Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder novel Chapter 278

Chapter 58 : Fated Babe

Maeve

Cleo felt over my belly, finding a spot just below my navel where my stomach went suddenly limp, as though the muscles I had there just up and disappeared. I looked down, slightly concerned.

“It’s just your ligaments loosening up,” she said with a smile, unrolling a length of measuring tape and laying it vertically over my skin. “You’re going to start feeling

something like… being snapped with a rubber band, every once in a while, around your waist.”

“Yeah, I’ve felt that a few times,” I said, watching as she measured my stomach. I definitely wasn’t showing yet, but I did feel a little softer, looser. I had tried to explain it to Troy, trying to find a word for the way my body felt. What had he called it? Limp noodle?

Ah, yes. My bones felt like overcooked pasta. I was suddenly clumsy, dizzy, and extremely fatigued. I felt so out of sorts, like my mind and body were no longer connecting. And when I brought it up to Cleo, she had simply nodded, telling me it was all totally and completely normal.

“You’re measuring ahead, but I expected that, carrying twins and all,” Cleo said, rolling the tape around her finger and putting it back into the bag Una had given her, which was full of practically everything needed to tend to a pregnancy and deliver a baby. She pulled out a stethoscope next, placing it on my skin to listen to whatever lay beneath.

“Can you hear them yet?” | asked. She put the stethoscope away and gently prodded my stomach. It was amazing to watch her work. She had delivered so many children during the course of her career. There was no one else I trusted with my pregnancy more than Cleo.

She was also the only person even remotely qualified to deliver the babies, especially given the fact that we were traveling into the unknown.

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“Not very well, but I guarantee you, they’re there. Both of them. You’re probably txo

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months along, I’d say.”

“When will she start getting round?” Myla was standing in the corner of the room! shared with Troy, watching us with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked a little uncomfortable.

“I already feel round,” I said as I pulled my shirt down. I struggled suddenly to sit upright, needing Cleo’s assistance as a wave of dizziness washed over me.

“You’re likely a little anemic, Maeve. I’ll let Olly know. You’ll need more iron in your diet.”

“Your boobs are huge,” Myla said curtly, and both Cleo and I turned to her.

“Are you okay,” I said, but Myla was already out the door, slamming it shut behind her. “What’s her problem?”

Cleo sighed deeply as she put her tools back in the bag, running her fingers along the smooth leather. “Her biological mother died in childbirth, remember?”

“Oh,” I replied, feeling incredibly insensitive. I blushed, drawing my knees into my chest. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking,”

“It’s not you, honey. She’s concerned.”

“But… I’ll be fine, won’t I?

Cleo gave me a soft smile, nodding. “You’ll be fine. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her, either.”

“Is that what she’s upset about?”

Cleo folded her hands in her lap as she sat down on the edge of the bed, looking over at me with a look that told me whatever was said between us was not, under any circumstances, to be repeated.

“Myla asked me recently how to prevent a pregnancy from occurring. She is terrified of it, Maeve. She may not have known her mother, but she was orphaned moments after she was born. That would make anyone have second thoughts.”

“She was talking about having ten children with Keaton when we were in Dianny-”

“And maybe someday she will, but for now…” Cleo trailed off, picking at a patchwork

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quilt “She’s not ready. And I don’t think Keaton is, either.”

“What did you tell her to do?” I asked, genuinely curious. I hadn’t ever even considered it given that I was in a situation where I was supposed to get pregnant instead of not

*Not have sex, for one. But that’s not plausible after meeting your mate, is it?” Cleo laughed, shaking her head.

“Cleo?” I asked, taking advantage of our moment alone to ask her something I had never known. “Did you ever find your mate?”

Cleo’s smile faded, her eyes shimmering suddenly with a distant, somber memory.

“1-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry-”

“It’s alright, darling. I just haven’t talked about her in a long time.” Cleo’s expression underwent a series of expressions as she got lost in her memories. After a moment she looked up at me, the corner of her mouth twitching with the shadow of a smile. “I did find my mate. Her name was Olivia.”

“We had to. She was being married off. Her father would have never approved of our relationship. We thought we’d have a chance if we fled to the Isles, but…” She trailed off, knitting her brow, “We were caught. I was arrested,”

“Arrested?” I was shocked.

that point, I had trained to be a midwife. I ended up setting up a practice in Mirage. That’s when-“She exhaled deeply, her eyes misting with tears. She met my eyes, shaking her head. “I’ve never told Myla.”

“I was… I was working in Mirage. A man came to me; he said his wife was struggling in labor. When he brought her inside, I thought–I just…” A single tear rolled down her cheek. She looked away from me, settling her gaze on a random spot on the far wall. “I hadn’t seen her in so long. And then, there she was, right in front of me! | couldn’t believe it! But she was so sick, so far gone by that point.” She blinked several times, trying to steel her expression as she turned back to me.

“She was mine the second she came into the world,” Cleo said firmly, nodding her head as though she were answering an unsaid question. “She was meant to be ours. When Olivia died, the man never came back. I never saw or heard from him again. I don’t know if Liv had other children. I don’t know anything about how she spent the last twenty years of her life. I blamed myself for her death for a long, long time. But I never, ever resented Myla for it. Liv gave her to me, I truly believe that. It was fate that I was the one that terrible, disgusting man came to when Liv was dying from a hemorrhage. I never told Myla about him. Never. And I never want to.”

She only shook her head, inhaling and exhaling with effort. “She told me Myla’s name as she was dying. She told me Myla was a gift, and to love her as much as we