Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder novel Chapter 834

Chapter 45 : Lockets & Tattoos

Jared didn't follow me into the house straight away. I was okay with it. I needed a minute to just sit in the feelings I was experiencing and take a moment to mull them over.

Dinner was being served in the dining room like usual, and the house was blanketed in lively chatter over the sounds of silverware clanging against porcelain plates. I sat down, fixing myself a plate as I scanned the table.

“Where's Scarlett?" I asked Giselle, who was sitting across from me with a glass of wine in her hand.

“I haven't seen her since this morning," she replied, taking a sip of wine as she looked over my bruised face. “I think she was a little shaken about what I heard happened last night."

“You missed quite a show," I breathed, rising from my seat and grabbing an empty plate from the center of the table. I fixed Scarlett a plate of food and picked up my own, balancing them on my hands. “I'll talk to you about it later. I'm going to try to find her and make sure she's okay."

Giselle gave me a grateful nod in farewell as I walked out of the dining room, careful not to make eye contact with Miriam. I could feel her gaze on my back as I awkwardly pushed my way through the door leading out of the dining room and into the narrow hallway leading toward the stairwell to the upper levels. I poked my head into the laundry room, but didn't see Scarlett.

My arms were aching by the time I made it to the attic. Scarlett was curled up in her bed, and for a moment I thought she might have been asleep, but she opened one eye and peered at me as I set her plate down on the table between our beds.

I sat down on my old bed facing her, setting my plate in my lap.

I took a deep breath as she sat up.

“I just had a conversation with Carmen," I said slowly, blinking as if trying to wash the memory of the confrontation from my mind. “She told me some things about Jared that have me… questioning…" I tapered off, unsure of how to word what I was feeling and thinking.

“Don't believe a single word she says," Scarlett practically growled as she swung her legs out of bed, her bare feet grazing the floor as she took the plate from the table. “This is a game to her. It always has been."

“What do you mean?"

“Men," she said firmly, then exhaled, toying with her food with her fork. “I'd only been here for a few weeks by the time Jared banished her from the village."

I knew Scarlett had only been living in the village for a few years, and before that she'd been raised in the same orphanage as Archer, and then became an Alpha's breeder. What had happened when she first arrived at the village was still a mystery to me.

“I was… not well when I first came here," she began, struggling to swallow. “Archer was very… gentle with me, defensive of me. Carmen was staying in the attic at the time, a kitchen maid. She saw my weakness and Archer's possessiveness as a threat, I think. I've never asked Archer about his history with her. I'm not sure I want to know, but she immediately began to try to put herself between Archer and me. At first, I thought she was being protective of me, you know? But then I… some of the things she said to me about Archer just didn't align with who I knew him to be."

I exhaled heavily, understanding that sentiment completely.

“Carmen ruled the house. She didn't listen to Miriam and spent most of her time causing trouble. She was in the habit of calling Jared her mate, and I remember several instances where he publicly reprimanded her for doing so. She'd tell all of us women he was hers, and fought with several of the women we worked with because Jared smiled at them, or talked to them. She got worse and worse during those last few weeks she lived here."

She took a deep breath, shaking her head.

“I was in the laundry room one evening when Archer came inside to talk to me. We were both… broken. I'd felt the mate bond with him the second I saw him again after I was brought here, but I wasn't in a place to even express it. He knew, of course, but didn't push me. He's never pushed me. He was more concerned about me than claiming me but… we were talking, I don't even remember what about, and Carmen came into the laundry room and found us. She told Archer she needed to talk to him, and made it sound like it was an emergency. Archer didn't seem comfortable going with her–" She swallowed, blinking several times to clear the tears from her eyes.

“The look she gave me over her shoulder still haunts me, Eliza. Like… like she knew she was about to hurt me, to hurt a pair of mates and she wanted me to know, like she was staking a claim to him she wasn't entitled to. That night I just… hurt, physically, like my soul was being ripped from my body. I knew then that she'd taken him to… to bed–"

“Oh, Scarlett," I said, setting my plate down so I didn't break it in half with the intensity of my grip. “Archer would never have done that to you. You know that!"

“I know," she said, swallowing back a sob. “I know he wouldn't have. But Carmen was trying to hurt me, Eliza, because she thought the attention I was getting was a threat to her for whatever reason. It was common knowledge that she went after the highest-ranking men in Jared's circle. She'd been doing it since before he took over the village."

“They both made it sound like they were exclusive–"

“Maybe Jared was," she cut in, then shook her head. “Carmen wasn't. I know that much. I can promise you that much."

A silence settled between us, and it was obvious neither of us had an appetite.

