Pregnant With Four Alphas' Babies: A Reverse Harem Romance Chapter 264: Three Mates

*Trisha*

With all the blowing snow, I’ve been sticking to the road to be sure I’m going straight and not wandering in circles. But I rethink that idea when the car stops behind me.

I’m torn between running away and facing whoever it is. I don’t have a single weapon on me, but I’ve been training to fight almost as long as I’ve been walking, and holding my own in a house with two brothers has only made me tougher.

But it’s a calculated risk. If whoever is following me can shift, or if there are more than a few people in that car, then I’m history.

I figure, “What the hell?” and turn around.

The engine shuts off, and I swallow nervously. The car windows are too darkly tinted to see inside. When the doors open, I catch such a strong whiff of strawberries and apples that I start to get a little dizzy.

Oh, no.

It’s not.

It can’t be.

But it is—out steps Damon, with a look on his face like he just found his lost puppy. He runs up to me, and I notice the other car doors open but don’t even look to see who it is.

“Are you kidding me?” I ask, exasperated. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, that’s a fine way to greet your rescuers,” he says.

“Rescue? Do I look like I need to be rescued?”

“Well, actually… um, yes.” He chuckles, and if his eyes weren’t as blue as the ocean, I’d punch him.

“Sorry to disappoint, but the damsel here is perfectly un-distressed,” I say, whirling around to walk away.

“Is that a word?” he asks.

I raise up my hand to wave at him, not looking back. “It is now!”

“But Daphne….”

I freeze in place, my waving hand still stuck in the air at the sound of the new voice. It’s sexy, deep and gravelly, and the last time I heard it, I was on a ship.

I take a breath and turn around to see Alessandro’s mesmerizing silver eyes.

“What the—what are you doing here?” I ask.

“Getting you out of here,” he says.

“Why? I’m perfectly fine,” I insist. “You two know each other, I’m guessing. Was there a sale on strawberry and apple cologne?”

They look at each other.

“What do you mean?” Alessandro asks.

“Never mind.” I turn around again and start walking, but I hear—and feel—their footsteps behind me.

What is with these guys?

“Daphne, it’s dangerous up here in Northside.”

It’s a third voice, and another one I recognize. I don’t even need to turn around. “Braden. You’re here too. What are you guys, a posse of sexy hunks straight out of Alpha’s Quarterly?” I instantly regret saying that, and I’m not even sure why I did, so I just keep walking forward.

Maybe they’ll leave.

But I don’t want them to.

My cheeks are burning red, and I can’t possibly turn around and look at Braden, though I wouldn’t mind a peek at those gorgeous muscles.

What am I saying?

“She thinks we’re sexy,” Alessandro says.

I can feel him smirking even though I can’t see him. I want to slap him. But I also want to run over to him and jump up into his arms.

Yep, there’s something seriously wrong with me.

I put my hands on my cheeks, hoping that my near-frostbite will fight back the blush, but I’m so annoyed right now that I don’t even care. “Are you really that full of yourself?”

“He is.” There’s not a hint of a smile on Braden’s face when I steal a glance, and that almost makes me laugh until I remember I’m supposed to be mad at these guys for following me.

“Hey!” Alessandro protests.

Braden shrugs. “Well, it’s true.”

“As if you’re not the one with a shit-eating grin on your face, surrounded by bimbos half the time,” Alessandro argues.

“What? I can’t help it if they hang around me,” Braden says. “It’s not like I pay any attention to them, and I certainly won’t now that I found my mate.”

The phrase panics me for some reason. If he’s found his mate, why is he out here bothering me? Yet, the idea that he has a mate has me screaming inside.

Why would I care about that?

I’m seriously going to need to talk to the castle counselor when I get back home.

They keep arguing, and Damon walks over to them to try to deal with that while I start slowly backing up. I’m about twenty yards away when I figure they’re too busy arguing with each other to notice me, so I spin around and take off running.

In my head, I want to get away, but my heart and my body are begging me to stop. It’s the strangest sensation, and I’m not sure what to think of it. I’ve never felt this way before.

Still, I keep running. I don’t know any of these guys well enough to trust them, though something tells me I should.

I’m already getting tired of all these strange feelings. I’m starting to think that something about Green Mountain messes with your head. Maybe that’s why we’ve always been told to stay away from here.

