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Rager’s eyes flicked toward his brothers before all four rested on her once more. His ears twitched, and he scratched his scruff. “Arie, there is something I…we…wish to ask you.”
She blinked at him in surprise, her own announcement momentarily forgotten as he growled softly with unease. Whatever he was struggling with, she prayed to the gods it wasn’t something that goes was going to rip her heart out.
“What is it?” she asked as she cast a nervous look to the three males who had closed in around her.
Warol and Kyx appeared to peculiarly full of anticipation as they gave their alpha encouraging looks that made her heart leap with excitement. They couldn’t be doing what it looked like they were doing. From what Emala said, tradition was engrained in the species. Still, she couldn’t help but hope.
Rager grunted in acknowledgement at the males and gave her an anxious look. “Do you think… by any chance… that you have made a decision?” he asked, his voice straining on the last few words upon which he cast a worried look toward Warol.
The other male gave him an impatient look, his ears flattening, but it was Kyx shuffling closer to Rager’s side in a sure sign of support as he grinned at Arie. Her eyes widened as she realized that was exactly what they were trying to do. They were attempting to break tradition and assert what they wanted.
Suddenly, Rager snarled in frustration. “Arie, what I’m saying is that we want you to join our triad. You will be ours and we will be yours. We are not taking you to The Citadel. As soon as the snow recedes, we will return with you to our territory.”
He stated it with a manner of finality as if it settled everything. It wasn’t exactly like the glimpse at romance she’d enjoyed from her mother’s books, but Arie thought they were the sweetest words she’d ever heard. They wanted her enough to claim her instead.
She stepped forward and pressed her hand against his chest as she looked up at him, wanting to remember the moment. Rager’s muscles tensed in reaction and his hand settled over her own. He didn’t even blink, as if he were afraid to lose the moment.
“And what about love?” she whispered, needing the words with all of her being.
“Love only begins to describe what I feel for you. What we feel for you,” he corrected as he looked over at his triad, including them in his declaration.
Warol moved in closer to Kyx’s side in staking his claim as well so that when she stretched out her other arm to include them, both males took her hand between theirs as their murmurs of love joined those of their alpha. Arie’s heart both lightened with her joy and felt filled the brink with every word they spoke.
“You are ours, Arie,” Warol rasped. “And we are yours. That’s not just love, that is forever for Ragoru.”
“And that love will never dim or fade,” Kyx added with a grin. “It will flourish and get stronger as the bond between us grows and thrives. We will always love you, Arie. This is our promise when we say that you are ours and we are yours.”
“Thank the gods,” she replied around a soft laugh. “Because I love you as well and don’t want to leave. I want the rest of my life to be with you. I want us over any citadel. You are my home—all three of you. All the way back to the den, I’ve been trying to find the most elegant way to say this, but in light of your declaration I will say one thing: I will be your mate. Rager, Warol, and Kyx, I choose you.”
She decided, in that moment, that the light of happiness in their eyes at her declaration would be among her happiest of memories. A joy she felt echoing in her heart. It carried with it a promise of family, home, and more. What’s more, she hadn’t even needed to go to the citadel to find it among virtual strangers.
She’d had it all along right here.
The citadel of her mother’s family was not where she was meant to be. Arie was meant to be right there with her mates. It seemed that she was, at last, getting the happiness that she’d always prayed for.
Chapter
Nineteen
She didn’t know who moved first, but it was as if whatever had kept her triad restrained snapped at her words. Rager’s eyes flared with triumph, and she shivered as Warol bared his fangs with lust. Kyx, however, melted her heart. He wore a soft expression, as if all his dreams had been made true with her declaration. From all three males Arie felt loved and wanted at that moment more than she ever had.
Bodies pressed in around her, arms and hands becoming indistinguishable as they slid against her in a passionate frenzy. She managed to pull free long enough to wiggle out of her dress before eager hands shredded it into rags. Tongues immediately caressed the skin of her neck, shoulder and breast. Teeth nipped or bore down on her, gripping her in place while hands continued to play over her body, learning every curve. Fingers took turns slipping between her thighs. Her blood burned through her and pooled in her belly in a pulsing heat that slipped from her to dampen her pussy and slicken her thighs. She attempted to shift away from the erotic onslaught, but hands gripped her hips tight, holding her still between them.
Even the growls and raspy crooning made her internal walls spasm with desire. She needed them with a surprising urgency. Her fingers clawed at them as she tried to pull them closer to satiate the heat of her desire. A pair of fingers brushed against her engorged clit at the same time a stinging nip was left upon her neck. She moaned in reaction and could hear Warol’s laughter as she writhed.
The world shifted and Arie was lifted up and held suspended between them. She was certain that Warol and Rager were carrying her between them, each pressing against her with their own demands. A hand slid down her face from above her and she leaned into it with a sigh of pleasure. That was Kyx, she was certain. As she was set upon the furs, her vision still fuzzy from her desire, a muzzle pressed against her cheek, and she felt the brush of thin velvety lips. Kyx’s whispered voice was an intimate golden thread in the chaos of sensation surrounding her.
“Thank the gods, Arie. You have chosen and we are yours.”
That soft promise brought a happy sigh to her lips and was immediately followed by a shiver of desire at the growling timbre of Warol’s voice that was so incredibly different from Kyx’s soft lilt. One of his hands pressed against her mons, his thumb seeking the center of her pleasure instinctively.
“Our blood, hearts, and souls will mingle. This night will break us down, destroy us all, but we will be reformed and breathe again, together as one.”
“Through blood we arrive into the world, and through blood we are born again,” Rager snarled, and Arie arched her hips in desperation as fire licked through her from his resonant growl. He shot forward, his teeth snapping against the flesh at her throat. White heat flared, and it combusted as another set of teeth pierced the fleshy area just above her chest, and a third caught the curvature of her hip. The world whited out around her and her universe narrowed in on the pants and growls of her males.
Hers. They were now hers and she was irrevocably theirs.
A hot, warm essence slid across her lips and she licked the metallic, salty flavor off. Some part of her registered that it was blood. Another hand passed over her lips, depositing more drops, followed by a third. Each taste was unique and kindled a hunger in her for her mates. She wanted to pull them within her, join herself to them within her flesh.
