Owned by the Alphas: A Winter Wedding
Автор
Jen Cooper
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The Engagement
Derik
“Are you sure this is how we are meant to do it?” Brax asked, seeming skeptical.
I nodded once and rapped my knuckles on the wooden door of Pearl’s hut.
“Does she even want it?” Kai grumbled, fidgeting with his shirt I had made him put on.
He had been horrified with the idea of dressing up, but I was determined to make this perfect for our mate.
With that in mind, the others had begrudgingly agreed.
Pearl opened the door, her eyebrows raising as she looked at us.
“Well, don’t you three scrub up well. Would you like some tea?” She asked, giving us one last look before heading inside.
I followed first, “Yes please,” I said, with Nikolai and Braxton following me inside.
I sat at the table as Pearl took off her apron, hanging it up. She grabbed the teapot and started her brew as the other two hung back.
The nerves started to sink inside me and I traced the flowers painted on the tablecloth.
Lorelai said her mother painted but I had never seen much of it. She was good at it.
It was tensely quiet as Pearl pottered.
She served the tea then sat in the seat opposite me.
“There must be a reason I have earned a visit from three well-dressed Alphas who normally wear no shirts and muddy my floors with their bare feet,” Pearl teased lightly, a small smile lifting the corners of her mouth.
“There is,” I said.
Now that I was sitting there, I wasn’t sure how I was meant to do what I had come for.
I had read parchment after parchment, studied humans, questioned them with the hopes that I would get it perfect for our Luna.
But then what if it wasn’t perfect?
Kai cleared his throat and stepped forward, holding out the small box we had made from the bark of my home tree.
“Little Luna has respected every one of our traditions. She has become a part of the way we live and has done everything it requires to be a Luna. We thought that maybe it was time we honored some of her people’s traditions too,” Kai said then put the box on the table in front of Pearl.
I swallowed hard, my heart racing as tears pricked at Pearl’s eyes.
“We understand that normally this tradition of marriage is done through the choosing ceremony but we have come to understand this is part of obtaining parental approval for the couples,” I said as Pearl opened the box.
Her hand went to her chest as she gasped.
If Lorelai had even half that reaction, I would be happy.
I just hoped she would be because we hadn’t exactly told her what we were doing.
“We plan on asking Lorelai to marry us, Pearl, and we were hoping for your blessing in doing so?” Brax asked.
Pearl’s tears overflowed from her eyes, dropping onto her fair cheeks.
She tucked a blond strand of hair behind her ear and gave a small sniffle before closing the box and handing it back.
“She is my daughter. I want every happiness for her. Despite being terrified for her when you took her with you, I see now, she was never meant to have what others had. She was always meant for more. I believe you are her ‘more’.” Pearl smiled through her tears.
I grinned, my heart unclenching.
I stood up and met her for a warm hug.
She was as small as her daughter and we towered over her, taking her in our arms each as we thanked her for giving us Lorelai.
“She has made no secret of her wish not to marry though, so you may have a tough time with her,” Pearl admitted, going back to her tea, wiping the stray tears from her cheeks.
“It is another way to claim us, I think she’ll agree to that,” Kai smirked.
Ever cocky. I wasn’t so convinced.
I hoped she liked what we were trying to do but our mate never seemed to react how I expected.
She constantly surprised me.
I was looking forward to doing the same to her for a change. I tucked the ring box in my pocket and looked to Pearl.
“I’m sure you will hear how it went either way,” I said, then emptied my tea.
We didn’t spend long with Pearl after that, leaving so we could find Lorelai.
I was a nervous wreck but I was trying hard to hide it.
I knew what I wanted. I knew she wanted us.
But Pearl was right, she had openly spoken of her disdain for human traditions.
And we were asking her to be a part of one.
We went to the forest, the snow of winter crunching beneath our feet. We were preparing to run back to the city when I shook my head, “No, this isn’t going to work. She’ll be so angry we even thought of this. She doesn’t want to be married,” I said, running my hands through my hair.
Brax grabbed me, keeping me still as he met my eyes with his, “She is ours. This just tells her kind that. It is nothing more than a mating ceremony in a different way. We can do that. We can give her that,” Brax tried to reassure.
“Yeah and we can show all of those people who told her she would never marry because of her curse, that she is better than all of them,” Kai grinned.
I smirked despite not agreeing. Kai had an odd way of thinking and it might just help our Luna agree.
Brax too.
“She is better than all of them,” I whispered.
“Which is why she is going to love it,” Brax said and I wasn’t sure if that was true but we had already committed to the idea.
We had to follow it through. It was my idea in the first place so I couldn’t back down. I didn’t want to.
I just hoped our mate wanted it too.
As if taunting me, her scent filled my body, her presence hovering.
I frowned and eyed the path that led to the city.
A carriage made its way to us and I grimaced. It was moving fast, which meant she was intentionally making it. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Here we go,” Kai grinned as the carriage stopped.
The door smacked open and our mate climbed out of the carriage, a scowl on her soft features as her eyes found us.
“Beautiful-” I went to step forward but she stalked toward us, her dress bunched in her hand so it didn’t drag on the snow.
“Don’t ‘Beautiful’ me. You three disappeared and cut me out of the link. You didn’t even tell me where you were, I had to send out my shadows to find you. How is that fair? You all reek of anxiety, I had no idea why. I was so worried,” she scolded.
