Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder novel Chapter 321

Chapter 101: The Power of the Next White Queen

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Troy

“What the f*ck are you doing here?” I spat, adrenaline coursing through my veins as I locked eyes with Hayden. It had been years since I’d seen his face. He had healed well from the injuries we, the beach rats of Suntra, had given him, but I just see the long scar that ran along his jaw on the left side of his face where Keaton had taken liberties with his knife.

“Heard a rumor you were a big shot; thought I’d see so for myself.” Hayden rocked on heels, looking around. “Such wealth. How lucky of you to bag an Alpha’s daughter.”

I ground my teeth as I frantically mind linked with Keaton, giving him my location and telling him to bring Rob bie, and possibly Rowan, if Rowan’s attention could be spared. Ernest was too far gone with drink to be useful, unfor tunately. I felt the hair on my arms prickle to attention as Hay den’s dark stare studied my face, taking me in.

“You have no business here-”

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“Oh, but I do. When is Keaton getting here? I’d like to see him, that filthy bastard. It’s been too long.”

The door opened, and Keaton stepped inside, holding the door to allow a shocked-looking Robbie and a confused Rowan to step in behind him before he slammed the door shut and locked it.

knew I should’ ve f*cking killed you when I had the chance!” Keaton was red in the face, his eyes moving from Hayden to me.

‘Myla and Hanna are upstairs with Maeve and the boys,’ he said over the mind-link, tilting his head toward Hayden. ‘I’ m going to kill him, right here, right

“Who the hell is this guy?” Rowan asked sharply, picking up on the energy in the room, which was nothing more than an office space with a desk, sparse bookshelf, and chair.

Hayden smiled broadly, setting his gaze on Rowan. “Ah, the Alpha of Drogomor. Tasia has told me so much about you. Tell me, your mate is Hanna, correct? That absolute vixen that stood with you on stage?”

All of us stared at him, mouths agape.

“Did you just say Tasia?” Keaton ground out, his eyes flaming. I took a step away from Hayden so I was between Keaton and Robbie, and placed my hand on Keaton’s forearm. He was trembling.

“Of course, I know her. I work for her. Also, sleeping with her… but so is Carl, so it’s obviously not serious. Oh, and it’s consensual. I’m a changed man-” Hayden was interrupted by Keaton leaping forward, his fist slamming dead center in Hay den’s face.

All of us rushed to pull Keaton off of him, and Rowan looked at me helplessly, mouthing, “What the f*ck is going on?”

“Get off me!” Keaton screeched, his words a furious mur mur as Robbie’s massive hand came over his mouth.

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“This is Hayden Wells,” I panted, looking over at Rowan. “He killed Keaton’s little sister.”

“After he took her without her consent!” Robbie viciously added, his gaze locked on Hayden’s neck. It took a lot for Robbie to get angry and physical, but I could tell he was thinking about what it would feel like to snap the bastard’s neck.

“And got her pregnant,” Keaton added with a choking sadness, flexing his hand.

“Good Goddess,” Rowan breathed, looking around the room before settling his gaze on Hayden. “Should we just kill him?”

“Yes,” Keaton sneered, stepping forward, but Robbie and I caught him by the arms.

“Not-not yet,” I stammered, my heart racing.

“Tasia’s here, ain’t she?” Robbie said hoarsely, pulling Keaton back in line with the rest of us. Hayden reached up and touched his split lip, his teeth bloody as he smiled.

“She’s everywhere, but I’m sure your mate knows that, doesn’t she, Rowan?” He spit blood onto the carpet.

“Tasia is an enemy of the pack lands-” Rowan began, but fell silent as Hayden shook his head back and forth, laughing.

“Oh, is she? I heard no one talking about her during this fancy party. Not a single word about her. No one even said her name.”

“Where is she?” I shoved Keaton behind me. “What do you

know?”

“Nothing really. I just came to scope things out. My great -grandfather did as much, but didn’t get his hands on the girl like he was supposed to… that pretty piece, your wife.” Hay – den pointed at me, and I felt the same fury currently rippling through Keaton.

“Your great-grandfather?” I asked, trying to maintain my composure.

