Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder novel Chapter 270

Chapter 50: In the Center of the Stones

Maeve

The next day passed in a blur of activity. The city was buzzing, practically electric as Myla and I moved through the market square, the note from Una inviting us to a private, women only ceremony to invoke the full moon was scrunched in my fist as we pushed through the crowd.

“Did you feel, I don’t know, strange? Last night?” I asked Myla as we walked towards the river.

“Um, no. I guess not. I was missing Keaton, though. Why?”

*-It’s nothing,” i murmured, biting the inside of my lip.

“Well, do you feel strange, Maeve?” Myla asked.

“Yeah, actually. There’s something about this place that feels off to me. It doesn’t feel real? If that makes sense.”

Myla nodded soberly, lowering her gaze as we crossed over the narrow bridge, “I do understand that feeling. This place is too good to be true, I think. I don’t want to leave.”

“Neither do 1,” I breathed, admitting the fact lifting some tension from my shoulders.

Troy and I had left the lake before the rest of the group, barely making it back to the apartment without tearing off each other’s clothes. Once inside, he had pushed me up against the door, pulling the dress over my head and holding me there at arm’s length, looking at me as though for the first time.

The sex had been desperate, passionate, so unlike the awkward fumbling lesson in the art of passion like it had been on the ship. He had pushed me to the edge several times, leaving me begging, practically pleading with him as he covered my body with his lips.

I would have done anything he asked. I would have said anything he wanted. I had surrendered to him wholly for the first time, and I knew nothing would be the same after that.

And as I laid back on the bed, listening to his rhythmic breathing as he slept, I counted the dancing white wolves on the ceiling. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one…

“What do you think this ceremony is going to be like?” Myla asked, bringing me back down to reality.

“Troy said they’re probably going to sacrifice one of us.” *

Myla sputtered with laughter shaking her head, “Goddess, Maeve. I hope it’s you. My hair hasn’t looked this good in years! What a waste that would be.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Myla’s teasing, somewhat abrasive, sense of humor was a compliment to my own. She was not a serious person. I wondered how she got on with Keaton, who seemed to be fixed, and dependent, on his serious, dry nature.

We walked along the lake in the opposite direction of where we had dined the night before. The sun was close to setting, the sky a soft, navy blue as we continued along a well-beaten trail.

“This is a hike,” Myla panted as we began to gain in elevation, the trail becoming uneven and broken up by large boulders.

“Where is this place? I thought we would’ve found it by now,” I replied, looking up at the mountain that seemed close enough to reach up and touch its peak with my fingertips.

“I dunno, but if I had known we would be doing this, I would have just shifted and had you carry my clothes.”

* You still can,”

“No, no. I can do it on my feet. Just – She reached down, taking off the platform sandals she was wearing. Just not in these shoes!” We continued up the trail, Myla carrying the sandals by their straps as we trudged forward.

We crested the top of a hill, looking over a field of large, uneven boulders. The trail disappeared into the field, reappearing on the other side.

* You’ve got to be kidding me!” Myla exclaimed, looking over at me for support.

I shrugged, looking out over the rocks, creating a course of action in my mind.

*It’s not so bad, just follow me. This will be quick!” I jumped down onto the first boulder, hopping my way across. It was fun, a physical challenge, especially in the ankle length dress I was wearing. Myla followed, a few boulders behind me, cursing audibly as she leapt from rock to rock on her bare feet.

Fifteen minutes later, we were across and back on the trail, the sun setting behind us. We crested another hill and finally looked down at the small congregation of women, arranged in small groups near the center of a circle of standing stones.

“What the hell – Myla said, pausing at the crest.

“Maybe Troy was right,” I said, arching my brow.

“Yeah, this is creepy. One of us is definitely getting sacrificed.”

We looked at each other and laughed, wiping tears of mirth from our eyes as we approached the circle.

The stones towered over the women who were chatting amiably as though the eeriness of the place had no effect on them whatsoever.

“You made it!” Tasia said excitedly, hugging us both in greeting, “I was worried Mom was too vague in her directions.”

“She, uh, definitely left a few things out,” Myla said, looking around.

“What is this place?” I asked, touching one of the stones. A jolt of electricity ran through my fingertips, and I pulled them away, clenching my hand into a fist as my ears began to ring. Tasia was watching me, her mouth slightly open as her eyes focused over my shoulder. I

turned around, seeing Una standing alone on the other side of the circle, her eyes fixating on my own as I met her gaze.

