Sold AS The alpha King's Breeder

Sold as the Alpha King’s Breeder Chapter 574

Chapter 74 : Visions

*Lena*

Clare paced in front of the hearth, her hands tucked behind her back. Occasionally she’d pause and face Adrian and me, but then shake her head and continue to move back and forth in deep concentration as she gathered her thoughts.

Adrian was losing his patience. It was late, damn near the middle of the night, and I could see the lines of fatigue shading his eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest and waited, and waited, for Clare to speak.

“You have to tell us if you know anything about the pack Lycenna,” I said softly, trying my best to hide the urgency in my voice. Lycenna had been a secret, cult-like pack deep in the eastern mountains of Valoria and had fallen some twenty years ago, their Alpha’s death causing an internal war that splintered the pack into factions. They had been dangerous followers of Lycaon, and bred their women to create what they hoped were powerful lines of Dream Dancers. My grandmother had been from the pack Lycenna, but she had escaped with her mother as an infant.

Long ago now, a group of survivors from Lycenna’s inner war had passed through Winter Forest before going north over the endless, bleak tundra. They’d never been seen or heard from again.

“Sasha is with the servants at the castle,” Clare murmured, even though no one had asked. She seemed to be talking to herself, reassuring herself that Sasha was alright. “Hale should be there by now….”

“Clare!” I ground out, arching my brows as she turned to face me. “What is going on?”

She chewed her bottom lip, looking me up and down before taking a shallow breath and shifting her weight to one leg, her hands resting casually on her hips.

“My mother was a Lycennia refugee,” she said flatly, waving a hand in dismissal as though it wasn’t a big deal at all.

“What? How?” I pressed, gripping the top of the couch as I stood and watched a bored expression flit across her face.

“Do I really need to get into all of that?”

“Yes,” Adrian and I said in tandem.

Clare chewed the inside of her lip, shrugging as she let her shoulders slump. “I don’t know the details of the story, but somehow she ended up here and my father got her pregnant. Cedar Hollow was brand new, you know. She left us when we were kids, and I have no idea where she went.”

“Is that who you’re keeping Sasha away from?” I asked, but Clare scowled, shaking her head.

“I’m keeping Sasha away from her father, okay? He’s Lycennian as well. He was an infant when the last of the Lycennians went north over the Tundra. He showed up here one day and, well, you know–” she shrugged, trying her best to look uninterested in the conversation, but the hurt behind her eyes was undeniable. Adrian huffed a breath, but it wasn’t out of impatience. I glanced at him, seeing the sudden fury behind his eyes.

“Were you together… as a couple?” he asked sternly. Clare hesitated, then shook her head. Adrian’s cheeks burned. “He took advantage of you then?”

“Yes,” she replied without hesitation, and I felt a lump form in my throat.

“Oh, Clare–”

“I don’t need your sympathy,” she said shortly, her eyes narrowed into cat-like slits. “I need you to help me locate him so he can be dealt with.”

Adrian began, but Clare rolled her

know how, but he did. I

Adrian said through gritted

winced, finding it

few times, clearing the glassy

just awful, unforgivable. I felt like a monster for ever

was hoping your child would have powers,” Adrian went on, a statement rather than a question.

I

the power of sight–” he

her expression cutting his words short. “Enough to know darkness is coming. I can’t will the future into my vision, okay? But I can feel it. Something is

war,” Adrian interrupted sharply, holding up his hand to cut me off

with suspicion. I swallowed hard, tilting my head as I looked over

“So I know

shouldn’t be out in public in the first place,” Adrian said before Clare could reply to my

eyes shot to him, narrowing into a scowl. “It’s not her fault, you prick. She’s

surprise at Clare’s harsh tone, but he said nothing further as Clare’s gaze

with blond hair and

he looks Lycennian?” I said,

about that pack and their strange, interbred genetics. Blond hair and black eyes had been common for the ruling house of Lycenna, but some had darker hair

be? Does he know about her?”

knows about her, yes. Hale ran him out of town when it happened, but he came back exactly nine months later and found out about the baby who’d been born at the castle, a girl child… the bastard child of the teenage princess of Cedar Hollow.” Clare swallowed back what sounded like shame, and my heart began to shatter as I looked into her eyes. Sasha was five, and Clare, as Hale’s twin, would have just turned twenty-one. “I

through me, settling in my fingertips. That heat I could will into light and power surged forward, threatening to spill over as I thought about what Clare had been through, and what

red in the face and quite upset. He glanced at me long enough to see

He began to explain the Dark Realm to

me, and gave her the real reason I was here, as well as his reasons for finding me despite my not

the far wall, and Clare turned her head to

Alpha?” she

eyes at her and tucked his

left,” I replied, unable to hide the hurt in

flashing across her features. “Do you want

quickly, but I

jaw, her gaze

his mate. If the bond is still intact, I may be able to give you an idea of where

want a full

visions like that,” she

grunted, shaking his head. “So