“Horace, of course. He’s dead.”

When was the last time I thought about Horace? He was incredibly old, and had battled with Romero in the tower dur ing the invasion. I wasn’t surprised he was dead.

Rowan was looking from Hayden to me, trying to make sense of our connection. I sucked in my breath, turning to Rowan, holding my hands out in surrender as I decided to ex plain, in detail, why we should have killed Hayden seven years ago.

“Hayden used to be part of our… gang. A crewman. A use less one, but we thought he didn’t have a family. He uh… lied, obviously. There weren’t women or girls in our crew. The fe male orphans formed their own groups around the islands. It was safer that way, for all of us. Keaton’s sister… her name was Michelle… she was the only girl we allowed in our crew. And Hayden… we mentioned what happened to her.”

Keaton spit on the floor, the substance landing just in front of Hayden.

“What did you do when it happened?” Rowan asked.

I felt the tension in the room starting to lessen, our com munal adrenaline and hatred ebbing as I shook my head, thinking back on that day.

“Which part?” Keaton hissed.

“We beat the living hell out of him, and sent him off in a rowboat,” I said, glancing at Keaton.

“Why not just kill him?”

“Because Michelle didn’t want us to be tortured and exe cuted by Damian’s warriors,” I answered, closing my eyes against the memory of the seventeen-year-old girl with thick golden hair. Michelle had only been a year younger than me when she died, and only a few years younger than Keaton. Keaton had raised her since she was a year old, when he was just a child himself.

“He slit her f*cking throat,” Keaton’s voice was a strained

cry.

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I felt myself on the edge of tears.

“Why?” Rowan asked Hayden.

Hayden shrugged. “I didn’t want to be a dad to some sea scum’s baby-”

Keaton lost all control. He had Hayden on the floor in an instant, smashing his head against the wall. None of us moved to stop him this time. Even Rowan had his hands. balled into fists, his eyes glossing over with the fury we now all shared.

Whatever this was, was justified.

“If you kill me, you’ll never find Tasia before it’s too late. And Carl. He’s-he’s almost worse than-” Hayden’s eyes rolled back in his head.

I stepped forward, placing my hand on Keaton’s shoulder. “Stop,” I whispered, the word disobeying what I actually want ed him to do.

“What is Tasia planning to do?” Rowan asked.

Hayden moaned, reaching up to touch the back of his head as Keaton rose, reluctantly backing away from him.

“Kill, and kill some more. Take over Valoria, then the west. The Isles are currently of no interest to her. She can place an Alpha of her choosing-”

“I am the Alpha of the Isles-”

“And yet you are not there, are you Troy? Damian’s do main, it was. My parents perished in the battle that took place in the forests north of here, did you know that? All I had was my decrepit old great-grandfather. That was it. Do you know why I joined your little gang of beach rats? I was sent there, to watch over you, Troy, to make sure you didn’t know who you were until the time was at its most advantageous.”

“For Damian to use me to take down Drogomor? I know that now. But he wouldn’t have known about Tasia then. He couldn’t have.”

“Tasia was always too much for her pack. Too powerful. They tried to subdue her, to make her fall in line. Control her powers to their own gain. She sought out Lycenna as a girl, connecting with Alpha Julien through her dreams. That’s how it started, you know. When the rest of the pack lands enjoyed

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their peace time after the war, the people of Lycenna suffered in silence. They are the true descendants of Lycaon and his mate. Not those born of the whore Diana, the Daughters of Artemis. Frauds, that pack. Lycenna knew they wouldn’t find support in the packs that pledged their loyalty to the High Council, or packs that recognized the White Queens as equal leaders. No. They sought out the rulers of the Isles to help bring their prophet home.”

“They see Tasia as a prophet? What does she want?” I al ready knew the answer, but I needed to hear it out loud.

“Lycaon was the rightful heir to his mother’s creation. The son. The Alpha. He should have gotten the stone while his sis ter settled into a life of submission to her own mate. Instead, he was banished. And Tasia holds the powers of Lycaon now. The only one. That is, until Hanna came out of the woodwork. But Hanna is a halfling with a powerless father; her blood is mixed. She is not a true descendant for that reason.”

