Sould As The Alpha King's Breeder

Chapter 41: Friend?

Maeve

“Mama?” i crept into the room, my feet silent on the wide plank floorboards bathed in violet twilight, “Daddy?”

Dad stirred, rolling over and leaning on his elbow as he watched me enter the room, his hair ruffled from sleep. He motioned for me to come to the bed, pulling down the covers as I climbed in between them and laid my head against the mattress, snuggled tightly between their two pillows.

“What’s the matter?” Mom asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she rolled over, tucking her body around mine.

“I had a bad dream,” I sniffled, resting my cheek against her arm. Dad reached out to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear before he laid his head back, facing me.

“What did you dream about?” he asked, his blue eyes dark and focused in the dim light.

“I was swallowed up by water. Lots of it.”

“Well, did you swim?” he replied.

“No, the water was too big. I tried, but I was too little, and the waves were too high over my head.” I stretched one arm upwards towards the vaulted ceiling.

“Hmm…” Mom said dreamily, on the edge of sleep. “But you learned how to swim this summer, darling. In the lake”

“It wasn’t a lake, Mama. It was BIG water.”

Dad snorted, his mouth touched with a wry smile, “It was just a dream, kiddo.”

“There was someone else with me.”

“Who?” Mom asked, stroking my back with her fingers. Her touch relaxed me, making my eyes flutter.

“Was it Rowan?” Dad smiled, closing his eyes.

“No. But he was probably the one who threw me in,”

Dad laughed shortly, rolling over onto his back.

“It was a woman. She was a ghost, like she wasn’t really there.” I yawned hugely, sleep settling back into my bones.

“She was there to protect you, sweetie,” Mom said quietly, tucking me closer to her chest.I sniffled, closing my eyes, trying not to think of the dream where I had been struggling in empty, bleak darkness miles below the surface of an unforgiving sea.

“I’ll take you to the beach tomorrow, okay? Just me and you. We can put our toes in the water. You’ll feel better,” Dad was barely awake, his voice far away and dream-like.

“Do not sleep, my starling. Sleep, my doe…” Mom sang softly, her voice calming me and making my body submit to the slumber I had been rudely awoken from.

I closed my eyes.

***

I rolled onto my side, water sputtering from my mouth as my lungs contracted, desperate for air. I inhaled through my mouth, deeply, my throat burning and my mouth tasting strongly of salt.

me.

lining the shoreline where the tide had

Leaving me behind.

way, and I fell back onto my knees into the sand,

shirt, the soaked fabric clinging to my skin. It clung to the thermals as I tried to stand again, this time successfully, and I looked

a bright turquoise where the beach

Troy. Where was he?

came out as a cracking, strained whisper. Where was everyone?

I remembered his face as he pulled the knife from his coat pocket, the gleam of metal as he aborted his mission of tying me to the skiff and sliced through the cables holding to skiff to the Persephone instead. He had said something, desperation clouding his eyes as I fell away, down and down and down into the storm

then I

certain. I had seen them clear as day. Mom with her glossy, white hair falling around her face as she scooped me into her arms, Dad with his

away they were now. They probably thought I

sparse palms and knotted, low hanging trees I couldn’t recognize or name. I walked along the sand,

the water, seeing nothing but sparkling blue water and softly capped waves. This tangled web | found myself in, by

And Troy.

walked into the palms, sitting down on the shaded sand and cried. Oh, how I wished I could take it all back. I would have been nicer to him. I would have told him how I really felt. That I wanted him.

That I loved him.

lump in my throat, my sobs of despair and heartbreak dry and choked as

rolling against the sand. The same water already filling my belly and making me even more dehydrated.

surely someone else had. Surely the other three skiffs had made it off the

feet and turn towards the trees, where the sparseness of the brush eventually gave

like hours. The sun was low in the sky now, casting an orange glow through the trees and thick, wide-leaf vines. Birdsong erupted around me as I walked and startled the creatures lurking on the forest floor around me. Lizards scurried

My feet were bare and aching, the skin blistered and raw from sliding over wet tree roots. A chill swept through the jungle, making me shiver and hug my arms around my chest to try to warm myself. I had been walking all day, never once coming across a bubbling stream or freshwater pool. Even the large leaves of

entered a clearing shadowed by a large, moss-covered rock. I leaned against it, sinking onto my bottom with my head resting against

as my breathing slowed. The chirping of frogs, the scurrying

dense foliage. I opened my eyes wide, adrenaline prickling my fingertips and making the hair rise along my arms as the thing grew closer, and closer. Then it quieted. A sniffing sound.

its fur short and its body oddly elongated and desperately lean. Its legs were long, its back legs slightly longer than the front legs. A long neck and narrow face with a long, skinny snout and small ears. It was a strange-looking creature, and it must have thought the same thing of me as it peered at me from the

before, but nothing like this. They were always small, fluffy creatures tied to leashes and paraded around the more affluent neighborhoods in Mirage. This was not a small creature, or a fluffy one. It was tall and lean

voice within my mind. I blinked, shaking my head at the intrusion. I could only mind-link with my family since I wasn’t twenty-one yet,

lowering its head. It was trembling, its small, round eyes

ADV

9.

Chapter 41: Friend?

and severe dehydration. It straightened its neck, fear evident behind

the mind-link, an odd feeling

stared, its tail wagging once in

a shifter?” I

I held my hands

lowering its

said, baring

not yet,’ I answered, shaking my

forward, sniffing my foot and then the tips of my fingers before taking a step backward and sitting back on its

name?’ I