Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder novel Chapter 384

Chapter 42: That’s Not Helping

“Forty-seven,” I said, doing my best to avoid the thorns on this long-stemmed rose as I clipped the stem with a pair of shears.

I had gotten them from the garden shed. I’d actually found several pairs and was trying each of them out to see which worked best. So far, that one was my favorite pair. It cut fairly cleanly, but it was still taking forever to harvest all of these roses. The stems were covered with thorns.

And I hadn’t found any gardening gloves.

Theo was standing off to the side, and I had to assume he was looking around, trying to figure out if there were any tunnels or secret doorways out there, but I was a little. annoyed that he wasn’t helping me. He was standing in the shade of a large flowering tree, while I was sweating beneath the hot sun.

“We heard from other servants that you’re forced to work. What’s going on, my lady?” Brook asked worriedly. I turned to see her approaching along with Jake. It was clear from the way that she addressed me that she still hadn’t remembered who we really were or what we were doing here. Jake looked the same as before as well, so he also didn’t know.

“I am picking roses for the king’s wedding,” I replied, snipping another stem and removing the thorns before I nestled this one on top of the others-number forty-eight.

“How many do you have to pick?” Jake asked, eyeing the basket that was already very full. I had seen a couple more in the shed, so I had a feeling I’d make them all fit, but it would be close.

“Uhm, four hundred,” I said, rounding up.

“Get out of town!” Brook said, and I almost laughed. She was too sweet to swear.

“That’s right,” I told her. “I’m about an eighth of the way there.”

“This is not your job, my lady!” Brook grabbed the shears from my hand. “I’ll call our guards and we’ll take care of this for you.”

Jake also agreed, “Brook is right, my lady.”

I shook my head and sighed. “She… I mean, the king’s fiancée, wants to humiliate me; that’s why she gave me this task. So if she finds out that I’m not working, I might be in more trouble.”

And I needed her to lower her guard with me, thinking I wouldn’t fight back, so that it would be easier for us to execute our plan.

“But you’ll be out here forever, working by yourself,” Brook noted. She turned and gave Theo a hard look, but he wasn’t even paying any attention to us from what I could tell. “Do you have any extra shears? Please, at least let us help you then.”

“Okay, thank you!” I nodded at the shears sitting on the ground. “You don’t have to, but it would be nice.”

“Of course!” Brook said, practically skipping over to me to pick up the shears off of the ground. “What about gloves?”

“Sadly, no. I can’t find any. Just be careful. Some of these thorns are very long,” I warned them.

“I see that,” Brook noted.

The two of them went down to the next rose bush and began to cut the roses, making a pile on the ground.

They were working so hard. Brook continuously wiped her brow with the back of her hand because she was beginning to perspire. Jake looked like he might melt, too.

I looked over at Theo and noted that he was still standing in the shade, looking bored. “I have another pair of shears, you know,” I called to him, stretching my back.

“So?” he asked. “In case you break those?”

I practically growled at him. “You know, you could help, right?”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t do such things. Never have.”

Irritated, I tried to remind myself that eventually we would get out of here, and he’d be the prince again. I needed to be nice to him. “What sort of things is it that you don’t do?

Manual labor or helping your friends?”

“Picking flowers.”

I didn’t feel like letting him get away with being a prima donna at the moment. “I’m sorry, remind me again. Who is it that wants this to work? Who wants his precious berry? Is it me? No, I don’t think so.”

He grunted, but at least he came over and picked up the shears. Dropping to a knee, he began to cut through the stems, and I had to turn my face away to keep him from seeing my satisfied smile.

“Ouch!” Brook cried, shaking her hand. Tears formed in her eyes, and I could see that her hand was bleeding.

Before I could say anything, Jake was attending to her.

“You okay? Let me look at it for you.” He gently took her hand and began to examine the wound, and I saw Brook’s cheeks turning pink as she glanced up at him through her eyelashes.

Were they flirting with one another?

I couldn’t help but smile at how cute they were. Jake pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, gently cleaned the wound, and then wrapped it up. It was so adorable. For a moment, I was jealous of how the sparks flew between them.

“That’s so sweet,” I muttered, but Theo didn’t even acknowledge that I was speaking. But knowing how observant he was, I was sure he had to have seen it-even though he pretended not to.