I’m putting some good distance between me and the guys when I feel my foot twist. Everything else happens in slow motion. I look down and see my foot caught in a pothole, then I start falling forward. I feel myself going airborne since I’d been running so fast, and quick as a flash, silver fur blocks my fall, and I dive into the wolf, grabbing hold of him to keep from stumbling over.

My face lands smack in the middle of his fur, and the scent of apples and strawberries floats into my nose.

“Are you all right?”

I look up to see Damon standing over me, reaching a hand down to help me up.

It takes me a moment, but I snap out of the surprise, looking down at the silver fur and realizing that it’s Alessandro’s wolf.

“Oh, for Goddess’s sake,” I say, pushing off the wolf and standing, brushing myself off. “Why are you guys so persistent?”

“Why are you running away from us?”

The gravelly voice comes from behind me, and I spin around ready to yell at Alessandro, but all I see is a stunning, tall and muscle-bound man—every inch of him.

I find myself staring for a moment, and when I scan up to his face and see him smiling at me, I cover my eyes.

“Good Goddess,” I say. “Put some clothes on.”

“Don’t have any.” He laughs. “Well, I do, but they’re kind of shredded right now.”

I turn around and wave him back, but he comes up close to me, so close I can close my eyes and let his scent wash over me.

For some reason, that feels wonderful.

“You never need to turn away from me,” he whispers in a husky voice.

The sound of it stirs something in me, sending electricity down through my core.

‘Girl, get a grip on yourself,’ I tell myself silently.

“I’d love to grip you,” he says.

I turn around again, struggling not to look down. “I didn’t say that out loud. How did you hear it?”

“You didn’t?” he furrowed his brow.

“I guess it’s a mate thing. I heard it too,” Braden says.

“What?” I turn around to face him and start to back up again. “What do you mean mate? I’m not old enough to find my mate yet. And I’m sure I don't have a mate!”

“You do. We’re your mates.”

The way Damon says it stops me in my tracks, and for a moment, I forget about the freezing cold snow blowing all around me.

“That’s not possible,” I say. “I don’t have one mate, much less—” I look around, trying to ignore the fact that Alessandro is still naked. That’s really not possible. “Much less three of them. This is ridiculous!”

“Believe me, we’re as surprised as you are,” Damon says. He nods toward the car. “Alessandro, I have some sweatpants in my pack. You’re going to freeze out here.”

“Eh, it’s not bad.” Even so, he heads toward the car, and I feel my eyes staring at his perfectly toned, sculpted ass as he walks past me.

I shake my head. “Look, I don’t know what you guys think you know about me, but it’s not possible that we can be mates. First of all, there are… too many of you! And I’m not from around here.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Damon says. “We understand that you can’t feel it yet, but believe us, we do.”

I don’t know why he’s being so persistent. “I don’t have a mate! There’s no way the Goddess is doing this to me.”

What am I going to do?

I’ve prayed to the Goddess since I first knew who She was, begging Her not to give me a mate to follow me around and tell me what to do. Now, I’ve got these three persistent guys doing exactly that. Three of them!

As if on cue, Braden starts in on me. “You’d better come with us. It’s freezing out here, and you don’t seem to have any provisions.”

“Are you kidding me?” I put my hands on my hips. “I’m not some little girl you can chase after and make her come home to you just because you claim I’m your mate. I’m here for a reason. I’ve had a calling to be here.”

“What do you mean?” Damon asks.

“It’s the whole reason I’m even here,” I say. “I came all the way here because my dreams and the forest called me here. There’s a little boy somewhere. Someone needs my help. And I’m not going anywhere with you just because you claim to be my mates. How am I supposed to know whether you are or not? And even if you are, who says I have to accept that? I’m not going to spend the rest of my life with three men coming to my rescue every five minutes!”

They all just sort of stare at me for a few minutes.

“I’m not leaving here,” I say firmly. “Mates or whatever, you can just leave and let me go where I need to go. I didn’t come all this way to turn back now.”

I turn around and start walking away, or at least I am trying to storm off dramatically, but I have to limp a little from the way my ankle twisted.

“Daphne,” Damon said softly. “Let us give you a ride.”