Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder novel Chapter 390

Chapter 48 Theo’s Past I

My thoughts were fuzzy as I tried to keep track of what was happening all around me. A whoosh of wind flew around me, and I felt like I was both floating and falling at the same time.

With a thump, I hit the ground, my legs slamming into what felt like a stone floor. I lay there for a second, opening my eyes slightly. I had to figure out what to do next.

Well, if the mission had failed, and the crystal hadn’t been cleansed from the last user, then we would have to wait until the next real blood moon to plant the berry, and I would just have to find a way to make sure that I didn’t hurt anyone else until then.

If that meant I would have to seclude myself and stay away from everyone until that could happen, then that was exactly what I would do.

It wasn’t like I’d never done that or been alone before. I was quite used to either anyway.

Pushing up off of the floor, I turned around and sat down, the world still spinning slightly. At least my organs seemed to have settled back down. My heart was no longer hammering, my lungs could suck in a full breath of air, and my head was no longer pounding.

Something was still different, though. Something was off. The room I was in looked like my own bedroom, but I could tell there were minor differences that made it seem like per- haps I hadn’t quite reached reality after all.

Glancing around, I saw that I was alone. The others were not there–Ciana, Jake, Brook, Warren, and Sophia. That made no sense.

I got up and started for the door, but it was then that I heard maniacal laughter behind me and turned around to see Luther standing across the room. He hadn’t been there be- fore; I was sure of it.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve to show your face,” I sneered.

Luther walked toward me, his arms folded across his chest as he continued to chuckle. “Seriously?” he asked. “You still haven’t figured all of this out? You are the one who should be concerned.”

“Obviously, you and I see things differently.”

I didn’t have time to chat with him, so the sooner I’d taken care of him, the better. I was about to shift when I realized that I couldn’t.

“Hahaha!” Luther laughed. “Prince Theo, why didn’t you show me your wolf? Is it because… you can’t?”

“What did you do?” I narrowed my eyes as I waited for him. to answer me.

“You know that every pack has an artifact from the Moon Goddess, right?” he asked, a snarky smile on his face.

Of course, I knew that. Everyone knew that.

“Well, before you had your brute of a Beta go out and track down the Moonlit Crystal, maybe you should’ve done a little bit of research about where it came from.” He still had that look on his face.

Shit!

“Bingo!” he laughed again. “That’s right. It belongs to my pack, Ortiz–mine. And that means… I’ve been the one pulling the strings all around this little adventure you’ve just been through. Did you enjoy it? How did it feel to be able to touch her smooth skin? It must be so good to fuck that little-”

“SHUT UP!” I roared.

Anger coursed through me and I felt my furious blood rush to my face. I realized that if he had been behind all of it, it wasn’t over yet. After all, I was still pretty sure I wasn’t back to my own reality yet.

“What are you so angry about? Aww, are you worried about her?”

“Leave her out of this!”

Luther let out another shriek of laughter. “Why don’t you beg me? If you drop to your knees, maybe I’ll consider it.”

I took a deep breath, calmed myself, and quickly analyzed the situation.

“Luther,” I said with scorn. “Why don’t you beg me in- stead?”

“What are you talking about?!” His face dropped.

I scoffed, “If you were able to fully control the crystal, I bet you’d prefer us to be trapped there forever. So let me guess what happened. Something didn’t quite work out as you ex- pected, did it?”

Luther’s complacent smile faded away, and I knew I was right. So I continued, “You didn’t expect us to have kept our memories, and you surely didn’t expect that we would be able to get out of here. You had to use whatever was left in the crystal just in time to keep me here.”

Luther clenched his jaw, and that confirmed my guess. I silently let out a breath of relief–it seemed that at least Ciana and the rest of the group should have been returned to reality now. Things were not as bad as I thought. That was good to know so that I could focus on dealing with Luther.

He stared at me viciously. The angrier he was, the closer I was to the truth. So I chuckled again, “So now what? Why don‘ t you show me what else you’ve got?”

Luther’s face twisted in hatred, but he soon calmed him- self down and he put on his fake smile again.

Surprisingly, he wasn’t as easily agitated as I’d hoped. I didn’t like that. Enemies who were level–headed were much more difficult to deal with than those who were emotional.

“You’ve used up all my patience,” he said as he narrowed his eyes even more. “Let me remind you- I’m in charge here. Now, Prince Theo, it’s time for you to get back to the show.”

“I’m not a good actor and you’ll be disappointed,” I said, continuing to provoke him, “again.”

