Sold as the Alpha King’s Breeder

Chapter 109 : Only Death Will End the Bloodshed

*Maeve*

I bet you didn't expect to see me here.

It's not my story, after all. At least, it wasn't until the moment my son placed that heavy leather-bound book in my hands.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was a young woman on a mission to save my world from destruction. I'd been told it would end with me, that my powers would be beyond reason. But then… nothing. Hanna was the one who killed Tasia, the Lycennian Dream Dancer hell-bent on destroying everything, and everyone, we knew and loved. Hanna was also the one to bring forth the conclusion of the Moonstone Prophecy, giving birth to Selene, the next White Queen–our Lena, my beloved Lena.

I was happy to fall back into the background. All I cared about in those early years after the fall of Lycenna and Dianny were my triplet sons and my mate. I threw myself into motherhood. I threw myself into mending the fractured pack of Poldesse by Troy's side. The years ticked by, quiet, uneventful.

But then I… I got pregnant again.

It had been a shock. It was a miracle, if I was being honest, that I was able to carry another pregnancy full term after the trauma of having the triplets. Our boys were almost twelve years old at the time. We had thought we were done. We had decided our triplet princes were enough.

“It's a boy," the nurse had said as she placed the infant in my arms–my fourth son, our baby, Lucas. I looked into his sweet, innocent face and… I panicked. It all came rushing back to me, overwhelming me. My time in Dianny flashed before my eyes–Una's words, telling us all that my children would be sons, all FOUR of them… all of the questions, the warnings, the lingering doubts that our troubles weren't over strangled me until I found it hard to breathe.

There was a time the visions of seers were taken with a grain of salt. Even Hanna's visions were doubted, and by herself more than anyone.

But now, as I stood deep within the forest, the ice-covered river creaking and hissing steam in my periphery, a vision from a time long past wouldn't ease its grip on me, just like I couldn't seem to ease the grip on the howling book of spells.

I saw two white wolves in a clearing, one standing protectively over the other. I'd seen it while standing in that circle of stones in Dianny; everyone had. I'd been told it was me and my mother.

I realized, as I knelt in the snow to lay the book on the ground in the light of a crescent moon, that those wolves were me and someone who had not yet been born at the time.

“I hate magic," I breathed, closing my eyes against the soft, feral whimpers of the book as I opened its pages.

I'd gone out after dinner like I said I would. I refused to let Hanna, Lena, or Clare follow me into the woods. This I could do by myself. I wasn't sure what was going to happen, and I could admit it had been a long time since I'd shifted. What-ifs had clogged my mind during what ended up being a quiet supper. Dad and Sasha ended up picking at their plates on the floor, playing with the train set. None of us women had a single word to say over our plates of broiled salmon and fingerling potatoes.

body and a thick wool hat shielding my ears and forehead. Stripping naked in the middle of a

of this book could only be accessed in wolf form, and for some Goddess forsaken

bit into my toes. Shivering and as naked as the day I was born, I stepped back into the moonlit clearing and took a deep breath, trying to

then stretched, shaking out my fur. I was nearly as pale as the snow

my head around, teeth bared. A moose peered at me with a shocked expression, its antlers trembling as it took several steps back into the brush

there?' Hanna said through the mind-link. 'Do you want

alright,' I replied, watching the dark form of

wasn't one to pry, but I knew she was likely waiting by a window in the castle, pining for information. I grinned internally at the

in a strange way, something rare. It was almost like a mate bond, and I knew she could feel every ripple of my anxiety

pages rustled in the chilled breeze, mingling with the muted

I listened, but I was unable to interpret any words. It

a low, guttural growl, sliding upward into a lunge. For whatever reason, I felt as though I was supposed to approach the book without

slid across the snow in the wind's wake, its pages flapping wildly. I rose to all fours and watched as the book came to rest, a single page

ruff stood on end as the eyes stared at me in unison. Suddenly, they disappeared, and I

forced myself not to bare my teeth

ribbon of giggles that

unable to form more than growls,

Morrighan. Let

my spine as the mind-link crackled, and Hanna's voice cut through my

happening?' she said hurriedly, but I was already walking forward toward

that moved across the page, turning and twisting as if they were dancing. My eyes went wide as I watched

in seconds. I saw my own birth, my childhood, my journey to the moonstones and my mate, then the birth of my

heart was thundering in my chest as images went on and on, illustrated as though

and going, and going. Then it stopped, with a picture of a

show you your