“What was that?” I asked, turning back to Tasia, but she was gone, moving through the groups as she leaned in to speak to the other women. Everyone started to move around, forming a semi-circle just outside the stones.

Myla and I fell in line, shuffling our feet in the soft grass as we looked around, eventually looking at each other.

“What happened when you touched the stone?” she whispered, but I shook my head, watching as Una walked into the circle and turned around to face the group, her body at the center of the circle.

*In the beginning, she was only a woman, the same as us,” she began, her voice cutting through the stillness, “but only isn’t a good word for a woman, is it?”

A murmur spread through the group, the women nodding in agreement.

“Her womanly powers were a gift to her people. She was their leader. She cared for them with her strength. Her hands tended to the land they called their home. Her voice comforted the sick, the dying, the mothers in childbirth as they brought forth life into the world. And so, she was blessed, given special powers by the earth beneath her feet and the wind that blew across the land. A gift by ancient, all knowing and unidentifiable gods, making her the steward of their creation. She was Leto.” –

“Leto.” The group said in unison. Myla and I looked at each other.

*Who’s getting sacrificed,” she whispered, “me, or you?”

“Probably both of us,”

I was cut off by a sudden movement within the group, several women stepping forward, their bodies twirling in a practiced dance. The sun was nearly set, the sky beginning to glisten with stars as the first sign of the moon crested over the peak of the mountain we were facing.

The women entered the circle, dancing in the silence, weaving in and out of the spaces between the stones. I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry.

“She blessed her people with the greatest gift, a selfless gift. Eternal mates. Fated by the divine.”

“I don’t like this, Maeve,” Myla whispered.

I was incapable of moving, my eyes fixated on the dancers. My heart seemed to beat in rhythm with their steps as they moved.

“But Leto was a wornan, despite her great powers. One day, she, too, found her mate. She was too hasty, too driven by the same gift she had so graciously given to her beloved flock to see the errors of her ways.”

“We should leave – Myla sounded panicked, her hand reaching out through the darkness to clasp my own.

“She was an immortal one; no harm could come to her. Time could not touch her. But with her mate, she had two children, and as she watched her children grow, she watched her mate grow old and weak.”

I let go of Myla’s hand, an unexplainable force pulling me towards the stones. I fought it, taking a step backwards, pain radiating up through the hand that had touched them.

“She used her powers to pull a great moonstone from the earth, the size of her palm,” Una said, raising her hand palm up towards the sky, “and with it she gave her family the gift of immortality.”

“I want to go, Maeve!” Myla’s voice rang out through the night, echoing through the congregation. No one spoke. No one turned their heads to us.

“I can’t-”

“But Leto’s mate was unfaithful to her. Leto had grown too strong, too powerful. Her mate plotted with their son to steal the stone and leave the sacred land. In her rage, she took back the stone and cursed her mate, turning him into a wolf. He fled, but he was too old and too weak to survive his journey. In her despair, she broke the stone in two, breaking the power that held her bound to the earth, and the wind, and the water. She disappeared, never to return.”

The dancers were moving quickly now, their movements more erratic as the moon fully crested the mountain peak and began to shine down on the clearing, inching towards the stone circle’s center.

“Her mate’s curse became our blessing, our power. We shift to honor her gifts; we run in our wolf bodies to honor her sacrifices.”

The moon was huge, shining brighter than I had ever seen it before. I was drawn to it, reaching out to touch it, willing it to drop into my hand.

“Maeve!” Myla screeched. I blinked, turning to her voice.

I was standing in the center of the stones, looking back at the semi-circle of women. The dancers were gone, and Una was standing at the circle’s edge, her eyes full of moonlight.

“Legend says a girl child will come, born out of love rather than duty, a child of Morrighan the beloved, the first White Queen. Twenty-One white wolves to complete the cycle to bring the stones together once more, to bring Leto home.”

I felt as though my body was disintegrating, every cell burning with heat. I screamed, terror ripping through me as I closed my eyes to the moon as it fell over the center of the circle. –

“This was lost,” came a voice I didn’t recognize, so close I could feel their breath against my ear. My hand formed a fist around something small, something practically weightless and I opened my eyes, looking down as I slowly unfurled my fingers.

My hand was wet, water dripping from my fingers, a ring laying in the palm of my hand, a red gem glistening in the moonlight. I looked up at the congregation of women, some of which had dropped to their knees or fainted, the rest gaping in collective shock.

Myla was crying, silent tears pouring down her cheeks, I turned my head, my eyes catching on Una’s face, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“What the f*ck just happened?” I cried, closing my hand around the ring.