She looked so cute when she was angry. Her cheeks flushed like they did when we pleasured her.
“We were luring you out here, Little Luna,” Kai intervened.
She went to snap again but all the anger left her in a whoosh of her breath as she eyed us suspiciously.
“Why?” She huffed, folding her arms.
It pushed her breasts up out of the curve of her dress and I licked my lips.
“We have a surprise, c’mon,” Brax smiled and held his hand out to her.
She looked at it warily. The snow started falling lightly and she shivered.
I shrugged off my cloak and laid it on her shoulders, pushing her forward lightly.
She sighed and took Brax’s hand, holding the cloak closed around her.
“The moon will be out soon,” I whispered in her ear. She looked up at the sky where the moon was beginning its ascent.
We had every intention of proposing marriage to her in the mansion, in our suite, maybe the dining hall but instead, we pulled her through the forest.
Kai led us, Brax holding one of her hands, me on her other side.
She was tense, nervous as she eyed the trees, the snow making it harder to see through the others.
But I knew where they were heading.
A clearing in the trees that was highlighted in the moonlight when it was full.
It was beautiful, just like she was.
“This isn’t suspicious at all,” Luna bit out of her sarcastic mouth.
I kissed the side of her head as we walked, smirking at her teasing.
“Patience, Beautiful.”
I said it calmly despite not feeling it.
We were getting closer.
When we got to the clearing, the snow stopped falling, the breeze slowed. Then night stilled, the moon highlighting the clearing like I hoped it would.
The snow looked like it was glittering under it.
Luna let out a breath and looked over it.
“Wow, it looks like magic,” she whispered.
Kai stood in the middle, Brax next to him. Luna stopped in front of them and I took my place by their side to face her.
The forest around us was drowned in darkness but this clearing was illuminated in a way that made Luna seem surreal. Like a dream. One we had been lucky enough to have come true.
“Little Luna,” Kai said in his deep, husky voice. He smirked when she shivered at it, all of us feeling the pang of desire that raced through her.
“Is this the part where you tell me we’re fucking in the snow? Because if that’s what we’re here for, I’m keeping the coat on,” she grinned.
Kai smirked, his eyes narrowing.
I was ready to jump between them if I had to. Kai looked like he was seconds from giving in to do exactly what she said.
“After,” he said instead.
“After what?” She frowned.
“After we do what we came here to do,” I said, then nodded to Brax and Kai.
I had read that the bent knee was very important, which is why we all went on one knee in front of her.
I wasn’t sure why it mattered, but it obviously did to her because she gasped, stepping back.
I smirked as I dug for her feelings in the mating link and felt the warmth spreading through her. The love. The excitement was what had my nerves settling.
“Little Luna, you accept who we are, love us anyway, and never make us apologize for being exactly what we are,” Kai started.
Brax continued, “You have accepted our traditions, become our mate, our Luna. You have fought for us, loved us, and become a part of us.”
It was my turn, “You have given us children, your mind, body, and soul. Now we are asking for one more part of you, Beautiful. Your heart.”
I pulled the box from my pocket and opened it for her.
I passed the box to Brax so he could hold it between us.
She gasped again, her eyes brimming with tears. But they were good tears. I felt that in the link and it warmed the mating link, suffocating it with a love so deep, my own heart clenched.
“Oh my god,” she whispered, her emotions making her throat croaky. Her shaking hand reached for the ring.
It was a gold band, twined together like vines with a small emerald gem on the top. There were two waves meeting at the gem to secure it. And small flowers in the vines.
“The water represents Brax. The vines represent Derik. The green in the stone is for my eyes, I know they’re your favorite,” Kai explained with a devilish smirk.
I rolled my eyes at what he said.
“Nikolai,” I growled.
He smirked, “Okay maybe the flowers were to represent the meadows and grasslands, but we both know what the green means to you,” he wiggled his eyebrows at her.
She laughed through her tears that were streaming.
“This is- I don’t even know what to say,” she said, looking it over.
“Yes to being our wife?” Brax offered.
She grinned, her beaming smile lighting us all up more than the moon on the snow.
She nodded and we stood.
I pulled her into me, kissing her as I slid the ring on her finger.
It was a perfect fit.
But that had been Kai’s doing. He was an expert in all things Luna.
Even her finger size.
‘I used the grip she has on my cock as a guide,’ he laughed in the link as Brax kissed her.
I wished Kai was joking but I knew him well enough to know he was probably telling the truth.
“Are we really doing this? You want to get married?” She asked, looking down at the ring again. It shone in the moonlight like it was meant to.
“Do you want to?” Brax asked, his nerves showing through.
“I never used to and I thought mating to wolves would mean I never would. But yeah, I think I do,” she grinned.
“Then yes, Beautiful, we’re getting married,” I smiled. She kissed me, then Brax.
She went to kiss Kai but he lifted her onto him, kissing her roughly.
“After we fuck in the snow,” he grinned against her.
Lorelai laughed, letting him take them to the snow, pressing her into it before climbing over her.
“We don’t have time,” she grinned, “Do you know how much there is to plan for one of these things? My mother is about to be in her element. I should probably let her know-” Kai kissed away her words.
“Shh.” He booped her nose, “After.”
This time, she didn’t argue.
None of us did, ruining the purity of the snow with the claiming of our mate, our fiancée.
