Chapter 27

“You must wonder very much how I got to know,” Alpha Karl said, his tone low but laced with menace, “that isn’t important. What matters is this—I want to see my sextuplets.”

“You cannot,” Lois said bluntly, her voice cutting like ice.

Karl leaned in, his towering frame casting a shadow over her as his fiery eyes locked onto hers. “Do not provoke me, Lois. I do not want to scare them. But make no mistake—I can command my soldiers to scour all of Bienville, overturn every street, every home, until they are brought to me. I wish to see them. No—” his voice dropped into a growl, thick with authority, “I command it.”

Lois’s jaw tightened, her body rigid as her fury flared. She raised her chin like a queen daring death itself. “And I command that you cannot see them!” Her words lashed out with equal force, her voice high-pitched, stern, sharp as the thorn that guards the rose. She stood before him—beautiful, alluring, but as dangerous as her temper.

Alpha Karl’s nostrils flared. Never in all his reign had a woman—a wench, and especially Lois—thrown his own words back at him. His teeth ground against one another.

“You dare command me?” His scowl deepened. “Do you think yourself worthy to be the mother of my children? Let me remind you, Lois. You are nothing more than a breeder. You birthed them, yes, but they are royalty. You abducted the royal sextuplets for six long years, hid them away like stolen treasure—and you think that crime does not call for a death penalty?” His voice cracked like a whip.

Lois did not flinch. She lifted her chin higher, her eyes burning with cold fire. “I am more than worthy. I do not need to argue the facts—you know them. I birthed them. I named them. I protected them. I raised them. You did nothing. You were absent, a shadow. You are no father. And if I wish, I can tell them the truth: that you are a bad man. And they—my children—would protect me from you. A bad man can never be the father of my children.”

Her words tore through him like iron claws. Karl’s hands curled into fists, his eyes bloodshot, but he forced himself to hold steady. A bad man. If she poisoned his children with that name, they would carry it forever. They would look at him and see the monster Lois painted.

And no matter his hatred, no matter how much he loathed the woman before him, he knew one truth: he could not have her executed. The bond between Lois and the sextuplets was unbreakable. He had seen it in their eyes—the way they clung to her, the pride and joy they carried when they spoke of protecting her. Lois had given them joy, something he had never given. If he took her from them, he would be tearing away their second life.

His chest burned with shame and rage. He had given them nothing. He loathed Lois more than words could hold, but she was the one who gave his children everything.

Lois stepped closer, her eyes blazing. “So what now, Alpha? Kill me—and you will never see your sextuplets again.”

Her words struck like an arrow, burning through his chest. Karl staggered inwardly, though his face remained carved in stone. He had mourned so long, spent sleepless nights in torment, hurt himself, hurt others, drowning in bitterness. He had lost Aloe, his mother, his kin, all those he had once loved—and he had failed to protect them.

He had lived as a grim man without love, a king wrapped in shadow. He thought his salvation would come with his mate, that love would bloom when he claimed her. But there was no bond with Sandra, nothing but emptiness.

Now, the only chance left to love and protect was through his children—his blood, his heirs. But the one woman he loathed above all stood between him and that chance. Lois.

Lois saw it in his eyes—the desperation, the pain, the hunger for his children. A part of her softened, if only for a breath. She had nothing to lose anymore. The sextuplets were hers, her secret, her shield. However he had learned of them, it must have been whispers from her neighborhood.

For six years she had lived in fear, always certain that if Karl found them, he would snatch them away and make Sandra their mother, erasing Lois from their lives. But she had endured, fought, and hidden them. And now her children knew her, loved her, clung to her as their mother—that was her only protection.

The thought of being torn from them still haunted her every night. That was her deepest fear—losing her six bundles of joy. And now the Alpha King, the man she hated, desired them with every fiber of his being.

A flicker of guilt stirred in Lois’s chest. She had lied to them about their father. They had always longed to meet him, always asked. A part of her wanted them to—but the bloody history between her and Karl was too ugly. If she went back to Hale, she would be branded a criminal, condemned to exile or execution. The ministers and council would never forgive her. Even if Karl tried to protect her, he loathed her too deeply to shield her forever.

The silence grew heavy. The darkened chamber was filled only by the pale slant of moonlight through the window. Karl’s jaw clenched, his broad frame still as stone. He had never felt powerless before. His force, his authority, his intimidation—none of it mattered here. Before Lois, in the matter of their sextuplets, he was as powerless as she was.

And perhaps… perhaps the gods she prayed to truly favored her. Perhaps they had shielded her from his grasp, allowed her to escape, to survive, to defy him.

If she had surrendered the night she birthed the sextuplets, her children would have been stripped from her arms. She would have been erased, forgotten, an invisible ghost in their lives.

But she had fought. She had endured. And now she stood before him—not as his slave, but as his equal adversary.

“What do you want?”

The words tore out of them at once, echoing in perfect unison. They both froze, staring, squinting, as though each had heard their own voice in the other.

After a long silence, Lois broke it, her lips curving into a sharp smile. “Perhaps… let’s make a deal.”

Karl’s eyes narrowed, his growl deep and cautious. “What are your conditions?”

Lois stepped closer, every word deliberate, burning. “The sextuplets remain a secret unless you—first, acquit me of every sin you accuse me of. Second, I am instated, officially and publicly, as the mother of the royal sextuplets. And lastly…”

Her words trailed into silence.

Wolfe gasped behind them, his grip tightening on his sword. Impossible, he thought. The conditions Lois demanded… they were the most dangerous, the most difficult, the most unthinkable.