The Alpha Prince's Purchased Maid
Chapter 419: Targets

Chapter 419: Targets

"Is this me here in the photo?" I asked, although I had pretty much guessed the answer.

"Yes, that is you, and those two are your parents," the prince confirmed my suspicion.

"Why are there photos of my family in here?" I asked as I started to panic inside.

"This is a very old book that has been passed down from generation to generation in my family," Prince Leonard explained.

Countless questions rushed into my mind as I wondered how a book that was passed down in his family could possibly have photos of my family. Clearly, those photos were from very long ago, at the time when I was just a young girl.

"Why are there photos of my family in this book? What does my family have to do with anything?" I asked, staring intently at the prince’s face. I knew that this was the reason why Prince Leonard decided to show me the book. Whatever the answer was, it must be quite complex and controversial because the prince had a very conflicted look on his face.

"Please tell me. I really need to know about this," I pleaded passionately, fearing that the prince might change his mind and withhold the truth from me. I couldn’t help but wonder just how long the prince had known about this.

"I’ve told you before that producing an ultimate Alpha to continue the royal bloodline has always been a priority in my family. In the past, the kings were even more obsessed than my father is now about this matter, and they went to great lengths to secure potential mates either for themselves or for their sons, all for the sake of increasing the odds of producing an ultimate alpha," Prince Leonard explained emotionlessly, as if he had rehearsed this a couple of times before.

"I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand," I said softly, as my eyes continued to stare at the content printed on the pages of the book. To be honest, it wasn’t that I didn’t understand, but I found it difficult to accept the conclusion that I had arrived at.

"Let me try to explain again in simpler terms. All the families that you see here in the book were targets," the prince began his explanation.

"Targets? Even my family was a target?" I asked in pure disbelief.

"Correct, the families in the photos were targets because of their daughters and their potential to be a good match to produce an ultimate Alpha. Ever since the establishment of this kingdom, the king had the responsibility to find all the high-potential maidens that might be the fated mate of the king or his sons," the prince explained before coming to a stop.

"They wanted the daughters of these families?" I murmured in a whisper when I realized just how frightening the reality was.

"When these young girls became a target, they were removed from their family, whether willingly or unwillingly, and raised in the palace until they reached a suitable age for mating. That was how things worked before, but the practice has stopped in recent years," the prince continued with his explanation calmly.

I didn’t even want to imagine how frightening it must have been for those girls to be separated from their families unwillingly and raised all for the purpose of birthing children that might turn out to be ultimate alphas. For some reason, I had a very good feeling of what that must have felt like.

"That’s horrible," I said, with the realization that I was one of the girls who was targeted.

"And that is exactly why your parents probably did everything to save you from enduring that fate," the prince concluded.

"They tried to run away with me so that they could keep me safe, but they were pursued," I said, as I felt a shiver run down my spine.

Suddenly, I felt so cold inside that I couldn’t stop my body from trembling. The truth was so dark and so frightening that it brought tears to my eyes. Suddenly, the dream that I had of my parents began to make sense. What happened that night must have been the night that my parents tried to run away, all for the sake of keeping me safe. They must have known about my fate had I been separated from them.

I shook my head from side to side to clear my thoughts because I didn’t want to imagine what would have happened to me had my parents failed in saving me. Due to some stroke of luck, although I got separated from my parents, I was saved from being captured and raised as a potential mate.

"I guess it’s kind of funny that I ended up here anyway," I said while not quite sure how I felt.

"Listen, Mila. I don’t want you to think that your parents’ sacrifice and efforts were all in vain," the prince said solemnly.

"Where are they now? Did my parents get killed?" I asked the questions that naturally popped up in my mind. What I didn’t dare voice was the potential that his family might have ended up murdering my parents that night in the forest.

"I’m sorry, Mila," the prince replied. His response was enough to confirm my worst fears that my parents had passed away and that I would never get to see them again. Although I somehow knew that already at the back of my mind, it still hurt to hear it being confirmed.

"Did the king order to have my parents killed?" I asked before I continued sobbing. I thought that I could hold it in, but I couldn’t stop the anger that rose inside of me. I wondered if the prince had been withholding this truth from me all this time and whether he was working with his father to manipulate me.

"I can understand why you think that way, but I think your parents’ death was really an unfortunate accident," Prince Leonard said.

"How long have you known?" I asked before I could stop myself.

–To be continued...