“This happened thousands of years ago, if it happened at all!” Rowan said sharply, growing annoyed and angry at the mention of his mate.

“It’s happening again now. Don’t you see? Tasia is on a pil grimage to the cradle of our kind. There, she will start the world anew, the world of which Lycaon should have been master-”

“I’ve heard enough.” I licked my lips, looking over my shoulder at Robbie. “Get him out of here.”

“And take ‘im where?” Robbie looked at me skeptically.

“Anywhere. Somewhere off the castle grounds. Leave

him.”

“What?” Keaton growled, looking from Hayden to me. “Leave him?”

“Troy’s right,” Rowan said, nodding at Robbie as Robbie reached down and pulled Hayden from the floor, slinging him over his shoulder. “Don’t be seen.”

“What the f*ck-” Keaton stepped forward, but I blocked him from finishing what he started with Hayden.

“You can be the one to kill him, I promise you,” I said un der my breath to Keaton, catching Rowan’s gaze.

He nodded shortly. Hayden was useless to use in this cur rent situation. We couldn’t kill him in the middle of a gala. We had to let him go.

But Hayden was a stupid and proud man. He would flaunt what he thought was his prowess over the fact that we hadn’t killed him. Call us cowards.

He would be easy to find if he stayed in Mirage. And he had just given us the most useful information we currently had about the moonstones and Tasia’s true desires.

He would lead us to her.

But for that, we needed Ethan.

Robbie left the room with Hayden. A silence fell over me, Rowan, and Keaton. I could hear Keaton’s heart pounding against his ribs, his breath coming in rasps. He turned on his heel, leaving the room.

“We need to talk to my parents,” Rowan said softly.

I nodded as I looked down at the bloodstain on the car

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Everything seems to be coming to a head now…. This would all be over soon, and either we would find a way to de feat Tasia-or we’d all be dead.

Maeve

“You just let him go?” Dad’s voice would have been a boom had it not been for the three infants sleeping on the bed in what used to be Troy’s old room, the shared door slightly ajar.

Troy nodded gravely, looking Dad straight in the eyes.

“Why the hell didn’t you get me?” Dad was still dressed in a tuxedo, and the party was still going on downstairs despite the hour. It was close to three o’clock in the morning now.

“He wouldn’t have talked. It was me he was here for. We have a history.”

Troy then explained their past, and my stomach twisted into a knot. It twisted further as Troy and Rowan recounted what had happened in the office space Troy had gathered Rowan, Keaton, and Robbie in to face this man with a sordid past, and a bleaker future.

“So, he’s Tasia’s henchman?” I asked, feeling slightly ill. Hanna rested her hand on my shoulder, which sent a strange jolt of electricity down the length of my arm.

I looked up at her, picturing for a split second the stones in Dianny, and how it had felt when I touched them.

“Yes,” Troy said, “And we’re going to use him to find her and end this.”

“You two, come with me.” Dad pointed at Rowan and Troy and then left our bedroom. The door closed behind him and Hanna and I were left behind.

“What the hell,” I murmured, exhausted beyond belief.

“It’s almost over, I think.” Hanna sat next to me on the edge of the bed, sighing deeply. She was still in her dress from the gala, but her hair was ruffled and makeup slightly smudged.

Hanna and I’d had very few interactions over the past two months or so since I’d been home. But we were connected through a force neither of us understood.

In a lot of aspects, it felt like that of a mate bond… some thing destined, something neither of us could fight.

“It’s going to come down to you and me,” she said softly into the darkness of the room.

I nodded, grasping her meaning. We were the ones Tasia wanted-and wanted alive. Everyone else was disposable.

“What would you say if… if I said we find her ourselves, if it came down to it?” I asked.

She took my hand. “I feel as though that’s the way it’s meant to be.”

“Then what do we do? How do we convince them to let us act on our own? Mom may be of some help; she is obviously a threat to Tasia.”

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Hanna looked at me, deep into my eyes, as if she were searching for something.

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“We need to know what powers you possess, Maeve. First and foremost.”