Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder novel Chapter 303

Chapter 83 : Common Ground

Troy

Well, I was still alive.

I hadn’t been sure what to expect when we finally reached Maeve’s homeland, but I thought Maeve would have been more at peace.

Instead, I watched her crumble at the edge of her parents’ bed, the moonstones in her hands, realizing the act of bringing them together hadn’t worked.

That had been the first time I met her mother, the famous White Queen Rosalie… my future mother-in-law, if Ethan didn’t kill me before a wedding could take place.

We had been in Winter Forest for a full day at that point, and my conversations with Ethan had been short and to the point. I had turned over Opaline to him. I had returned his daughter to her pack. I had given him a complete report on everything that had happened from the moment I first stepped foot in Valoria to the day our boat pulled into the inlet that hugged the shore of Winters Forest’s main village.

Outside of that, he didn’t even look in my direction.

I was only slightly embarrassed that I fell off the dock in front of him, but Rowan made me look slightly better than himself when he jumped in a second time to help me get the moonstone before it was carried away by the tide.

The icy, glacial water had been a baptism of some kind, something that cemented an unlikely friendship between Maeve‘s brother and

1. me.

So, I wasn’t entirely surprised when I woke up the next morning to Rowan in the doorway of Maeve’s bedroom, peering down at me.

“Why are you sleeping on the floor?” he asked in a whisper, arching his brow.

I ran my fingers through my hair and then over my face, rubbing my eyes. “More room down here,” I tilted my head toward the bed where Maeve was still sleeping like a rock with basically all of the pillows in the house tucked around her body. “What time is it?”

“A little after seven,” he replied, leaning against the doorway and crossing his arms over his chest. I looked out the window behind the bed, seeing nothing. It was pitch black. “The sun doesn’t come up until, like, eleven this time of year. You’ll get used to it.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” I blinked a few times, my body and mind not yet acclimated to the strangeness of this place. The sun had set the day before at just after 3:00 p.m., and all my body wanted to do was sleep even though I wasn’t particularly tired.

“It’s hard on everyone for a while,” Rowan continued as I stood and folded up the blanket I had been sleeping on. I laid it over Maeve’s feet, which were peeking out of the thick quilt that she had tucked up around her ears. “How’s she doing?”

I could hear the guilt in his voice as his gaze shifted from me to the bed.

In truth, Maeve wasn’t well. She had cried until she fell asleep the night before, spilling her feelings about her homecoming to me while I held her, whispering reassurances against her neck. Maeve was a wreck, and I couldn’t blame her. It was mostly my fault.

1. me.

So, I wasn’t entirely surprised when I woke up the next morning to Rowan in the doorway of Maeve’s bedroom, peering down at me.

“Why are you sleeping on the floor?” he asked in a whisper, arching his brow.

I ran my fingers through my hair and then over my face, rubbing my eyes. “More room down here,” I tilted my head toward the bed where Maeve was still sleeping like a rock with basically all of the pillows in the house tucked around her body. “What time is it?”

“A little after seven,” he replied, leaning against the doorway and crossing his arms over his chest. I looked out the window behind the bed, seeing nothing. It was pitch black. “The sun doesn’t come up until, like, eleven this time of year. You’ll get used to it.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” I blinked a few times, my body and mind not yet acclimated to the strangeness of this place. The sun had set the day before at just after 3:00 p.m., and all my body wanted to do was sleep even though I wasn’t particularly tired.

“It’s hard on everyone for a while,” Rowan continued as I stood and folded up the blanket I had been sleeping on. I laid it over Maeve’s feet, which were peeking out of the thick quilt that she had tucked up around her ears. “How’s she doing?”

I could hear the guilt in his voice as his gaze shifted from me to the bed.

In truth, Maeve wasn’t well. She had cried until she fell asleep the night before, spilling her feelings about her homecoming to me while I held her, whispering reassurances against her neck. Maeve was a wreck, and I couldn’t blame her. It was mostly my fault.

“She’s fine. Tired,” I answered shortly, pulling one of the thick knit sweaters Gretchen had laid out for me over my shoulders. Rowan watched me closely. His eyes were so much like Maeve’s, the same color and shape, in fact. But Rowan looked more like Rosalie in the face, at least in my opinion. He had his father’s jaw, though, which tightened and flexed whenever they held back their words.

“I was hoping she’d be awake, so I could… talk to her. Say hi, I guess.”

“She sleeps until noon most days. It’s a lot… the pregnancy, you know.”

“Uh, yeah,” he said awkwardly, pursing his lips and tilting his head from side to side, considering.

“Do you want me to wake her up?”

“No, no-I actually came for you. I wanted to, uh, talk to you for a minute before Talon and Ernest get back from Mirage today.” Rowan shifted uncomfortably, then tilted his head toward the hallway. I nodded firmly, my chest tightening with anxiety as followed him down the hallway and through the darkened house.

