Alpha King Maddox nips at my ear. “Do you like that, little flower?” I moan an answer as his other hand slides my nightgown down off of my shoulder so his mouth comes down on me, his tongue lapping at my sensitive skin. ***** I''m just his breeder, traded for a debt. But can I convince King Maddox I could be more--so much more? *Isla* When my pack Alpha takes me to the castle to see the king, I have no idea he's trading me for a personal debt. Scared and alone, I contemplate what might happen to me and miss my family. But then I meet King Maddox. His reputation for being cruel is a contrast to the care I see deep in his eyes. Is it possible he could develop feelings for me? A poor girl brought to the castle to complete a task? I am just a tool to him after all. Or am I? *Maddox* After my wife died, I had no intention of falling in love again, but I need an heir. A simple solution presents itself in the form of a beautiful girl, given to me in exchange for a debt. But the more I get to know Isla, the more drawn to her I am. Is it possible she's just the one to make me forget the tragic night my wife died... a night I take full responsibility for? With pressure from other Alphas to marry one of their daughters, and rumors that Isla isn't who she seems to be, my decision will not be easy. But then, I'm the Alpha King. My decisions are never easy. I hope I make the right one. Because Isla is starting to get under my skin--I want to be on top of hers. Forever Season 5 now available!
View More*Isla*
Rain pounds my back as I follow Alpha Ernest up the wide marble steps to a home I never expect to see in real life. I look around quickly, but he is walking fast, and I don’t have much time to see the outside of the mansion. I only know it resembles a castle. The dreary sky seems fitting, considering my bleak outlook.
Likewise, this castle is fitting for an Alpha King.
Under the wide porch, there is a bit of shelter from the wind. I pull my thin cloak around my shoulders. When Alpha Ernest’s fist pounds on the door, I jumped. Everything about this day is unexpected and has me on edge.
The door opens a bit and a man with a thin, long nose gapes out at us. He is wearing a butler’s suit, and I relax only slightly.
Not that I expected the cruel king to open his own door, but I am thankful not to be faced with him right away.
“Greetings! Greetings!” Alpha Ernest says in his jovial, exceedingly loud voice. He laughs in the back of his throat, his gruff tone as raspy as the thunder in the distance. “It is I, Alpha Ernest of Willow pack! His Majesty is expecting me.”
The butler looks him over and then his eyes fall on me for a moment as if he isn’t sure whether or not the rotund, sweaty man in the white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows could possibly be an actual Alpha. The detail of Omegas that are hanging out in the car that brought us the two hours make it more convincing.
“Come in,” the butler says, pulling the heavy wooden door open.
“Thank you, thank you,” my Alpha says, and I follow him inside, absently wondering why he must say everything twice.
My happiness at being let in from the rain only lasts a moment as I follow along behind the two men who walk quickly down a long corridor. The inside of the house doesn’t resemble the castle in the sense that the floors are not made of stone—they are wood—and the walls are covered in drywall. But it is a huge building, and it is lavishly decorated with fine furnishings, all kinds of pieces of art from paintings to sculptures to ancient vases, and I try to keep up with our guide while my eyes roam over objects that are worth a hundred times more than what my parents make in a year—a thousand times more.
The sale of just one of these objects would have been plenty to pay off my parents’ debts. If I’d had just one painting to sell, I wouldn’t be here now.
I can’t think of that at the moment. My fate is sealed. I grasp my small bag in my hands and struggle to keep up. It doesn’t help that I haven’t eaten much of anything in the past week. I feel lightheaded.
We turn down a few corridors, and it’s clear to me that we are now in the part of the building that is for work instead of show. Artwork still hangs on the walls, but it’s not as elaborate. The doors we are passing seem to be offices, not libraries or parlors.
“Wait here,” the butler says, pausing outside of a closed door. He knocks, and I hear a low gravelly voice call him in.
I feel my heart begin to thump in my chest. I’m still not quite clear what Alpha Ernest has in mind for me. When I came to him for help earlier in the day, he asked me a few personal questions, a smile split his face, and then he told me to go home and pack all of my most prized possessions. He said to tell my family goodbye, if I was serious about paying off my family’s debts, and to be back in his office in one hour.
Then, we’d gotten in the car and driven here. I hadn’t asked any questions other than for him to put it in writing.
“John and Mary Moon are no longer in debt to Alpha Ernest Rock if their daughter, Isla Moon, follows through with the agreement made with said Alpha on this day….” Dated, signed by both parties, and here I am.
Still not sure what that agreement is.