“She said some things to me that made me wonder if… well, she asked if I was comfortable spending my life warming someone's bed. She asked if Jared was keeping me locked up, essentially controlling me–"

“She's threatened by you–"

“She offered to take me with her, to work as partners." I sucked in my breath as I ran my palms over my pants. “She asked if I was looking for something, if I wanted more out of life than I'd get here."

“Do you?"

I looked up at her, her green eyes shone like gems in the soft light of a lantern illuminating the room, her mouth slightly ajar as she waited for me to answer.

“I thought I did," I whispered, knitting my hands together over my lap. “I do, I just… Jared is… not what I expected him to be when I first met him. I've never allowed myself to feel like this for anyone, I guess. It was never on my mind but now it's the only thing on my mind."

“You love him?"

I looked up at her through my lashes, the truth of the matter settling against my chest.

“I do."

But everything Carmen had said to me was clawing at that notion. Jared was commanding, forceful, and strong-willed. So was I. If he hadn't been carrying this curse on his shoulders, what kind of man would he be? What kind of expectations would he hold me to?

Was I really just a pretty thing to come home to? If we broke this curse, would he expect me to just stay home, to have his pups, to raise his children and run his house?

“He's not what she says he is," Scarlett said with force, reading every emotion fluttering over my face. “I promise you."

“I feel like I barely know him," I said, resigned as I ran my hands over my face. I was exhausted. My body felt like it would fall into pieces if I stood up too fast. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed and hide beneath the covers until the sun was high in the sky tomorrow.

“And you're not like Carmen," Scarlett concluded. “Not a bit. You never will be."

I looked up at her, wanting to believe her. I really did. But I'd seen my reflection in Carmen's dark brown eyes. I'd had the same fire, the same stubbornness and drive in her gaze.

I hated that I was actually thinking about Carmen's offer.

“Do you know anything about Jared's locket?" I asked, but Scarlett shook her head.

“I've never seen it, but I remember hearing that Jared was a mess after it went missing. Carmen took it, from what I was told. She was here one day and gone the next."

I nodded. I was unable to process that piece of the puzzle yet. Every time I thought about the locket, I pictured Jared's face that first day at Aeris's castle when he'd caught me playing the piano. I'd played the same song Carmen had hummed. Jared had said… when I told him I composed it, he'd told me I hadn't, and he'd looked… shocked.

Scarlett rose from the bed and moved to the armoire, grasping the dark for something out of my line of sight.

“I should have asked you first," she murmured, turning around with the map I'd stolen from Aeris's vault. “But it was very wet, and I was worried about the fabric disintegrating. It looked important."

“You mended it," I gasped as she placed it in my arms.

“I sewed some paneling on the back so the original fabric wasn't having to support itself any longer. I was gentle, I promise." She pointed to the symbols and the map itself, her fingers brushing over the raised lines of colorful thread she'd sewn over the paint. “I was very careful."

She'd embroidered over the original map, bringing it to life. I looked up at her, shocked beyond belief.

“Thank you," I said, meaning every word. “I can't tell you how much this means to me."

She shrugged, looking pleased. “What is it, exactly? I know it's a map of Egoren, but it was obviously made centuries ago."

“You're right," I replied, looking down at it. I traced the symbols she'd stitched to perfection. My fingertips brushed over the northern tip of the map, where mountains stretched across the coast. Above it, she'd stitched the faded stars, the moon, the forked river that stretched–

Wait a minute.

I looked at her, my heart pounding against my ribs.

Holy s**t. Holy–

I sprung from the bed, nearly knocking over the plate of untouched food sitting next to me.

“What's the matter?" Scarlett yelped, her eyes wide as I looked down at the map again, scanning the northern hemisphere and letting it weave itself like a thread through my mind.

“His tattoos," I rasped. “Oh, my Goddess!"

I ran from the room, Scarlett hollering after me, but I didn't stop. I didn't stop running until I reached his study. I leaped over the piles of books and papers still scattered on the floor. I swept my arm over his desk and sent everything on top of it clattering to the ground.

And then I drew, and I drew, until the desk was full of sketches of his tattoos, the memory of them forever etched into my mind.

I backed away from the desk, pushing the chair out of the way so roughly it fell to the ground, the sound echoing through the room.

Silence fell, the room so still I could hear my own heart beating.

I looked down at the map that would take us to Myrel, the birthplace of the Cryptex… the home of Draven and what I prayed was the key to breaking the curse.

Jared had been carrying around the answers on his skin since the day he turned twenty-one.

There was a commotion outside the window, the sounds of shouts breaking me from my shock. I ran to the window, throwing open the shutters to find Jared's crew rushing toward the house.

A burst of noise rattled the house, followed by a male roar loud enough to cause the glass panes in the window to tremble.

I whirled toward the door, my heart stopping mid-beat.