He didn’t take the bait this time and only sneered, “Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?”

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As soon as he finished his sentence, I felt like my feet

were glued into place. He was right–I wasn’t going to be able to do anything to stop him.

As I began to slip into that dream state again, I heard him say, “It’s time for your nightmare to continue, Prince Theo. Get ready for your worst memories to replay in a loop!”

Then he slipped away, and everything around me began to change.

The room we’d been standing in morphed into a field out- side of the castle. The scent of the green grass hit my lungs as a warm breeze ruffled my hair.

But that wasn’t the only thing that had changed.

I was small – very small. My hands were outstretched in front of me, ungloved, and I hardly recognized my own arms, they were so short. Glancing down at my body, I realized I was a small child again, and as the rest of the scene came into fo- cus, I knew exactly who I was, where I was, and who I was killing.

In front of me stood one of the largest, most powerful, and most bloodthirsty warriors in our pack. He was originally sentenced to death for murdering his brother, but Father spared him and made him a soldier because of his battle skills. He was in his human form dressed in the uniform of our castle guard. I remembered that this was back when my fa- ther had been putting together a detail to go fight in an im- portant battle.

This man, whose name was Zade, was supposed to be the most merciless and deadly of all of my father’s troops.

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But he wouldn’t be going on that campaign. Not after I was finished with him.

The look of terror on his face continued to increase as he realized what was happening to him–that he was dying.

That I was killing him.

My body, on the other hand, felt riveting. Power, strength, youth–all of the attributes that contributed to Zade’s prowess as a warrior were seeping into me. I watched his face continue to pale and shrivel up as the very essence of life was sucked away from him, flowing through the air and rejuvenating me.

I wanted to stop. I wanted to find a way to end the pull that was sucking the life out of him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how.

And then, there was my father, who was standing next to me laughing and clapping.

Never in my entire life had I heard King Sebastian say any- thing even remotely kind to me. He’d either ignored me or put me down in every instance possible.

Until that moment.

And that’s why I hadn’t stopped. No, the rush of energy I got from Zade was nothing compared to the euphoria I felt from hearing my father praise me for the first time.

When Zade finally collapsed next to me, I began to feel all of the emotions the man had on the brink of death–panic, de- spair, and overwhelming terror, even longing for love. All of those waves of emotion consumed me and I couldn’t breathe.

I was too young to understand all those feelings. I couldn‘

t handle it. I was dumbfounded; I stood there, panicked and scared to the core, until I felt tears streaming down my cheeks.

When he fell to the ground, the link between us faded, but I could still feel the emotions from his death lingering in me.

All I wanted to do was run away and hide, but my father was still overjoyed. “This is it! Exactly what I needed!” He ran his hand through my hair and patted my back. “I always knew you could do it.”

I stared at him and couldn’t fully comprehend what had just happened.

“You’re a perfect monster!” he exclaimed.

My eyes widened and I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. Monster? Had he called me that? Is that what he thought?

I turned to look at my mother blankly, hoping that she could wipe off my tears, hold my hands, hug me, and tell me it was okay. But when I saw her, all I could see was her widened eyes filled with disbelief, pain, and… disgust.

“Mama…” I murmured. I stood in the middle of the crowd.

No one else dared to come close, and all of a sudden I felt so lonely and cold. I desperately needed an embrace from my mother, so I called her again. “Mama?”

“Isn’t he amazing?” my father asked my mother after he laughed heartily once again.

I stared at Mother, my arms reaching out to her. How I wished I could see something warm in her eyes and hear something comforting from her lips. But I didn’t.

“No!” she screamed. My arms froze in the air as I saw her dropped on the ground, covering her face. “No-” she cried.

At that moment, I felt as if every single drop of blood in my body froze. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t even hear anything around me except for the echo of her sob- bing.

I looked around at the other faces- my father’s guards, other servants, all assembled there. All of them looked terri- fied and repulsed.

No one wanted anything to do with me.

My father continued to sing my praises as my mother was helped by her servants to stand back up. My father ordered that she be escorted back to her room.

“Mama!” I shouted. “Please, Mama! Come back! Please don’t leave me! Don’t you love me, Mama? Don’t you love me?” I wanted to run after her because she was the one that I cared about, but my father took my hand and pulled me away.

From that moment on, she would avoid me at all cost, not wanting to have anything to do with me. The day I showed my father that I could do the parlor tricks that would make him powerful, was the day I lost my mother.