lifted me then and walked next to Derik, with me hanging in his arms like a bride.
“You’re a slow human.” He smirked, and I laughed.
So my legs weren’t giant size. I was keeping up…ish.
It was quiet then as Derik led me back to my room, Kai holding me, and I had to break it because a question was nagging at me.
“Would Brax really send me back?”
Kai tensed beneath me, and Derik nodded once. “If he thought it was better for you,” he said, then sighed and added, “and better for the pack. It’s harder for him because of his gifts. He can feel things so potently, and he can’t switch off the emotions that Kai and I emit.
“We have this connection as alphas and it keeps us linked. That makes it hard for him when we lose control. We try not to because of it, but sometimes, we make a mistake,” he explained, and I nodded, keeping quiet as I thought about what he said.
Brax always seemed like the light one, the carefree one, the one that didn’t care, but he obviously did when it came to his alphas.
“So that’s why you can talk to each other without actually talking?”
Derik nodded once.
“Can you feel what the other is feeling? Or can only Brax do that?”
Kai spoke this time. “Only Brax can fully feel it. We get an instinct or a leftover kind of feeling, but it’s only a secondhand thing because of the link.”
“And you can feel it when I channel you?” I asked, remembering how they knew when I had found them.
“Yeah, we feel the presence. I felt it when you found Kai,” Derik said as we made it to my suite.
Derik opened the door, and Kai carried me inside. He put me on the bed, then kissed me. When he pulled away, he was smirking.
“I can feel it when they are inside of you,” he whispered against my ear, and I gasped, looking for the lie, but he was being so honest it had me shivering.
I looked at Derik, and he rolled his eyes before going to the wardrobe. He came out with a simple peasant dress that looked more like something I would wear in the village.
“That’s enough sharing for now, Kai. Lorelai, wear this for dinner. You have an hour to bathe and dress. We’ll come get you just before sundown,” he said, and I nodded.
Derik and Kai left after that, and I ran my fingers over the material of the dress.
It was much nicer than the village clothes, of course, but it looked similar, and I was looking forward to it. It didn’t need a corset and was much lighter on me.
I lay back on the bed, closing my eyes for a second.
And fell asleep.
I woke to jostling in my room and froze. My eyes flung open when there were strong arms lifting me and tucking me under the covers.
A huge body climbed in behind me, holding me against him. The scent of rain hit me and I smiled, turning into his body. He kissed my forehead, and I snuggled into him.
“We’ve got half an hour, Spitfire,” Brax breathed, and I nodded, closing my eyes again.
“Don’t send me back,” I whispered, and he kissed my head again.
“I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t. I’ll keep control and I’ll help them keep it. I promise.”
“One day at a time, Lori,” he breathed back, before the heaviness in my body and lids stole me away to sleep.
***
“Lorelai!” a deep voice growled a while later, waking me up.
I stirred and opened my eyes. Brax was gone, and I shot up. Shit, I was going to be late for dinner.
And I was almost one hundred percent certain I wasn’t going to like eyeball stew for dinner.
24. The Witch
I bathed and dressed faster than I ever had, combed through my long dark strands of hair, then met my alphas outside my suite.
Brax chuckled, obviously back to the Brax I knew. “You’re going to get us in trouble, Spitfire, but I have a feeling you quite enjoy that concept.”
He laughed, and I smirked. I did.
“Let’s go. I’m starving, and even eyeball stew sounds more appealing than having to eat with the pack tonight after today’s…issues.” Derik sighed.
“Why?” I asked, and he cleared his throat.
“It got to the other wolves that Brax and Kai were fighting over you. It doesn’t bode well for the strength in our pack if the alphas are fighting at all, let alone over a winter born human,” he murmured, and I bit my lip.
I didn’t want Derik even more stressed; he was already so wound up all the time.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, and he smiled easily at me.
“Don’t be, beautiful. They’re just rumors, and we are still strong together. They’ll learn that the hard way if they wish to,” he said, and kissed me, then strode away, the dinner suit and vest he was wearing making my blood burn in my veins.
I bit my lip for an entirely different reason before Kai grabbed my hand and followed.
All three of them looked insanely good, dressed up for dinner.
Kai was in his dinner slacks and a plain tucked-in shirt, a gemstone necklace hanging on his neck that I hadn’t seen before. A braided leather bracelet was on his wrist, the end dangling on mine.
Brax was in slacks, his dinner jacket embroidered with a wolf head like the symbol for the territory, but this one had a gemstone as the eye, the same moss green color that Kai wore around his neck.
I pointed to it and looked up at him. “What does the crystal mean? All three of you have it on,” I asked, seeing that Derik had his in a chunky ring on his finger.
“It’s a symbol of trust with Cain’s mother. She’s a seer, a witch of sorts, and her kind has always been at odds with the other creatures of our world. This moss agate is her link to us. It means a balanced friendship or alliance. It’s one of the conditions of our visits that we wear it.”
“Oh. A lady in the village told me that moss agate is a crystal used to open the heart to love,” I said, and Brax snickered.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?