Alpha Ernest goes inside of the office, and I am tempted to strain to see inside, too, but I don’t. I’ve never seen him before, the Alpha King, the head of all of the Alphas and all of the territories in our region, for thousands and thousands of miles. I’ve heard lots of stories about him, though.
Presently, I am hoping that most of them are not true.
I would like to see his face, to know if the rumors of his attractiveness are accurate.
But I’d rather not see him at all, if I had a choice. Word of his cruelty proceeds him, and it is said that he is just as brutal as he is handsome.
“You may sit,” the butler says, gesturing to a chair near the door that has closed behind Alpha Ernest.
I nod, but I am not capable of thanking him verbally right now, not when my teeth are near chattering with fear.
I sit down, still grasping my bag in my hands. I wish I had put on more than the thin cloak my mother had given me last winter. Cloaks were cheaper than coats, so that’s what I had.
I wouldn’t hide the trembling that was beginning to ravage my body, though.
Doing my best to ignore the shaking, I tried to focus in on the faint voices I could hear coming from behind the thick wooden door. I didn’t expect to be able to hear because the door looked sturdy, but Alpha Ernest is loud.
And Alpha Maddox…. Well, he just sounded agitated.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” Alpha Ernest was saying.
When Alpha Maddox replied, it was harder to hear. He wasn’t as loud. “I don’t know why you’re here unless it’s to pay me the money you owe me.” At least, that’s what I think he is saying.
“Unfortunately, sir, I don’t have the money—not exactly,” the other man replies. I hear Alpha Maddox grumble in response. “But I have something else to offer you instead. Something better.”
“Something better than the one and a half million dollars you owe me?”
My heart catches in my throat and I nearly choke. One and a half million dollars? Did I hear that correctly? What in the world could Alpha Ernest have that is worth that kind of money?
“Oh, yes!” Alpha Ernest says. “Please, sir, hear me out. I have a bargain for you. One that will allow me to settle our debt and help you with a certain… problem you have.”
Problem? What problem could Alpha Maddox possibly have—other than the fact that he might have killed all of the people that he wanted to yell at.
I sit with my feet flat on the floor, my eyes focusing on the eggshell wall across from me, listening, not believing what I am hearing.
“Ernest,” Alpha Maddox says, “you are the last person on earth I would turn to to help me solve a problem, not that I even know what you’re referring to.”
“Let me enlighten you, sir, if you don’t mind?”
Alpha Maddox growls again. If he says anything else, I don’t hear it.
Alpha Ernest continues. “You have just turned twenty-nine last month, yes?” I assume Alpha Maddox confirms this because my pack Alpha continues. “Everyone knows that the Alpha King is expected to have an heir by the age of thirty.”
“Alpha Ernest—” the king says.
“Give me only a few moments of your time, Alpha” Ernest says, and I can imagine his hands up in front of him. “You need someone who can bear you a child, someone with no complicated relationship involved, someone who is beautiful, with good, healthy genes. A strapping mother who has born many children and proven herself to be from good stock.”
With every word he speaks, my heart leaps higher into my throat, even though my brain still doesn’t want to compute what he is saying.
“What are you proposing, Ernest?” Alpha Maddox says. “I don’t have any problem picking up women. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, of course!” Alpha Ernest says. “But women at court are complicated. They have expectations. I know you don’t intend to marry again. So… what you need is a willing, compliant, beautiful girl who is eager to spread her legs to earn money, bear you a child—or two or three—and then fade away. And I have just the girl for you.”
I take a deep breath and hold it. Surely, Alpha Maddox will not agree to this. Why would he agree to this?
Why have I agreed to this?
Did I agree to this?
“Let me see if I understand you correctly, Alpha Ernest,” I hear Alpha Maddox say, and I can’t tell if he’s angry, offended… or intrigued. “Are you proposing I take some girl you’ve brought with you into my home for the sole purpose of having a child?”
“That’s right, Your Majesty,” Ernest says. “I’m proposing you take on… a breeder.”
