Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder novel Chapter 294

Chapter 74: 

The Moon Goddess Took Her Mate’s Life on Her Twenty-First Birthday

Maeve

Myla tilted her head toward the beach, but I didn’t see him anywhere. “He’s here?” I asked, my voice catching as my chest tightened with hope.

Damian’s warriors were fighting for their lives all around me. Every member of the crew of the Persephone had shifted now, and the battle was moving off the beach as they pushed Damian warriors back against the rocky bluff to our backs.

Myla was glued to my side, guarding me, snarling anytime an enemy got near enough to be within lunging distance.

‘We need to get you on a skiff,’ said Myla over the mind-link, and I looked down at her, adrenaline prickling across my skin. ‘Some birthday, am I right?’

“Birthday?” I said aloud, then I felt the knot in my stomach loosen, the realization that it was, in fact, my birthday hitting me. It was just past midnight. I was twenty-one.

“Where’s Troy?” I said again, my heart beating so rapidly ! thought it might come out of my chest, forgetting about Opaline all together. I looked down at Myla, tears welling in the corners of my eyes. ‘Where is he?’ I said over the mind-link, fear creeping through my body. Did I have powers? I looked down at my hands, curling them into fists. Could …. shift?

‘He’s fine, he made it back to us. He wasn’t sure where they took you, but we were already preparing to go find you both. He’ s probably just wrapping up the details of what unfolded here with Keaton,’ Myla said as she turned, tilting her head towards the edge of the bluff.

I could see him, in his human form now, dressed again, speaking to Keaton. He had shifted back, too, and was pulling a shirt over his shoulders. I wanted to run to him, but I knew he must be busy or else he’d already have made his way to me.

It was quiet now. The battle was over in a matter of minutes. Myla was trotting across the beach back toward the skiff, shifting back into her human form and pulling her dress over her head, smoothing the fabric over her thighs.

“This felt too easy, Maeve! Damian only had seven warriors? That was it?” Myla asked when she returned to me.

I shrugged, wrapping my arms around myself as a cool breeze drifted in off the water.

“Besides him… and Rex and Opaline, so nine or ten people total. I’m not totally sure.”

Myla looked around suspiciously, her gaze settling on mine. “Who’s Rex?”

“Did Troy not explain?”

“He was stuck in the tomb for three days, in one of the collapsed tunnels at the dig site. Pete came back and led us to the tomb. We spent an entire day trying to remove the rocks from the opening of the tomb, and he just showed up behind us one day, having come out of another tunnel. He dug his way out.”

“He dug his way out?” | gasped, looking over my shoulder at Troy, who was staring right at me as he continued to talk to Keaton.

He hadn’t come over to me yet, and based on the look on his face, I wondered if he was keeping his distance on purpose.

TE

The moon was shining down on us, the sky dappled with stars. Myla walked past me toward where Damian’s body lay sprawled out on the sand, his throat stained red with blood. She picked up his arm, turning his watch towards me.

“It’s 12:23,” she said with a soft smile, letting his arm drop. “Happy Birthday, Maeve.”

“Thanks,” I said, attempting to sound grateful as I grimaced down at Damian, trying not to think about his last words, and then Opaline’s words of warning. Where was she, anyway?

I could feel Troy’s gaze on my skin as I looked back over to him. He was walking with his hands in his pockets behind Keaton and Pete as they made their way back to the beach. Troy looked up at me, eyes sparkling in the moonlight.

He was close enough for me to see the way the moon turned his eyes a deep, navy blue and a soft steel gray. He was wearing one of loose white shirts and it rippled in the breeze as he neared.

What was I supposed to feel, if he were my mate? Myla and Gemma had barely explained it to me, too wrapped up in their own feelings to help me understand. I already knew his scent. His touch already set my skin on fire with lust. I was drawn to him like a magnet, but those things had felt normal, not destined. I had felt them long before I turned twenty-one.

“Should I try to shift?” I asked Myla.

She looked me up and down, shaking her head. “You should talk to my mom first, before you do anything.”

I nodded, uncertainty tightening my chest as Troy stopped to talk to one of the crewmen, turning his head back toward me as if in slow motion.

PARO

A scream broke the silence of the beach, the sound echoing through the cove. I saw a flash of blonde flying from between the trees, then Pete and Keaton were running to Troy’s side.

Troy was looking right at me, his face twisted in a confused expression as he placed his hand over the center of his chest. Pete had wrestled someone to the ground behind him, and Keaton had grabbed Troy by the shoulders, catching him as he collapsed to his knees on the sand.

If I had screamed, I didn’t hear it. I was running but barely felt the ground beneath my feet. I fell to my knees next to Troy, taking his face between my hands “Troy!”

“WATCH OUT!” Pete cried, just as something hit me across the face, and I fell backward into the sand. I heard Myla scream with fury, spraying sand as she sprinted after Opaline, who had broken free from Pete and Keaton somehow and was taking off toward the skiffs with a large stick in her hands. My vision blurred, the starry sky above me quivering as it began to spin.

“Maeve? Maeve! Look at me! L-look at me right now! I need you!” Keaton was smacking me on the cheek, making my eyes water. I reached up to touch the wound on my forehead, wet with blood.

“Oh…”

“Get up, GET UP!

I blinked into the darkness; my vision obscured by the blood trickling down from my forehead.

“Troy? Hey-hey, man just wait… Wait a minute. Maeve. Maeve! Listen to me. Please, don’t-don’t pass out!” Keaton was desperate as he pulled me upright tilting my head to look down at Troy. 

His breathing was coming in gurgling rasps, his eyes half open. My throat tightened as I stifled a sob, my head pounding so violently I felt like it was going to split in half. “Troy?” I said in a faint whisper, reaching down to touch him. “You’re-you’re cold

_” 

“Go back to Winter Forest,” he said with considerable effort, his lips barely moving.

“We‘re going to go back together”

“1–1 know. It’s going to be okay. K-Keaton? Keaton?” I looked around, searching frantically in the dark for Keaton’s form. I felt his hand in mine suddenly, and he lifted it into the moonlight, his knife in the other hand. “Do it,” I said weakly, swallowing against the fear welling inside of me that was telling me my powers weren’t strong enough to save him.

“It’s-It’s cold there, but it feels nice. Crisp, and clean. In the winter the snow piles up against the buildings and we used to… used to slide down the snow chutes on flattened cardboard boxes. We–we-“I choked on my tears, not daring to close my eyes lest he take his last breath while they were closed. “The sky is almost purple there, violet, especially when it starts to get dark. The mountains turn pink in the evening when the sun sets. It’s… it’s the most beautiful thing I‘ve ever seen. I can’t-I can’t wait for you to see it.”

“1-I’m here. We both are. Keaton Keaton and I.”