Rejected And Claimed By Her Trio Alpha Mates

chapter 45

He lets his hand rest on the shelf overhead, his gaze on the books instead of me. “My brothers and I were created from shadow. We are the only corporal beings on earth made with that magic. So while we aren’t shadows, we’re... related. In that we carry that magic inside us.”

“Made” with that magic. That’s not the choice of word I expected when I ventured down this path.

I open my mouth, ready to ask him what he means by “made,” but I stop before I utter a sound.

These men—all of them, even Malix who never shuts up—are hard to get straight answers out of. If I want Frost to keep talking, to give me something to work with, I have to navigate this discussion carefully. Keep him talking. Keep him engaged.

“Why do your tattoos move so much?”

Frost’s hand falls away from the shelf, and he turns it over, palm up, to stare down at the black markings roaming the smooth skin of his forearm. “It’s always been that way for me. Since I was a child. The magic gets… restless.”

“So it’s separate from you? The way shifter magic is separate and has its own thoughts and desires?”

He finally turns and looks at me. I think, for the first time, I’m seeing him at ease. His brothers aren’t around to keep him from talking to me. His eyes are bright, interested. His stony walls seem to have come down, or at least lowered a bit.

It’s just the two of us and my twenty questions.

“Yes,” he says after mulling over my words. “The magic is a separate being, but part of us nonetheless. Like the wolf. When we’re far from the shadow realm, the magic aches.”

The shadow realm. This isn’t the first time they’ve mentioned such a place. I don’t know quite what it is, but even hearing the words makes snippets of the vision I got from Gwen flash in my mind’s eye. “Why does it ache?”

He shrugs, his blue gaze roaming the library, looking everywhere but at me. “Because we belong in the shadows, I suppose. The shadow magic hurts, like fire beneath our skin. Constant, unending agony. But if we get close to the shadow realm… it stops. We can breathe.” His gaze lifts to meet mine. “That’s why we want to bring the shadow realm to earth. To stop the pain.”

I can see the brutal honesty on his face. Frost’s walls are gone, and his emotions are fully exposed. He’s not lying to me. He’s baring the single biggest secret he has.

And it’s a horrific one.

I try to imagine if my wolf was restless and achy inside me. And not in the normal way, where I get itchy and need to blow off some steam with a run or a f**k, or the way she howls for Kian, Malix, and Frost, a low level hum inside me every moment I’m with them. Those things don’t hurt. Not physically.

Their bodies are at war. The shifter side and the shadow side.

Goddamn.

On the heels of my horror comes the pity.

What a shitty way to live.

I stand, smoothing my sweaty palms over my jeans. “I’m… I need to use the bathroom.”

“Down the hall and left,” Frost offers, then chooses another shelf and gets back to work.

I ignore his directions and go downstairs, needing space from him. From all of them.

Someone wedged the front door back into place, though there’s a giant split in the middle from where Kian damn near tore it in half. I stop in the darkness beyond the foyer and wrap my arms around my middle, breathing through the turmoil inside me. A few feet away, Kian and Malix talk in the living room, discussing things they find as they work. Malix says something, and Kian laughs, and the sound is so real. So rich, like the burst of caramel inside a molten chocolate candy.

I don’t want to feel sorry for these men.

I don’t want to feel anything for them.

I fought tooth and nail to overcome what Kian did to me all those years ago. It took every bit of willpower I had to compartmentalize my emotions, the mate bond, the affection I felt for him in just that one night. When I shoved it all away, I was left with emptiness. More emptiness than I’d ever felt before. And I clung to that void inside me because it fueled my rage and kept all those warm fuzzies away.

Until I got dragged into this mess. Their world.

Malix’s humor. Frost’s honesty. Kian’s loyalty to his brothers.

I can’t see them as people. I can’t see their goodness because it erases the void. As long as I only see them as monsters, I can survive this and do the job I came here to do.

Suddenly, from inside the bright living room, Malix crows.

I rush around the corner, thinking he’s found exactly what we need. Maybe Erik lied to us, and he had a whole jar of Tree of Life sap waiting in his cupboards.

But no.

Malix stands near the cabinets filled with Erik’s supplies, a big grin on his face and a bottle held aloft.

Not the ingredient we need.

Whiskey.

I roll my eyes.

These assholes will be the death of me.