Sold AS The alpha King's Breeder

Sold as the Alpha King’s Breeder 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.

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

a deep breath, shaking her

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

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

said, setting my plate down so I didn’t break it in half with the intensity of my grip. “Archer would never

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

made it sound like they

shook her head. “Carmen wasn’t. I know that

was obvious neither of

to me that made me wonder if… well, she asked if I was comfortable spending my

“She’s threatened by you–”

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

“Do you?”

up at her, her green eyes shone like gems in the soft light of a lantern illuminating the room, her mouth slightly ajar

I first met him. I’ve never allowed myself to

“You love him?”

up at her through my lashes, the truth of the matter

“I do.”

I. If he hadn’t been carrying this curse on his shoulders, what kind of man would he be? What kind of

he expect me to just stay home,

force, reading every emotion fluttering over

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

like Carmen,” Scarlett concluded. “Not a bit. You never will

reflection in Carmen’s dark brown eyes. I’d had the same fire, the same

hated that I was actually thinking about Carmen’s

locket?”

it went missing. Carmen took it, from what I was told. She was here

pictured Jared’s face that first day at Aeris’s castle when he’d caught me playing

moved to the armoire, grasping the dark for something out of my line of

turning around with the map I’d stolen from Aeris’s vault.

gasped as she placed it in my