CLAIMED BY MY FOUR ALPHAS

CHAPTER 6

ZAIRA

“What is going on?!” Kane loudly demanded as I kept pulling him with me towards Ares’s bedroom, where we had decided to have the conversation.

Ares had remained adamant about going to his brother’s penthouse, even when he knew what was at stake. He insisted that we would talk to Kane when he arrived for the new moon festival, which Kane had just done.

We had spent the day going out in search of Damon and Zade to see if I could possibly be mated to one of two of them, but we had no luck in finding them. Ares revealed to me later that they were probably somewhere setting up fireworks, as they almost always did during every festival.

“I just need to talk to you and Ares for a few minutes. We have something to sort out,” I told him, finally getting to Ares’s room.

Ares was already standing at the door with his arms crossed. He stepped to the side when he saw me and his brother approaching, letting us enter the room before he slammed it shut.

“Start explaining,” Kane said, glaring at his brother.

“Our dear old father found the love of his life after the first one disappeared,” Ares responded in a nonchalant tone, and I tensed up at the way he had started the conversation.

“What are you talking about?” Kane asked, stepping closer to his brother as if getting ready to hit him if the situation ever called for it.

“Kane, we’re mated,” I started.

“I know that. We already established that fact last night,” Kane said back, glancing at me. He didn’t get the message I was trying to pass across properly.

I could see Ares tense up at the confirmation that I had been with Kane the night before.

“I don’t mean me and you, Kane,” I admitted, looking at Ares for moral support, but Ares was too busy shooting invisible daggers through the side of his brother’s head with his eyes. “Yes, you and I are connected in a mate bond, but I’m mated to your brother as well.”

Kane looked from me to Ares, and then his eyes settled on me.

“What is this? Your idea of a new moon prank?” he asked, almost smiling but not quite.

He started to take in my facial expression, and he concluded that it was not a joke.

Before he could address it, I dropped the second bomb on him.

“Your father is going to announce tonight that he will be getting mated to my mother. When that happens, we’ll be forced to be stepsiblings, even though we’re already bonded by the Moon Goddess,” I lectured.

“I think we’re making this a little too complicated, then.” Kane shrugged after putting my words into thought.

“What do you think we should do?” I asked him.

“For one, we’ll just have to tell our parents that they have to stop whatever they have between each other. They simply can’t mate if they know that their children are entangled in this web, right?”

I didn’t get the chance to open my mouth and protest when he continued with his plan.

“After that, we can just ask Zaira to choose who she wants as her mate and reject whoever she doesn’t want as her mate. I believe it’s that simple.”

“Your mate seems to have other ideas,” Ares told him. “She thinks it’ll be a better idea to sacrifice what we have for our parents because they deserve all the happiness – as if we don’t – and we can both get rejected and carry on as stepsiblings as if that will erase what we have just done with each other.”

Kane gave me a strange look. He seemed to be trying to decipher what my idea was and make sense of it, but he was obviously failing at it.

“And I have a strong feeling that Damon and Zade could possibly be involved in this, too,” Ares added.

“I never said I wanted to reject you two if our parents get mated. What if they don’t have to know? What if we just keep our own affairs a secret and not tell them? Plus, I don’t think it’s possible to be mated to four brothers by the way.”

Kane cleared his throat and finally said something.

“Zaira, I’m sure you must have forgotten that I am the next Alpha of Shadowmoon Pack. More sooner than later, I will be expected to find my mate and present her to my father as the future Luna of the pack. What do you suggest in that case? Do you want me to hire someone to pretend or something? You know I can’t. Her blood will have to be tested to see if she is compatible with the land to be the Luna, and what if I ruin an innocent life just for a game of pretend?”

I looked at my feet, unable to think of something that could serve as a tangible plan.

“I think I have a plan,” Ares finally chimed, making Kane and I look at him eagerly.

~~

“Good evening, good subjects of Shadowmoon Pack,” Alpha Leo greeted as he stood up from the head of the long dinner table that had been set outside for the feast. My mother was seated on his right side, not too close to raise suspicion before he announced it, but not too far that he lost hold of her.

“Good evening, Alpha Leo.”

“This is nerve-wracking,” Ares commented under his breath. “Have you seen Zade and Damon?”

“If I saw them, I would have let you know. Wasn’t that a part of your plan all along? Am I missing something?” Kane retorted.

“I was just wondering. There’s no need for you to be angry about something that trivial,” Ares replied.

I sat between them to prevent them from coming to blows when it came to it, but it didn’t stop them from glaring at each other after replying to each other’s questions with sarcasm.

“Can you two please behave for the umpteenth time?” I pleaded, trying to focus on what Alpha Leo was saying to the pack members.

“…and the happiness of the Alpha is the happiness of the pack, which is why it wouldn’t be a very good thing if I found happiness and didn’t share it with my pack members.”

Everyone looked on in curiosity and eagerness as they waited for him to break the news.

“I have found a new mate to be the pack’s Luna.”

The crowd of people split into groups almost immediately as they started to mutter and ask questions.

“She’s seated right beside me.” He gestured, and my mother got up. The mumbles only grew loud from there, but Alpha Leo didn’t mind.

“Now, the original plan was for me to announce that we would be getting mated soon, but we figured that since everyone in the pack is already present; and it’s an auspicious night; we want to have our mating ceremony right now, with all of you as witnesses.”

“Sorry, we’re late. What’s going on?” I turned towards Damon, who was just joining us with Zade coming right behind him.

Damon’s eyes met with mine and widened.

I looked at Zade, and the same thing happened.

Two different knots started to form, the next one more extreme than the last as I turned towards my mother and Alpha Leo, whose palms were now bleeding from the bite marks gotten from each other.

“They’re mated,” Kane announced, his voice lower than a whisper.

“We are now stepsiblings.”