Sold As The Alpha King’s Breeder Chapter 241
Chapter 21: The Golden Generation
Rowan
I could’ve kissed the ground at the rocky, wind-swept beach when our boat finally reached the small
port of Red Lakes. The journey had been the most difficult thing I had ever done, and I was sure I was
going to die at least twice before we finally saw the rolling hills and snow-capped mountains of Red
Lake’s territory in the distance.
The precious cargo, our sr panels, had made the journey unscathed. We hadn’t lost a single
crewman, and our boat was in one piece. The forty-foot swells had tossed us mercilessly, but we had
survived. The journey across the Ghilhanda Sea was doable. We had been sessful.
And my sess was met with a prize. My mate.
I felt her the second I set foot on the beach. I could smell her, her scent warm andforting like
honey and freshly baked bread. She smelled like home somehow, but a home I’d never known. A
home, I realized shortly after Eugene introduced me to his daughters, that I would likely never know.
Because the beautiful Hanna, with her dark, lustrous hair and warm brown eyes, was betrothed to
another man.
And I was meant to marry her older sister, Kacidra.
Red Lakes was everything I expected it to be. It was densely wooded and mountainous, the water of
the vast, seemingly endlesske the vige bordered was just that, red, its rocky beach dappled with
strangled colored burnt orange and green rocks.
The trees here were the real prize, thick evergreens and redwoods with trunks so thick your hands
wouldn’t touch if you wrapped your arms around them. These trees were older than the earth itself it
seemed, ancient giants towering over man’s creation with their thick branches outstretched and full to
create a never-ending canopy over the small, sleepy vige the Alpha of Red Lakes and his family
called home.
Eugene was a small man, standing nearly a foot shorter than myself but with a loud, outgoing
personality to make up for it. He was vibrant and domineering, demanding and receiving respect from
the three hundred or so pack members who epted him as their leader. Eugene had forged a path for
these people. He had aplished what was seemingly impossible when he broke away from the
packs of Finadli and traveled north with his flock, knowing full well the separation would be a
dangerous endeavor. But they had survived, and thrived, in a ce once thought inhospitable.
My parents respected him for it. I could see why my father trusted the man and why he considered him
a friend.
And I was to marry his daughter.
There was no point in protesting. Kacidra had done that enough to cover the length of my stay during
the first few hours onnd. Kacidra was the eldest by two minutes, Aaron’s twin sister in fact, fair of
skin and hair like her father but with an attitude to make even the most stoic man surrender.
Oh, Kacidra would have been a true match for Maeve, no doubt. They would’ve hated each other, at
least until they realized how powerful they could be as allies. Kacidra and Maeve could rule the world
together if given the chance.
And so, I spent two weeks in the torment of Kacidra and agony over her sister, who hadn’t said a single
word to me and wouldn’t meet my eye, no matter how much I tried to identally find myself in her
path. No, Hanna wouldn’t even look at me. She was
going to reject me. It was likely she had no choice.
I could already feel the pain of it.
I kept busy, however, setting up the rows upon rows of sr panels in arge open space on the
outskirts of the vige where the trees were sparse and the ground was dry and t from constant,
unrelenting sun. Sulfur springs bubbled incessantly in the background as I worked, my head always
bent to my task.
But the third week, things changed. Kacidra had given up on making my life as miserable as possible,
growing bored of pestering me. We found ourselves, surprisingly, enjoying each other’spany as we
set up the panels and tested the lines, Kacidra pouring over the blueprints for the underground lines
that would eventually bring power into the vige.
Suddenly, I had a friend in Red Lakes, the rtionship budding between us taking the edge of my pain
of losing my mate, at least
temporarily
“Are you sure you’re doing it right? I think that’s upside down.” Kacidra was leaning against one of the
sr panels, her blond hair tied back in a long braid over one shoulder as she watched me struggling
with a shorted-out battery pack. I wiped the sweat from my brow, running my fingers through my hair
that had grown too long for my liking since arriving in Red Lakes.
“I know what I’m doing!” I said under my breath, hitting the pack several times with the palm of my
hand. To my surprise, the little green light that indicated it was absorbing power from the sr panel
came back on and began to blink. “See, I told you I knew what I was doing.
She rolled her eyes. “Dumb luck, Rowan. What am I supposed to do when one of these breaks again
and you’re not here?”
“Well, it won’t be your problem, seeing as you’reing back to Winter Forest with me.”
“I will absolutely not be doing that.”
“Sure,” I breathed, fumbling with the breaker box on the back of the panel as I tried to slide the battery
pack back in ce.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, moving on to the next sr panel.
“Oh, nothing really. Just thinking of some gossip I heard in the vige this summer.” She twirled the end
of her braid between her fingers, giving me a teasing smile.
I waited a moment for her to continue as I pried open the next utility box, peering over the top of the
panel when she remained silent. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”
N?velDrama.Org copyrighted ? content.
“Mmm.. if you really want to know.”
“Well, it’s either listen to you talk or enjoy the peaceful solitude of nature.”
She scowled, tossing her braid behind her back and rolling a rock back and forth along the pad of her
foot as she pondered whether I was worthy of whatever she had to say. This was the game we had
been ying since I arrived.
“Wrenn Abdordeen got someone pregnant,” she said, matter-of-factly, tilting her head for a better view
of the flush that ripped across my cheeks.
“Who?”
