Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder
Chapter 248 - 28 : The Rejected Mate

Chapter 248: Chapter 28 : The Rejected Mate

Ethan

Rowan’s chestnut hair was falling around his face, casting long shadows over our sharp, shared features. Looking at him was almost like looking in a mirror sometimes but with lighter, wavier hair. He had my build and my height, and there had been times when someone had approached him from behind, thinking it was me, and vice versa.

But he had his mother’s emotionally driven personality. He was sensitive, shy, and somewhat boyish in demeanor. I had hoped sending him to Red Lakes would break him out of it.

But as we sat in Rowan’s lodgings, a big log cabin overlooking a large bluff leading down to the sea below, I could see I had been very, very wrong.

Kacidra was sitting on the other side of the living room, her hands folded in her lap. She was the one Rowan was supposed to marry. And judging by the look on her face as she gazed at him, her blonde brows knitted in a tight frown, she wasn’t all too pleased about it. Neither was Rowan.

“What happens if she rejects me?” Rowan was picking at the seam of his jeans, his light blue eyes downcast and focused on everything, and nothing, at all once.

“It’s supposed to be dreadfully painful,” Kacidra quipped, but she quickly shut her mouth and looked at the floor as I gave her a stern, fatherly look of disapproval.

I would give anything to see Kacidra and Maeve go head-to-head.

“Are you certain you’re being rejected?” I asked, scanning his face. Rowan shrugged, looking up to glance at Kacidra.

“Hanna hasn’t spoken a word to him since he’s been here,” she said, but then bit her lip, shaking her head.

“She’s said one word to me—”

“Rowan, don’t—”

I watched them, an unspoken exchange passing between the two youngsters as they glared at one another. “What exactly is going on around here?”

“Do you want to tell him, or should I?” Rowan peered over at Kacidra, who significantly paled.

“I don’t think we should—”

“We could use his help, Kass. Please.”

Kacidra sucked in her breath, looking from Rowan to me. I was growing impatient with them, the two of them having been so secretive since I had arrived in Red Lakes the day before. I had been missing Rowan and was excited and incredibly shocked to see his progress on the solar farm when I arrived. The entire project was nearly complete. The crew in charge was busy running lines to the buildings and houses in the village, with Rowan overseeing everything.

Oh, yes. Rowan would get his radio towers. He had earned them.

And Rowan should have been excited about that, but he was forlorn and distracted, constantly in the company of Kacidra, who hovered around him like an anxious bird, her eyes wide and mouth at his ear.

I had made it clear within an hour of arriving that I had no expectations that they would marry, unless they chose to go through with it. Rowan had found his mate. Kacidra had no interest in marrying Rowan and sacrificing her own happiness in the event she found her mate in the future. Rosalie and I wouldn’t force them into a union, even if Eugene demanded it.

Rowan could, and would, marry Hanna. She was his mate, after all. Their marriage would still unite our packs.

“My sister sees things,” Kacidra said, matter-of-factly.

“Oh?” I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Visions, Dad.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t. Look...we—” Rowan paused, closing his eyes for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. It was something I had seen Rosalie do on occasion. If Maeve favored me in physical looks and personality, Rowan heavily favored my wife.

“Hanna is rarely ever lucid, Alpha Ethan.” Kacidra swallowed, her neck moving against the words. She was nervous. “Please don’t tell my father I’m telling you this.”

“Why?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Because he plans to send her away. She’s betrothed, you know, to a man from another pack.”

“Ah, the man named Wrenn who everyone in the village has been talking about, I presume?”

“Yeah... that’s the one,” she growled, shaking her head. “My father wants to... well, he needs to send her away, or so he thinks. Something about this place it just... do you remember my mother at all, Alpha Ethan?”

“I do. How could I forget?”

Rowan snorted, crossing his knee over his leg as he leaned back in the chair. Kacidra pinkened and inhaled deeply.

“She saw things too. Her dreams were at their worst in her last few months of life. She... she was very close with Hanna. Hanna was especially devastated by her death but... but after Mom passed away, Hanna began to have dreams. She started sleep-walking; dream dancing is what Mom called it.”

“And you think this is getting in the way of her bond with Rowan?”

“Yes. I am certain of it. But...”

“She said my name when she was sleep-walking, I mean, dream dancing,” Rowan said quickly, his cheeks flushed with color.

“She doesn’t ever talk when she’s dreaming, so it was significant.”

“But people dream all the time? In fact, I had a dream last night—” I began, but was quickly interrupted by Kacidra, her face drawn in frustration.

“It’s not the same. I guarantee that it’s not the same. She goes somewhere, I think. And not in this... not in this plane, if that makes sense,” Kacidra said.

“It doesn’t, but—” I began.

“She keeps a journal. Kacidra and I have been looking for it for the past week,” Rowan cut in, giving Kacidra a sober smile.

“I think she writes down her dreams in it. My mother kept a dream journal. My father has it. He never let me see, but... she would have taught Hanna to do the same thing, I know it,” Kacidra explained.

“I’m not sure what you’re trying to say—” I looked from one to the other, my eyes narrowed as I tried to understand.

“I don’t feel the mate bond with her when she’s dreaming, Dad. And she dreams almost constantly,” Rowan told me.

“It got worse after Rowan arrived, Alpha Ethan. It wasn’t nearly so frequent before,” Kacidra said.

“If we can find her journal,” Rowan explained, “we might know why she’s... why she’s—” He looked down at his hands, shrugging helplessly.

“Why she’s stuck,” Kacidra finished, sighing deeply as she looked up at me expectantly. They both were looking at me, in fact, as though I had all the answers.

I blinked, shifting my gaze from Kacidra to Rowan. They were both serious about this, I could tell. “Well, what do we do? You are asking for my help by telling me this, aren’t you?”

