Page 9 of Owned by Four Alphas (Silverthorn Alphas #2)

She was in the forest again. She was coming to recognize each individual tree, the way the branches spiraled up, the vibrant greens of each leaf. She knew the way, too, through the bracken, towards the sound of water flowing over rock.

And he was there, as he always was, sitting by the stream with a sad smile on his face.

“Father!” she shouted as she moved towards him, her limbs slow and hazy. “Father, I think I’m getting closer! I think I’m beginning to understand!”

“Understand what, child?” he asked, his voice like the cracking of stone.

“Why I keep seeing you, in my dreams,” she said, fighting to get closer to him, “I think you’re still alive!”

When the fire hit, she was prepared. It was always the same roaring, blazing inferno capturing the world in a miasma of pain and fire, before it was gone again in the blink of an eye.

“If I’m still alive,” he said, “then why aren’t you looking for me?”

“I am looking! I promise, it’s all I’m doing!” The edges of him were growing thinner, wisping away into the air. “No!” she choked, reaching out a hand, “No, I need you! You need to tell me what to do!”

“You already know what to do, my child.”

She bolted up, the dream fading from her as quickly as it came.

She was alone.

Rubbing her bleary eyes, she looked around. She was in the library still, and the sun had disappeared over the horizon, leaving the room lit only by the roaring of the fires. She glanced down, guiltily smoothing her hands over the crumpled papers littering the desk she had just fallen asleep on.

Castien was long gone by the looks of things, his half of the desk neatly tidied into stacks of books and labeled piles of paper. She turned her head. He’d even laid everything out in alphabetical order, by the looks of things. She looked back to her own half of the desk, with scattered half-torn papers, ink stains, and precarious piles of books.

Oops.

Ah, well. There was no wrong way to research, she supposed. And being queen had to have some perks.

She stood, stretching her arms over her head, her spine cracking. Her stomach was getting rounder every day, and her body wasn’t thanking her for the hours spent hunched over a desk. By the estimate of the healers, she had about four months to go before she gave birth. Already the nursery was prepared, tutors were on hand, and there was a whole army of midwives ready to assist her at a moment’s notice.

Kaelen thought of everything.

She groaned, walking slow circles around the desk to try and get the blood flow back into her legs. At least he didn’t mind her being alone in the library, although he had made a show of reducing Castien into a quivering mess with various threats and shows of dominance.

She had only rolled her eyes. Omega males were rare, vanishingly so amongst shifters, and Ronan and Kaelen didn’t quite know how to handle the nervous librarian. They were more common amongst humans and the Fae, so Elian hardly saw him as any kind of physical threat. Only an intellectual one. He’d gotten increasingly territorial over her magical lessons until she’d had to quite literally get Malek to drag him out the library to give her some peace and quiet to focus.

Malek just took Castien in his stride, as he did most things.

Growing up as she did, with only three or four precious books to her name, Castien was an absolute gift from the gods. He was an expert in all things indexing, coding, note-taking, and referencing, and gladly taught her everything he knew about the magnificent library. It had been just over a month since she had accidentally exploded the statue during the Winter’s End feast, and she had made great strides in understanding how god-magic worked.

Too bad she was no closer to controlling it. Or to reaching her father in anything more than dreams. In fact, over the past few days, she was beginning to suspect she was approaching a dead end.

But with each vision of him, each message, she grew more and more certain. The priestesses had once told her that there were some who believed the Forest God never died, merely gave up his magic, and Selena was beginning to think there was truth to their words.

She was determined to find out. Because with every bout of accidental magic, every rumor of her continual failure, every frustrating minute spent not knowing what she was supposed to do, she grew more and more certain that finding her father was the answer to everything.

A sudden crash, suspiciously like a stack of books tumbling over, startled her out of her reverie.

“Hello?” she called, peering into the dark aisles. The noise had come from somewhere towards the back, where the older tomes were kept safely tucked away with various enchantments to preserve them. Or, in some cases, protect the reader. “Is someone there?”

There was no response. She huffed, picking up one of the many candelabras that littered her workspace, careful to hold it far away from any of the old pages of the books. Castien had assured her that there was plenty of magic preventing anything so tawdry as candle fire from harming the books, but she was loath to test the theory.

She reached the tumbled books and knelt down, running a finger over the spines. She glanced around. There was nobody there.

She picked up the smallest, turning it over in her hand, unable to read the language embossed on the red leather. Some old Fae language, most likely. Placing it back on the shelf, her eyes narrowed as she looked at the books next to it. It was a row of faded green texts, volumes of the history of the First Realm, but the third was suspiciously free of the dust and wear of the others.

Biting her lip, she reached out and tugged on the volume. It only slid a couple of inches before there was a definitive click and a rush of dusty air as a hidden door creaked open a few shelves down.

“Woah,” she breathed, nudging the door further open with her foot. There was a long stone passageway, freezing cold and covered in cobwebs. Nibbling her lip and glancing back nervously, she arranged a few books to stop the door from swinging shut after her and made her way into the passage.

As she crept along, emboldened by curiosity and excitement, she tried to imagine where in the palace she was. The halls seemed to run alongside the library, but it wasn’t perfectly straight, and she had the sense she was walking downhill.

“Of course the Fae have secret tunnels,” she muttered to herself, careful to avoid the floating cobwebs. She only hoped she wouldn’t end up in some horrendous dungeon, or trapped in a dark hole meant to ensnare intruders. Kaelen would be furious. And worse, Elian would find it hilarious.