Gretchen was in the kitchen, surrounded by the smell of breakfast sausage and coffee as she chopped potatoes. She looked up from the butcher block, her eyes creasing as her mouth stretched into a beaming smile. “Good morning!” she exclaimed, setting the knife down and turning to pull two mugs out of a cabinet.

She filled both of them with coffee and added a liberal amount of fresh cream, which made my stomach tighten with anticipation. We had been eating nothing but dried food and grains for weeks, and no one aboard Damian’s cruiser could cook worth a damn. Yesterday, we‘d been too busy to eat a proper meal, so I was hoping whatever plan Rowan had for me could wait until after

breakfast.

Thankfully, Rowan settled himself on a stool next to the kitchen island, and I followed suit, sipping my coffee and watching as Gretchen began to pour pancake batter into a large cast iron skillet slicked with bacon grease.

“You’re just as handsome and patient as I imagined you, Troy dear,” Gretchen said sweetly as she flipped the pancakes. “It certainly takes a specific type of man to peak Maeve’s interests,”

“Handle her, you mean,” Rowan said over the rim of his coffee mug, smirking at Gretchen as she cast him a dirty look. She was a friendly older woman who exuded what I could only describe as “grandma energy,” and she looked the part as well, dressed in an apron decorated with embroidered tea pots and apples. She clicked her tongue at Rowan, pointing her finger accusingly.

“You’d best watch your tongue, young man. You and Maeve should’ve been twins, I always say. So alike. It’s no wonder your mates are such quiet, humble people. Is Hanna coming up to the house today? I want to send her home with some blueberry jam my granddaughter made this fall.”

“I can swing by her place later, if not,” Rowan said, watching as Gretchen grabbed two plates from the dishrack. “Could we get breakfast to go? Would that be too much trouble?”

“Not at all, darling.” Gretchen rummaged around in the cabinets for two plastic containers as we continued to drink our coffee. I felt a little shy to the point of being uncomfortable. This was Rowan’s domain. Maeve’s childhood home. I was, to be blunt, an unwanted guest. Surely, Gretchen knew about the situation, having worked so closely with the family over the years. Maeve called her Grannie, in fact.

Rowan got up with the plastic containers in his hands, thanking Gretchen as she filled two thermoses with coffee, which she handed to me to carry.

“You’d better be planning on wearing your helmet, Rowan. You know how your mother feels about those deathtraps,”

“I know, I know,” Rowan said over his shoulder. “Thanks for breakfast, Gretchen!”

“Helmets?” I asked as we reached the stairwell that led down to the garage. I had slept there the night we arrived in Winter Forest, but it had been very dark. I could only make out the immediate area around me, which was a tool bench and a few bikes.

“Snowmobiles,” Rowan said simply, shrugging as I followed him down the stairs. “Ever been on one?”

“I’m from the Isles,”

“Then imagine a jetski, but for snow. It’s very similar.” He flipped on a light switch as we reached the bottom of the stairs, and the garage erupted into light. I took a moment to be shocked, then composed myself and swallowed the many, many questions swirling through my mind.

The garage was as large, if not larger, than the house itself. Four snowmobiles sat near the garage door, primed and ready for use. An assortment of other outdoor equipment leaned against the walls, bikes and several sets of skis and snowboards. A large pickup truck sat idle in the far corner of the garage next to what looked like a tractor, both covered in tarps. I hadn’t been around cars in my life, but I could tell the truck was old… Vintage, some might say. Rowan caught me looking at it and gave me a crooked smile. “It’s Dad’s. He’s been working on it for years.”

“Where did he find it? I’ve never seen a vehicle that old before.” | ran my tongue along the inside of my lower lip, wondering if Rowan would protest if I poked around the garage for a moment.

“I don’t know. It just showed up one day. He had to have it towed up here from the port, and it’s been sitting in the garage for fifteen years or so now. Mom says it takes up too much space.”

“I mean,” I said, unable to hide my shock, “I don’t think that matters that much. This place is huge.”

Rowan set the food containers on one of the snowmobiles and started to grab gear off the shelves on the far wall, pulling down an assortment of gloves and padded jackets. I walked around, glancing at the tool bench before letting my gaze wander further into the recesses of the garage, which was double the length of the house, built like a basement beneath the backyard.

There was a set of rooms in the back, a bathroom and what looked like a small office or storage room. I could see an icon bouncing around on what looked like a screen and couldn’t hold back my questions any longer.

“Is that a computer?” I asked, turning to face Rowan.

“Are you serious? I‘ve only ever read about them. I didn’t think any

were left outside of… of the dashboards on boats and planes.” The war had destroyed most of the technology to use them, so there was no reason for anyone to have one.

“Yeah, I get it.” I couldn’t help but laugh. Rowan motioned me over to him and we spent the next fifteen minutes suiting up to take the snowmobiles out. It was arduous work, and I was sweating by the time we had packed the food and coffee into two backpacks and backed the snowmobiles out into the driveway.

“What was your reasoning for everything that happened in Mirage? What exactly did you gain from pretending to be Aaron of Red Lakes?”