Sold as the Alpha King’s Breeder

Chapter 57 : A Double Wedding?

*Lena*

Hanna of Red Lakes, the Luna Queen of Valoria, my mother, was the most emotionally controlled person I'd ever known.

And as her eyes grazed over the faded mark above my breast, the wound already healed and a muted white against my skin, her face didn't change. She was expressionless, and her eyes gave me no hint of what she was thinking.

Her calmness in chaos used to infuriate me. Both of my parents were that way, although my father did have a flair for the dramatics from time to time. Mom? No. Even now, she remained stoic and unbothered.

Several moments passed before her eyes met mine again. I swallowed against the lump in my throat, tears threatening to spill from my eyes as she reached a hand out to cup my cheek.

“Why?" she asked so softly I had to read her lips instead of registering her words.

“I don't know," I whispered back, then hung my head in shame.

She walked over to me, tilting my chin with her fingers so I was looking into her face. “He didn't say anything to any of us about it," she replied.

She knelt on the ground before me, her voice a lullaby against the agony ripping through my heart. That tether that bound me to Xander went taunt for the first time since I'd left Morhan, searing through my body as I let my true feelings bubble to the surface of my mind.

“He said he wouldn't," I choked. “He said it was something for me to do, if I chose to. I didn't… I loved him. Love… still do. But it hurts, Mom. Is it–is it supposed to hurt this bad?"

My makeup was running. I sniffled as she pulled me off the stool and into her chest, holding me like I was only a child and not a full-grown adult. She ran her hand over my back in a soothing motion that made me want to do nothing more than curl up in bed and listen as she read the book of folklore that always sat on my bedside table back home in Mirage.

“I'm so sorry," I sobbed, but she shook her head and shushed me.

“There's nothing to be sorry about. This was your decision to make–"

“I have no control over it, Mom. My emotions, everything is just–"

She pulled away from me and reached behind me for a tissue from the box on the vanity, lighting dabbing at my eyes. She gave me a kind, comforting smile.

“Have you been counting to ten?" she asked, and I swallowed back the frustration that coursed through my body like a wall of fire.

My fingers began to prickle, and I folded them in the lap, biting my lip so hard I tasted blood.

“That worked when I was a kid, Mom. I… I'm going to be twenty-one in a few months. What Xander made me feel in all… in all aspects… I felt like I could rip the world in half if I wanted to. Like, I could do it. I can feel it." It was the brutal, honest truth. Whatever I'd done to Slate in the alley was only a glimpse of what power I knew I had within me–power that, to this day, I had no control over.

Mom was listening intently, her eyes not leaving mine even though I'd broken away from her gaze. If anyone knew what this felt like, if anyone understood a shred of what I was going through....

She'd fought her own demons. Her mother had been something called a Dream Dancer, someone capable of traveling to what she called the “Spirit Realm," a ribbon of sorts between the place of the Gods and our own world. My mother's powers had been the same, only much, much stronger as the years went by and she grew into adolescence. Before she was my mother, Hanna of Red Lakes had just been a reclusive, silent person, always lost in the inky black depths of her dreams.


My father had opened something inside of her that allowed her powers to manifest. My grandmother had trained her to use them. And in the end, she had defeated the greatest threat the pack lands had ever seen–a woman, much like herself.

But I did more than dream dance. I could do much, much more. And I'd had my powers since I was born.

“What have you done with them?" she asked in the steadiest of voices, her hand encircling mine.

What had I done with my powers? What had I done with them, besides blast Slate into oblivion, or so I thought?

I told her about the alley, which led to a lengthy explanation about who Slate was and how Xander had confronted him that fateful day on my way to class, a moment that had been a catalyst to everything that happened to us from that point forward.

But despite how important it was, and how much I knew I needed to tell her, to tell anyone with the means to do something about it… I couldn't bring myself to tell her about Crimson Creek. My family, everyone but George, thought I'd just spent the last six weeks near Red Lakes. No one questioned it. No one thought it was odd that Kacidra and Pete mentioned that I didn't visit, not once.

Somehow, some way, I just knew in my bones that what happened in Crimson Creek was something I needed to handle myself, alone, if I needed to handle it further at all.

I thought of the blood root, and how it'd saved my life twice now, how the force of my power against Slate had nearly killed me, but the blood root had brought me back to life. And the fanged man from my dream.... How could I forget him, and his words?

My mark twinged at the thought of him, which sent a jolt of unease rippling over my skin. He'd called me his queen.

What if I'd been wrong about everything? What if that mysterious man from my darkest nightmare was my mate, and he was trying to save me from Xander, and not the other way around?

I hadn't noticed my mother's tense demeanor until I broke from my musing as I looked up at her. She was still kneeling in front of me, her hands still wrapped around my own.

She slowly removed her hands and used her thumbs to gently untangle my knitted fingers. Soft, white rose petals fell from the palm of my hands and drifted down onto the floor where they quickly wilted, turning to ashen dust before I could even suck in my breath.

“Have you had any visions?" she asked, her voice taking on a serious note as she stroked my wrists, her touch cooling the fire blazing over my skin.

“Just… dreams–a nightmare."

“You dream danced?"

“No, it wasn't… I was ill when I had it. I couldn't make sense of it. I don't remember much of it."

“Lena," she whispered, leaning in to press her forehead against mine. “It's time, alright?"

I knew this was coming.

I knew this would trump everything else–my degree, my career, my mate.... The mark had no meaning in terms of my inevitable future.

“When?" I whispered, feeling nothing but dread.

“After the wedding," she coaxed, dabbing at my smeared makeup, “but after you spend some time at home, maybe a few weeks." She paused, gently wiping the tissue beneath my lashes as I looked into her eyes. “I know it's not what you want, but Rosalie… your grandmother. She's the only one who can help you with these powers now, Lena. You need to know how to use them."

“I never wanted them!" I protested, and the look of absolute heartbreak on my mom's face shattered my heart.

“I know," she breathed, looking as though she were about to cry herself. “I never wanted this for you, either."

I could feel the generational strain between us–a mother and daughter, the same as she'd been with her own mother, long ago now. I'd never known her mother, a woman named Leera. She'd been a Lycennian woman, stolen away as a baby and raised in the West, away from the cult-like pack of Lycaon followers.