As a cool breeze blew past, her skin broke out into goosebumps, and a shudder ran down her spine. Perhaps she shouldn’t be poking about by herself. She would never admit it, but she found herself missing Kaelen’s steady, protective presence beside her.

She shook her head. This was Elian’s palace. She was queen of it. She would be just fine.

Moving at a snail’s pace, she eventually reached a tiny, rotting wooden door. Wrinkling her nose, she pushed it open, gasping at the room that lay beyond.

It was a treasure trove of artefacts, books, furniture, art, everything and anything she could think of. Rusting chandeliers swung from the ceiling above old chests overflowing with coins and crystals. Gilded frames hung on the walls, the paintings depicting glorious battles of the Fae. What was stranger, some of them seemed to move . She would look away and back again, and a horse would be rearing, a sword raised, an enemy slain.

Books bound in thick brown hide seemed to whisper on the shelves, beckoning her closer, their jewel-encrusted spines winking at her. There were racks of weapons, old swords with crumbling blades, ancient bows still strung, axes coated in dried blood. Death seemed to cloud them.

She tiptoed through the treasures, each more improbable than the last, the magic thick and choking. The only light was from the dim glow of her candelabra, the shadows growing longer and larger around her. Almost unnaturally so.

She stilled, her heart in her throat.

The shadows moved and swayed of their own accord.

“Malek? Is that you?” Her voice was high-pitched and trembling.

“Close, little dove,” a smooth voice breathed in her ear.

She shrieked and dropped the candelabra, but it was caught by Fae-quick hands before it could reach the floor.

“Easy there, darling,” Elian winked, “Malek isn’t the only one who can control shadows.”

“Elian!” She fought down the admittedly immature desire to stomp on his foot, her heart still racing. “What are you doing here?”

His eyes twinkled with mischief, “Strange as it might be, I’m looking for something. In the archives. That I happen to own. I think the real question, little dove, is what you’re doing here?”

She opened her mouth to protest but found she had no good retort, instead muttering, “I found a…secret passage. In the library. I was curious.”

“Of course you were,” said Elian, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “And what exactly were you hoping to find?”

“I don’t know!” She snatched the candelabra back from him, “Something to help with my research? On the Forest God? I’m at a bit of a loose end.”

Elian’s grin didn’t falter, but she could have sworn she saw a flicker of hurt in his eyes/ “You don’t have to go sneaking about the place, you know. You could have come to me.”

“Could I?” She pretended to inspect the titles of the books, turning from him so he couldn’t see her face. “How do I know that anything you tell me is the truth, Elian?”

He was silent a while, his magic pulsing outwards, distressed. His footfalls echoed as he slowly walked towards her. She still didn’t look at him.

“Little dove, I… fuck … I don’t know.” His hands settled on her hips and her stupid omega brain purred at the touch, urging her to lean backwards into his heat, to accept his affection.

She ground her teeth together. “Is that it? You don’t know?”

“I shouldn’t have undermined you like that in front of everyone,” he said at last, his chin resting on her head, “I thought it would be funny, and maybe do some good, and Sarya’s now happily mated to one of the Southern Fae knights and I just didn’t…think. Sometimes it’s so easy to forget that you’re not Fae, that you aren’t accustomed to how things work here.”

She sniffed, her body relaxing ever so slightly as he spoke, unable to resist the soothing rumble from his chest. “But it’s not just that. Ever since then, you and Kaelen have been like this team against the rest of us. Fielding all the political stuff, sorting things out before I even hear about it, making moves without asking the rest of us. It’s not…it isn’t how I want things to be!”

“Little dove, we’re just playing to our strengths-”

“No! You’re not! Not when you keep leaving me out of things.”

“In all fairness, you’re spending so much time working on controlling your magic. And you’re doing an excellent job, don’t get me wrong, but between that and your research,, it’s taking up all your time.”

“But I don’t see why you get to decide what— oof !”

She was cut off as he spun her around, pinning her gently against the bookshelves, his lips dropping to her neck. On impulse, her whole body went limp as his teeth grazed her skin, the touch sending sparks of desire flickering over her body, straight to her core.

“What are y-you… oh ,” she moaned as his hands gripped her waist, his sharp teeth digging in further to her skin, his tongue laving over her pulse point.

“You shouldn’t be down here, little dove,” he growled, his voice dropping low, “not by yourself. It’s dangerous, there are too many dark objects that could hurt you.”

“B-but… I…” She trailed off, squeaking as he bit down on her neck, over where he had first given her her mating bite. Every coherent thought, every argument melted away under his touch. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of her rational brain, she realized that Elian was using his alpha designation to distract her, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. Things had been so distant between them lately, so tense, her body rejoiced at finally being close to him once more.

“If you want to come down here, it has to be with me,” he said, and she couldn’t stop herself from nodding in agreement. He pulled back, capturing her chin in his thumb and forefinger, “is that clear, little dove?”

“Yes, Alpha,” she murmured, heat coiling in her belly, “I won’t come down here without you.”

“Good girl,” he purred, one hand gently capturing her neck. “Now, it’s bedtime. We can explore more tomorrow.”

“But I—”-

“ Selena ,” he growled, and she whimpered, her body going limp once more. “Bed. Now. I’ll take you.”

As he guided her away, her mind still a fog of lust and submission, she faintly realized what one of the titles had read, the gold lettering ornate and faded.

The Prophecies of the Great Gods: The Language of the Divine.