Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder novel Chapter 237

 Chapter 17: Ernest’s Mate

Maeve

“Don’t say your name? Why?”

*Just in that context. I don’t… we can’t-”

“I know,” I said hurriedly, feeling foolish. It couldn’t be personal. That had to be what he meant. I fidgeted, looking past him toward the door. He followed my gaze, then snapped his head back around, giving me a serious look.

“Leave them alone, Maeve. I know what you’re thinking.”

“I just really need to talk to Ernest—”

“No, you don’t.”

“You don’t understand, Aaron. Gemma is in a bit of a crisis right now,”

“Because they’re mates? That doesn’t sound like a crisis to me.” He stood there, staring at me blankly as my jaw dropped open.

“How the hell did you know that?”

“Uh, he told me? Is it supposed to be a secret-”

I turned from him, pacing over to a set of couches that had been pushed up against the wall so that the maid could polish and wax the floor. I felt a little guilty as I looked down at the very obvious footprints left in the fresh wax, but the room was rarely used. It was my first time spending more than a few minutes here myself. “Well, if you know about it then it’s not a secret, is it?”

He shrugged, reaching up to crack open the window. “What do you need to talk to him about that’s so pressing you’d interrupt them?”

“I wasn’t going to interrupt them,” I lied, pursing my lips as he cast me an incredulous look. “I just wanted to talk to him privately.”

“About why he won’t marry and have children?”

Igaped at him again, my jaw nearly hitting the floor. “You know about that? You know why?”

“Yeah, he told me all about it.” Aaron’s tone was so casual that I laughed, unable to stop myself. He peered at me, tilting his head as I sat down on one of the dusty couches. “Do you seriously not know? How could you not know? Your whole reason for being here is to produce the heir he refuses,”

“Refuses? No, he can’t have children.”

“Oh, he’s perfectly capable of having children.”

“1-How?”

Aaron walked over, sitting down on the arm rest with his legs splayed open. I could see the outline of his cock in the comically tiny shorts he was wearing, and he made no move to hide it, either. He caught my gaze and I blushed, which was actually the reaction he had wanted. His mouth twitched into a smile as he stretched his arms above his head, groaning loudly as I waited for him to answer my questions.

“Aaron!”

“Okay, okay!” He pivoted on the arm rest and put both of his feet on the couch, facing me. “Ernest said he had a vision that his mate and their child would die, so he decided he would never marry or have children.”

I furrowed my brow, trying to gauge whether or not Aaron was messing with me. “Really?”

“Dead serious. In fact, he told me his own mother had the same vision, and she was the driving force behind getting your dad to bring you here.”

“My Aunt Georgia? You’re joking!” I felt myself flush, my skin prickling with a chill as his words settled. Aunt Georgia never talked

about having visions. There were wolves who had special traits, like my mother, but seers were rare if they were real at all. At least, that’s what my parents told me after Aaron’s own mother cursed me, after his accident. My mom’s powers were well known, but we descended from the Moon Goddess herself as White Queens. Aunt Georgia and my dad were just… wolves, like everyone else.

“I’m not messing with you right now, I promise. And I know how ridiculous it sounds. He said he thought it was just a dream until his mom said something about it. This all happened shortly before they left, I guess, his parents, for their—”

“Long sabbatical,” I said with a little laugh, despite the painful tightening in my chest at his words. My Uncle Talon and Aunt Georgia had ruled over Drogomor in my father’s place. Dad wanted to be in Winter Forest with us, not thousands of miles away in Valoria. I didn’t know the details of the exchange of power, but I do know Ernest became Alpha at a ridiculously young age, sixteen or seventeen, when his parents decided to leave Valoria and travel west to take up residence in Breles. Ernest had refused to go with them. The castle of Drogomor was all he knew.

“Yeah, well, Ernest believes it. I tried to talk him out of it,”

“It’s probably true,” I said with conviction.

Aaron narrowed his eyes at me, shaking his head. “You’re kidding, right? It’s fanciful at best-” He paused, the muscles of his neck contracting in the dim light as he swallowed. “You’re not cursed, Maeve. Neither of you,”

“Your own mother cursed me, Aaron.”

“She.. she couldn’t have. It’s not real, just like Ernest’s vision was just,”

“I’m a White Queen, like my mother. I’m supposed to come into my power. I was. I told the nurse in the infirmary to save some of my blood for healing and she only… she only smiled. She smiled because she knows it’s useless.”

“What are you saying, Maeve? That something an angry woman said now determines your future? How do you know your blood doesn’t have healing powers, or whatever it does?”

“My mom,” I breathed, looking over at him. He was watching me intentionally, his eyes lingering on mine. “She believed it. I could see it in her eyes. I know she still does.”

“What exactly is this curse?”

I shrugged, leaning forward over my knees to look down at the floor. “That I won’t find my mate. That I won’t come into my powers as a wolf.”

“Well, when’s your birthday?”