“I guess so, yeah. We are, aren’t we Rowan?”

Rowan nodded in response to Kacidra’s question, biting the inside of his cheek.

Oh, Goddess. I wished Rosalie were here.

“My dad will send her away before—”

“I won’t allow that. My alliance with your father will be cemented by the unions of our children, even after—”

“I won’t do that to Kacidra, Dad. What happens when she finds her mate?” Rowan snapped, his hands clenching into fists on his lap. Kacidra was surprised by his outburst, her mouth slightly ajar as she gawked at him.

“You won’t be marrying Kacidra, Rowan, not any—”

Someone was yelling outside of the cabin, their voice carried by the stiff breeze coming off the water. There was more shouting, and several people ran by outside of the bay windows on the opposite wall from where we sat.

Rowan leaned forward in his chair, peering at the shadows racing past behind the curtains. Kacidra stood, concern lining her features, “I have to—”

“WHERE IS HE!” The voice of Eugene sent a chill up my spine as I jumped out of my seat and darted to the window, Kacidra hot on my heels. She gaped as I pulled the curtain back and looked down at the dock where a boat had just pulled in and the figure of Eugene could be seen sprinting toward the beach.

A thin, disheveled man was fighting his way up the boardwalk, swatting and pushing against two warriors who were trying to subdue him.

“Aaron!” Kacidra cried, making a break for the door. I grabbed her wrist.

“Aaron? He’s in Valoria—”

She peeled my fingers back and pushed through the door, her hair falling loose from her braid as she ran toward the boardwalk.

Rowan reached my side and we stood in the doorway together, watching as the thin blond man made his way up the beach, his head lolling to the side as Eugene took him in his arms.

“What is he doing here?” Rowan asked, giving me a concerned glance.

“If he’s here, then where is Maeve?”

***

I was pacing back and forth across the length of Alpha Eugene’s sitting room, my skin heated by fury and my fingers numb as adrenaline coursed through my veins.

“And then they—they put me on that ship. The Persephone. The captain said he wasn’t going to kill me but I was sure I was going to die!” Aaron said, being as dramatic as possible.

“I don’t care!” I bellowed, drowning out the murmurs of reassurances coming from Eugene and Kacidra, who looked up at me with shocked expressions plastered on their faces. Aaron sniffled, reaching up to wipe his eyes. “Where the hell is my daughter?” I barked.

“S-She’s in Valoria!”

“If you aren’t with her, then who is?” I gripped the back of an armchair, the force of my grip causing the wood to bend and snap, wood fragments digging into the palms of my hands.

“His name w-was Troy, I think. I—It was so awful!”

“What did they do to you, my son?” Eugene took Aaron’s head into his chest, rocking him like an infant. Rowan snorted, then choked on his laughter as I shot him a deathly glare.

“We went to an island. They kept me there for weeks.”

“And? They just let you walk away?” I was damn near ready to break the chair in half with the force of my grip. Aaron looked healthy, sun-kissed, and well fed. He hadn’t been kidnapped. He had taken a long, tropical vacation!

“They eventually dropped me off in Breles... but it took me a while to find a ship headed this far north. Oh, Dad! I thought I’d never see you again and that I’d leave you without an heir—”

“So, you haven’t laid eyes on Maeve at all, have you? Yet you wrote to us in Winter Forest that you were in Valoria with her—”

“I never made it to Valoria!”

“Has Mom received any letters from Maeve in the last few weeks?” Rowan stood from his chair; his voice surprisingly calm.

“No, she hasn’t.”

“Someone must be intercepting our mail in Valoria, Dad. That’s the only explanation.”

“What reasons did these men give you for intercepting your boat?” I growled, growing inpatient.

“None... they didn’t say a word to me about it. They left me alone for the most part once we reached the island of Suntra. I just wandered—”

“Wandered? You didn’t think to send word back to Valoria, Winter Forest, or Red Lakes about what happened?” Rowan grabbed my forearm as I spoke to prevent me from lunging forward and grabbing the man by the throat.

“I was busy. I—It’s rather nice there!”

Eugene winced as Aaron looked around at all of our shocked expressions.

“You idiot!” I said, pushing away from the chair and continuing to pace. “Maeve is there with some stranger—”

“Maeve can hold her own, Dad, you know that—”

“They’re coming.”

We all turned to see Hanna in the doorway to the sitting room, water dripping from her hair and pooling on the floor at her feet. She was still, looking much like a statue with her pale skin and black waist-length hair that was sodden with water. I could smell the salt on her, and something else, something that made me think she hadn’t been swimming in the frigid water off the shore of Red Lakes. This was the smell of warm water. Tropical water.

“Go away, Hanna,” Eugene said firmly, his face twisting with a mingled sense of fear and embarrassment as he looked at his youngest daughter. He turned to Kacidra, a silent plea in his eyes. Kacidra stood, slowly, her hands outstretched toward her sister.

“Come on, Hanna. Let’s go to your room.”

My stomach tightened as I watched Kacidra cautiously step toward her sister.

They were terrified of her. Every single one of them.

But not Rowan. He bounded across the room, knocking Kacidra out of the way as he clutched Hanna by the shoulders. I could feel the warmth and electricity coming off of them as his touch met her skin. She inhaled audibly, a strange sucking sound as though she was struggling to breath.

“She’s choking!” Rowan shook her violently and then bent her over his arm just as an incredible amount of water spilled from her mouth.

“What in the f*ck—” I backed away, unsure of what to do. I had seen some things in my life, that was for certain. But I had never seen anything like this.

She cried out, her eyes suddenly focusing and settling on Rowan, who was holding her at arm’s length.

“I found the door,” she cried, her voice gravely and strained as tears began to well in her eyes. “I found it. I found the door.”

#

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