Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder novel Chapter 306

Chapter 86: I Can’t Have His Child

Hanna

I didn’t bother to hang my coat up on the hook as I staggered through the door to the small cabin I shared with Kacidra. I tossed the coat to the floor, the thick fabric falling on the wide-plank floorboards in a wet snowy heap.

Kacidra wasn’t home. She had spent the last two nights with Pete, who was living in one of the cabins in the village. They were mates, and the connection had been intense, passionate. I saw the pattern, of course. Troy and Maeve. Ernest and Gemma. Even Keaton, the man who was the captain of the boat that both kidnapped and saw Maeve to safety, had found his mate in Maeve’s friend Myla.

Everyone on this prophesied path was finding their mates, including me. This was the definition of fate.

Apparently, Rowan and Maeve were at the center of it all. And then, there was my role.

| sunk to the floor in front of the couch, my head in my hands, and let myself cry.

I felt nothing but deep, painful guilt after listening to the unnamed old woman’s words. She was my great-aunt, my tie to Gayla, the Seer… Gayla, who must have known what my mother would become and the powers she held, the powers

she would give to one of her children.

I thought of the white roses on the temple grounds, how their

petals had littered the stone pavers after Tasia had destroyed the sanctuary. Tasia, who the people of Lycenna were afraid of but also worshiped. The same way they wanted to worship me.

The people who believed my future child would be the Moon Goddess herself.

But I didn’t have my powers any longer. I didn’t want them back. And I wouldn’t be the Goddess’s vessel of rebirth.

I peeked through my fingers, my eyes clouded with tears.

There was only one thing I could do to end the prophecy, to break the chain of events that were plaguing a family I had grown to love.

I needed to reject Rowan.

I sucked in my breath and wiped the tears from my cheeks, nodding at myself as I silently agreed to the inevitable.

But then there was a knock on the front door, and then a cold rush of air.

“Hanna? Goddess, it’s freezing in here,” Rowan crossed the threshold of the front door, shutting it firmly behind him before stalking toward the neglected wood stove.

I watched him in silence as he crouched in front of it, stoking the dying embers with pieces of kindling until a fire erupted from the ashes once again. He meticulously added pieces of split birch to the woodstove, arranging them in such a way that guaranteed a slow, hot burn. I couldn’t help but smile as | watched him, my heart squeezing in my chest.

Rowan, my Rowan.

He turned around, seeing me sitting against the foot of the couch. “What’s wrong? Are you alright? Maeve told me what happened at the castle.” He stepped forward, kneeling down in front of me and taking my chilled fingers in his.hands. “You’ re cold, Hanna.”

“I have to go home,” I whispered unsure if I meant for him to hear it or if I just needed to say the words aloud.

He looked confused, sitting back so that he faced me with his arms wrapped around his knees, ‘To Red Lakes?”

I nodded, dreading what I needed to say next.

“Why?”

“I can’t be your mate, Rowan. There’s too much… too much at stake. I can’t continue to put you and your family in danger.”

“What do you think is going to happen?” He was

expressionless, but a sadness lingered behind his eyes, something that told me he had known this conversation was coming.

“Tasia wants me as much as she wants the stones. I need to

1. go. I need to bring the stones with me when I do. You cannot follow.”

“I won’t allow you to do that.” The firmness in his voice sent a chill up my spine. I looked up at him, his face distorted by the strands of hair that were falling over my face.

“We can’t be together. The consequences are too great. If we have a child… that child…”

“You really believe what that senile old woman said? About our child being the second-coming of the Goddess? Come on, Hanna.”

“Why don’t you believe that could be possible after everything that’s already happened? A year ago you were just a shifter,”

“A year ago was a lifetime ago, Hanna. There is no going back now. I won’t let you run. I won’t let you sacrifice yourself for my sake.”

“Your family,”

“My family can fend for themselves. They are more than capable of defeating a single wolf. Lycenna is in shambles from what we understand. They are no longer a pack, or a cult, whatever you want to call it! Mom is seeing to the refugees for now, but they mean to continue north, over the ice-pack. What they think they’ll find there, I don’t know-”

“They’re running, Rowan. Don’t you see why? Tasia isn’t just a single wolf. She was powerful enough to mortally wound your mother. A White Queen. Imagine what she could do with the stones.”

“Maeve is the keeper of the stones, it’s not your responsibility

“You have to let me go!”

He lunged at me, pinning me to the couch. His face was only inches from mine, his blue eyes pleading with my own. No, they seemed to say. No, no, no.

He took my face between his hands and kissed me, softly,

brushing his lips against mine. I fought the urge to cry as he pulled away, not wanting it to end even though I knew it had

1. to.

But he kissed me again, this time harder, the kiss needy and final. I opened my mouth to his, letting him pull me close and wrap me in a desperate embrace.

“I can’t let you go,” he said in a raspy voice, his words tickling the skin on my neck. His mouth moved along my jaw, his fingers tangling in my hair as he gently pulled my head back so I looked up at him, exposed to him. “You’re not going. Not alone.”

Before I knew it, I was in his lap, running my fingertips over his bare chest. My skin was chilled despite the heat of the woodstove, but his hands were warm against my back. He ran his fingers up my spine, sending sparks flying across my skin. My shirt was on the floor, the pale fabric glowing in the light

Minutes or hours could have gone by; I didn’t know for sure. Every second of pain and ecstasy was all part of a drawn-out goodbye. He said my name, the sound of it on his lips sending me over the edge as I gripped his shoulders, pulling him into a tight embrace.