Hanna was betrothed to Wrenn, who was nothing more than a neanderthal in tight jeans and a crisp
white T-shirt. The man could barely put a sentence together. I was more shocked by the fact he knew
where he was supposed to put it over the scandal of a baby born outside of a marriage. Nevertheless,
the news sent a ripple of excitement through my core as I straightened up to my full height, the
question I desperately needed the answer to written clear as day on my face.
“Doesn’t matter, really. Someone from a neighboring pack to the south.”
“Does that mean…”
She pursed her lips, shrugging casually as she nodded her head. “Well, Dad might not go through with
the wedding now,”
“Yes!” I eximed, pumping my fist in the air before I could stop myself. Kacidra only rolled her eyes,
crossing her arms over her chest as she watched me dissolve into a puddle of hope and anticipation.
Kacidra had known for a while that Hanna and I were mates. She had sensed it, somehow. Seeing me
struggle with the pain of Hanna’s rejection had been the turning point in my rtionship with Kacidra.
We now had the same enemy. Wrenn.
“Don’t get too excited yet, cowboy.” She picked at a hole in her jacket, watching me through narrowed
eyes. “You and I are still supposed to get married, remember?”.
“Yeah, so,”
this drama spin for a while before we can even think of broaching the subject of dissolving our own
engagement.”
“Would your dad seriously have Hanna marry that guy? After-after this?” I waved my hands wildly, fear
creeping in again. I had
Chapter 21: The Golden Generation
been on edge over Hanna since my arrival, and Kacidra was obviously enjoying toying with my
emotions right now.
“Uh, yeah. It’s possible.”
“But why?”
“Why? Come on, Rowan! Think with that big, manly brain of yours.”
I fought back the scoff that was tickling the back of my throat as she took a few steps forward, stopping
to lean on another sr panel
She continued, “What are we to our parents besides pawns in a great game of conquer and divide?
Your family was one of the lucky ones, you know, able to hang on to theirnds and birthrights after the
war and all. My father will go down in history as the Alpha who brought the packs to the northwest to
settlend once deemed uninhabitable. They even named that road after him. We’re the golden
generation. We give them the ability to further their conquests.”
Kacidra was referring to the narrow dirt road that led from Red Lakes all the way down to the border of
Finaldi. Eugene had cut through the dense forest himself, with the help of his pack of course, chopping
down trees to clear their path to where they would eventually put down a im on thend. Other
smaller packs from Finaldi had followed, settling here and there along the four hundred mile stretch of
road that took ten years toplete. Kacidra had been a teenager by the time they began to build the
new vige.
“This is a young pack,” she continued, “and my dad would do anything to keep it alive, including selling
his own daughters.” “You weren’t sold to me,”
“Oh? What else would you call it? An exchange? I was the payment for these sr panels.”
“Stop-”
“I’m the bridge for the alliance between our packs, right? The two of us are just pawns, Rowan. Just
like Hanna and Wrenn. Wrenn is hands down the stupidest person I have ever met. He’s just a pretty
face. But he is the son of Alpha Hector of the Red Moon pack. Dad needs an alliance with them to
complete the road south past the border of Finaldi.”
“This is…” I began, unable to find the words.
“Medieval?” she suggested, tapping her fingers on the top of the sr panel. “Look, all I’m saying is
don’t get your hopes up. okay? Alliances, alliances, alliances. Look at Aaron and Maeve’s situation,”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, waving my hand in dismissal, not wanting to talk about it. “But, I mean, the alliance
between our families would still be in ce if I married Hanna instead.”
“What about Red Moon, then? Hmm? Who are they going to marry off to Wrenn—” She paused,
ring at me. “NOT me.”
I shrugged, yfully kicking a small rock across the dirt in her direction. She stopped it with her shoe,
rolling it with her toes. “Why not? He’s not your type?” I teased.
She scowled, shaking her head as she kicked the rock forcefully in my direction. The small stone
bounced off the ground and bit me in the shin.
“He’s not my type.”
“What is your type, then? Tall, lean men with—”
“No one here, that’s for sure.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say in front of your future husband,” I said dryly.
She snorted, looking away from me as she continued, “Anyway, do you understand what I’m trying to
say?”
“Yeah, I get it. You’re definitely not wrong,” I said as I crouched back down behind the sr panel,
screwing the door of the utility box back into ce.
“Hanna is wholly loyal to our pack, Rowan,” she said with slight annoyance. She won’t do anything to
stop her engagement from going through, not unless she’s ordered to. You have to understand that.”
“Yeah, sure.” i felt a little hot, my throat dry as I swallowed. Surely, the mate bond was stronger than the
loyalty she felt, stronger than her sense of duty and purpose.
I needed to talk to my parents about this, but my dad wouldn’t be there for a while yet, and it was too
important to write in a letter.
I stood, walking past Kacidra and beckoning her to follow as I made my way through the rows of panels
toward the little cabin like structure that had been built to house the huge batteries that were fed by the
sr panels. I opened another set of utility boxes, searching through the switches and flipping them on.
A low, electric thrum filled the space around us as the panels began to turn on, lifting their faces toward
the sun,
“Perfect,” I muttered as I closed the boxes, looking out over the glistening field of silicon. “There won’t
be power to the vige for two or three days still, if everything goes well. Once the main batteries are
charged, and the back-up batteries are at fifty percent capacity, we can open the lines and feed power
through to the vige.”
She looked over my shoulder, standing on her tiptoes to do so. “Cool.”
*Is that all you have to say? Look at all the work we did today,”
“Rowan?” came a soft, honeyed voice from behind us. I turned around, taking Kacidra by the shoulders
to move her out of the way