Marked by the Alphas

Chapter 17: Chapter 17

Kane POV

The second Axel and I enter our quarters, Alice launches herself into my arms.

“Oh, thank goddess! There you are,” she squeezes me around the waist as tightly as she can, burying her face in my chest.

I hug her back just as tightly, and I can feel the tension leaving her body as she finally relaxes her muscles from the fight-or-flight response she clearly has been in the last day and a half.

Axel stands behind Alice, kissing the top of her head and massaging her shoulders while she melts into our touches.

“It’s okay. We’re here now,” he murmurs to her. “We’ve got you, sweety”

“I was so scared,” she sobs.

“You slept with her,” she shoves me against the chest, but I hold her tighter.

“I know, I know,” I coo gently. “But that was the only way we could redeem her unclaimable. I told you I would figure it out, and to trust me. And look? Now you’re our mate.”

“Your second mate,” she sniffs.

“It’s a stopgap measure.” I reply. freewebnovel.cσ๓

“Agreed,” Axel echoes. “And now ... it’s time to complete the claiming.”

He gently extricates her from my arms and turns her toward him.

“Yes,” she looks back and forth to each of us, her eyes shining, and she nods. “Let’s hurry and do it before anything else can happen.”

“Once we’ve claimed you, no one can take you from us,” I agree wholeheartedly.

Her blue eyes turn to the darker sapphire they always do when she is aroused, and her lips curve up in a sexy, teasing smile. She steps away from us, reaching behind her, and unzips her dress, letting it pool at her feet.

For a split second, a similar image of Elara dropping her dress invades my mind, but I aggressively shove it to the back of my mind.

“Well, what are you waiting for, boys?” With a giggle, she turns and runs toward the bedroom, launching herself onto the bed and lying in the middle.

Just like she has done a thousand times before. My heart expands, but there is something else tapping at the back of my head. Something I do not know how to classify. I know it is not second thoughts about claiming her, but there was something ... almost uneasy, maybe?

I shake it off and divest myself of every stitch of clothing as quickly as I can, Axel doing the same.

Seconds later, we are stretched out on either side of Alice, and she is stroking both of us at the same time as we each lavish a nipple.

Even though her hand on my cock feels amazing, I cannot shake the nagging feeling that something is missing. It must be nerves, I decide. We are about to claim her, and I want everything to be perfect.

“Stop thinking so hard,” Axel hisses. “Your energy is all over the place right now.”

“Something feels different,” I lift my mouth from Alice’s nipple to look at Axel, and he lifts his mouth as well. Our eyes meet briefly, but I see all I need to in his expression.

He feels the same. There’s something missing.

“It’s just nerves from finally being able to claim her,” Axel reasons. “Stress and tension from everything that happened since the mating ceremony.”

I nod, but I am not so sure I believe him.

“Why did you stop?” Alice lifts her head, and her hands pause their movements on our cocks.

“We’re just planning what we’re going to do to you,” Axel wiggled his eyebrows at her. He captures her mouth, and she moans into his mouth, squeezing my cock.

I try my best to concentrate on her fingers wrapped around me, but it is no good. Nothing is going to break me away from these niggling thoughts. I cannot get far enough outside my head to enjoy her, to just revel in the three of us finally having what we have been waiting for two years.

I tried but it didn’t work, and the harder I try, the weirder things get. Hunter grunts irritably inside me.

My dick turns limp, and Alice’s hand freezes. She pulls away from Axel and looks at me in confusion.

“Kane?” Her voice is soft and laced with concern.

I have no clue what to say. This has literally never happened to me before. Ever.

“Axel?” She whispers.

I look over and see Axel’s cock has wilted as well.

“What the fuck?” Alice freaks out and jumps out of bed. “It’s because you slept with her, isn’t it?”

“No, no,” I jump up, my hands defensively in front of me. “It’s not like that, it’s ...”

“I can’t believe this!” She cuts me off, bursts into tears and runs into the bathroom. Slamming the door.

Axel POV

“What the fuck just happened?” I whisper-scream, getting out of bed. “Is this some sort of Twin Jedi mind trick where your dick makes my dick do the same thing?”

Kane shrugs, shaking his head.

“Answer me,” I demand.

“I don’t have a fucking answer for you,” he snarls, scratching the back of his head. “I told you something felt off.”

“Fuck,” I groan, running both hands through my hair and back down to my face, pressing my palms against my eyes. “I can’t sit here and listen to her cry.”

“Maybe ... maybe it’s the heat thing,” Kane pinches his nose bridge between his thumb and index finger. “We’ve never been with a female in heat before.”

“Yeah,” I nod, pointing at him. “Yes. That’s it.”

“I mean, what else could it be?” Kane argues. “We’ve never had this issue before.”

“We’ve also never had sex like we had last night,” I snort.

“Don’t remind me,” Kane groans, “Elara, Elara, Elara, I know she’s on our mind right now.”

“Damn it, what the fuck are we going to do?” I look at him with desperation. “We must do something. How the fuck are we going to claim her if we can’t get hard to fuck her right now? Can we claim her without sex?”

“I don’t see why not,” Kane replies after a moment of thinking. “The biting is what matters, not necessarily the sexual component.”

“Do we want to try?” I ask cautiously, looking at the bathroom door where Alice’s sobs have started to subside and turned into faint hiccups.

“It couldn’t hurt,” he murmurs.