MariannaI get dressed, and then we’re ushered down to the basement of the castle in short order. Soren doesn’t set Skye down until we reach the web of hallways leading to what I thought were storage rooms but end up being an intricate, absolutely unreal, training facility built levels below the main floor of the castle. There, we enter a small arena of sorts, where several guards are already waiting for us, as well as… Sydney. Blake and I haven’t married yet, but Sydney is as close as he can be to a father-in-law at this point in time, and that’s written clearly on his face when Skye runs into his waiting arms, but his eyes remain on mine. Silent. Hollow with both grief and startling understanding. There’s no room for anything else, but I… I feel nothing but anger. Soren’s talking, but I barely register a word he says as I stare back at Sydney, my hands curling into fists at my side. I want to say what’s on my heart–that he should have known that Blake would become this, that he co
BlakeMoonlight plays over Marianna’s naked skin. She’s like a painting–flawless, almost airbrushed. Ethereal and all-consuming even at rest. The moon is full and high in the sky as I trace my fingertips over the curve of her breasts and down to her navel, then lower, where I flatten my hand between her hips, closing my eyes against the anguish soaring through my body, through my wolf. Even the stars go silent, giving me space to grieve the life I tried and failed to give her–them. Marianna, Skye, and… the two boys currently nestled deep in her womb. Boys she won’t know about for weeks still. Maybe this knowledge is a gift from the Goddess, a little snippet of the lives that will move on without me if I fail. I’ve made promises I’m not sure I can keep. I’ve sworn vows in silence, betting my life on an outcome that I already know is out of reach, but I have no choice but to try to save my family and my kingdom from a war we would never recover from. I was too young to remember my gre
MariannaI wake up alone in the haze of another bright, sunny day. Summer heat pours over Moonrise as I slide out of bed and pull on a thin, silken robe over the tank top and shorts I fell asleep in late last night, after putting Skye to bed and rejoining Blake. He hadn’t woken up since I forced him to sleep yesterday, sometime in the early afternoon, but he’s gone now.. I blink back fatigue still clogging my eyesight and open our bedroom door, where soft voices drift toward me, carried on a warm breeze scented like maple syrup and freshly brewed coffee. Skye kneels beside the coffee table in the living room, a plate of half-eaten pancakes resting beside her. She looks up at me with a sugary grin before her gaze locks back onto the chessboard on the table. Blake turns his head and follows my progress across the room to where a breakfast spread has been laid out–pancakes, eggs, fruit, and an assortment of juices, but I reach for the carafe of steaming coffee, trying to will my hands
BlakeI wake to full darkness, a nearly full moon painting the bedroom in strips of silver. Moonlight illuminates Marianna and Skye, the latter stretched out like a starfish between us, one fist resting against Marianna’s cheek while the other clutches my wrinkled shirt in a death grip. My body feels heavy, and my brain takes several seconds to register the room around us. I’ve been asleep most of the day, and well into the night, which hasn’t happened in many years. I’m still not fully awake as I untangle Skye’s fingers from my shirt. She opens her eyes to slits but quickly succumbs to a deep slumber again before I’ve loosened her fingers enough to slip free. Everything that happened in the last day or so barrels back to me the second my feet touch the floor. I slump on the edge of the mattress, hanging my head in my hands as the visions I saw ripple through my head. The stars are now quiet, like they’ve done their job and can now rest, just like I have. Bastards. I change my clo
MariannaSoren meets my eyes through what I can only describe as a haze. The room looks and feels distorted, but that might be my mind trying to shield me from what I just heard and saw. Blake remains in the center of the room while Maeve backs away, her eyes wet with tears and her gaze darting from me to Soren, who looks livid as he tells his mate, “We’re done here. Come with me.”Maeve jerks into sudden awareness and turns her back on Blake. She leaves the room first, tearing into the hallway, her rapid footsteps the only sound in the vacuum of silence spreading through Blake’s office. But Soren turns to look at Blake over his shoulder with a rough sigh. “We’re going to talk this through. Don’t do anything stupid until we do.”I wait for the door to click shut. Blake doesn’t move from his spot in the center of the office, but… I have to do something. I have to say something. He beats me to it. “How much did you hear?”“It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t supposed to hear any of it, was I?
BlakeIt’s quiet in my office. The air is still and empty, scented with coffee and fresh ink. I move from my printer and sit at my desk, fanning through the papers I’ve just printed, which are still warm. The door leading to my suite opens with a squeak, revealing Marianna, who peeks her head in and says, “She’s asleep.”I can’t do more than nod. “Will you let me know when she wakes up?”“I will. Um… the moonstone sphere? I put it on her bedside table. Is that where it needs to be? Or, like, under her pillow?”For the first time in days, I feel a single slice of calm pierce the roiling mess of emotions currently taking up all the space in my mind. It’s simply because of her, the image of her clutching the door, her dark hair swishing around her shoulders and her eyes… so blue. The perfect blue. I don’t deserve this. I never have. “That’s just fine.”Marianna’s gaze holds mine, scanning, deeply inspecting, but I’ve trained my entire life to keep people at arm’s length. Including her.
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