Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder novel Chapter 249

Chapter 29: Nameless But Not Blameless

Maeve

“Aaron?” I said into the dark as my door opened and closed, a shadowed figure moving through the room toward my bed. I sat up, pulling the sheets over my bare chest.

I blinked rapidly to adjust my eyes to the darkness. A drawer squeaked as it was roughly opened, the sound of fabric falling to the ground overwhelmed by murmured curses.

“I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow.” I said, scooting to the side of the bed and slipping my legs out of the sheets. “What are you doing?”

“Get dressed, Maeve. We have to go.”

“Go where?” I laughed, standing and reaching over to my bedside table to turn on the lamp. Yellow light filled the room, washing over his face. “Aaron, what’s wrong?”

“Turn off the lamp, right now!” he exclaimed, panic flashing in his eyes.

He was filthy, and his clothes were damp and smelled sharply of rainwater and dust. He had dark circles beneath his eyes, and he looked exceedingly wary. I stepped forward, narrowing my eyes as I closed in on him, ignoring his demand.

He had blood on his shirt. Lots of it.

“Aaron?”

“That’s not my name, Maeve.”

I froze, any warmth I felt by his presence evaporating into thin air and leaving me feeling suddenly exposed. I crossed my arms over my breasts, not taking my eyes off of his. “What kind of game is this? Why are you covered in blood?”

“My name is Troy.” He took a step forward, his eyes boring into mine. I opened my mouth to speak, but the only sound that escaped was a choked laugh.

“Okay, Troy.” I said sarcastically. But he looked at me, coldly, his eyes vibrant gems in the lamplight.

“Turn off the lamp, Maeve. I’m serious.”

“Not until you tell me why you’re covered in blood.” i felt the sudden urge to step away from him. Troy? Who the hell was Troy? All the suspicions I had had about him came rushing forward as I looked over his face, the face I hadn’t recognized. The eyes that seemed so new, so incredibly unique. And his chest, scarless, when I knew it shouldn’t be. “You’re not Aaron, are you?”

“I’m not. I never have been. Aaron is on an island somewhere. He’s safe. He’ll be returned to his family.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, an edge to my voice. “Why are you here?”

“A mission,” he said as he took another step, his hands outstretched in a show of surrender. “I didn’t come here to be your breeder. I never meant to even touch you. I was here to free Romero from the tower.”

“Who?” I took a step away from him.

that was me. Troy. Not Aaron. !

“I need you to listen to me. I need you to know that everything that has happened between us, everything meant everything I’ve ever said and done with you.”

Igaped at him, a strange feeling beginning to well in the pit of my stomach.

“I love you,” he said earnestly, the words echoing in my ears. I felt bile rising in my throat, the fight-or-flight response rippling across my skin.

“Don’t say that to me. Don’t you dare say that to me. You lied to me, you’ve been lying this entire time-”

“Gemma was right all along, Maeve. I know you had your own suspicions. I don’t have the scar, do 1? That’s because I never fell out of a tree when I was a kid. I’ve never been to Winter Forest. We met for the first time that day in the market.”

I had been right all along. He had trapped me in his web of deceit. Everything he had said to me, everything he had done to convince me..

“Leave my room, now!”

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11:57

Chapter 29: Nameless But Not Blameless

“Do you know why I took off after I met you in the market? Because I wanted you. I sought you out of the crowd. You pulled me in. I didn’t know who you were. Then you were not who I wanted you to be—

The light abruptly shut off, and all around us the electric hum of the castle powered down, blanketing us in a dark, complete silence. His face changed, panic and confusion lining his face as he tensed, looking slowly towards the door. I felt his fear. The downy hairs on my arms stood on end as the sounds of rushing footsteps echoed through the corridors below. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

“What’s happening,” I was interrupted by the sound of Troy struggling to pull my dresser along the wall and positioning it against the door, preventing it from opening. I heard the shared door open and a similar scraping sound coming from his room. He came back into my room, bending to the ground and tossing a simple cotton dress at me. Then he walked to the bed and pulled off the sheets.

“What are you doing?”

“Get dressed, Maeve, we don’t have much time.” He was ripping the sheet into strips, cursing under his breath as he wound and knotted the strips together to form a makeshift rope.

“We don’t have much time for what? If you think barricading me in this room is going to stop me from screaming for help-” Voices echoed from below, skrill commands. Doors began to open and shut, exclaimations of surprise and then terror cutting through the still air of the castle.

Suddenly, he was in front of me, gripping my upper arms so tightly I could feel his fingernails pinching my skin. “Don’t make a sound!”

I pushed against him, slamming my fists into his chest. He grabbed the back of my head, twisting his fingers into my hair and pulling me into a kiss so intense it made me feel a rush of warmth that blurred my senses long enough to drown out the first piercing scream that ripped through the air.

He broke away from the kiss, his lips lightly brushing against mine as another scream echoed from somewhere on the lower levels.

He let me go, pushing me away and reaching down for the dress.