Page 21 of Sold to Three Alpha Kings

She’s sitting against the far wall of her cell, knees drawn up, and even from here I can see the effort it takes her to hold herself upright.

When one of the guards passes close to the bars, checking the lock out of habit, she lifts her chin. Squares her shoulders. There’s nothing in her face but flat, careful defiance. I say nothing; I let her perform for the soldier, waiting to see what she’s like when she thinks no one is watching.

The guard moves on. And the moment he’s gone, her brave face collapses.

Her shoulders curl inward, her arms wrap around her knees, and she presses her forehead down against them like she’s trying to make herself as compact and invisible as the cell will allow.

I watch her chest rise and fall too fast, watch her hands twist into the fabric of the tunic she’s still wearing. Then I hear it, the faint sound of her breathing hitched into something that isn’t quite crying, not yet, but is close enough that it doesn’t matter.

She hates this. That much is plain even from here, even filtered through stone and distance. She hates the cell, hates the guards, hates—I’d wager—every single one of us, in whatever order she’s ranked us in her head.

That’s fair. I understand hatred. I have far less patience for whatever else was happening in that hall an hour ago.

I can still feel it. Faint now, dulled by distance and stone. But present. That thread of scent I have no business recognizing, curling low in my chest, unwelcome, insisting on a claim I never authorized it to make.

I press it down the way I press down everything that threatens to become inconvenient.

It doesn’t matter what my body decided, uninvited, in that hall. Bodies are unreliable things. They fixate on whatever novelty crosses their path. The pull is there. It’s strong, but I keep refusing to accept it.

She lifts her head slightly, and for one unguarded second, before she catches herself, I see something in her face that isn’t defiance or exhaustion. Something closer to bewilderment. Like she’s as lost inside whatever is happening to her body as the rest of us are.

I turn and leave before she can sense me the way I can’t stop sensing her.

Whatever she is—fraud, anomaly, some cruel accident of fate—she is not my problem to soften for.

I will find out what she is through evidence. I just need the ache under my ribs to agree with that plan.

It doesn’t. Not yet. I ignore it anyway, the whole walk back up into the cold.

Chapter 7 - Sinth

Chris thinks she’s a fraud and has refused to accept what’s right in front of him. For some reason, he hates the idea of being fated to a “slave girl”; a weak, shiftless wolf.

But I’m not so sure she’s shiftless considering her reaction to our pheromones back in the hall. It’s clear that she’s an Omega, but Chris still doesn’t want to see things for what they are. He’s convinced it’s a trick.

I guess we’ll find out soon enough since we’ve managed to come up with a plan that we all agreed to. That’s a first in a really long time. I must admit, it’s refreshing to be on the same page for once.

Wayne has returned to his Pack. His assignment is to fetch his Pack’s healer and bring them back here. Chris has left as well, and I’m sure he’s more than eager to dig into the woman’s past to prove us wrong.

He’s stubborn as a mule, that one.

I, on the other hand, can’t seem to control my own curiosity. With the others away on their separate missions, I decide to check on our mystery woman.

Her face is plastered at the back of my mind; the fear in her eyes when that guard raised his blade over her neck and the helplessness in her gaze when we argued about her fate.

I believe she’s just a victim of circumstances and doesn’t deserve the death penalty. I haven’t fully accepted this pull yet, but deep down, I think she’s actually pretty—gorgeous in every way. And I’m drawn to her.

Maybe that’s why I’m on my way to the cell right now—because I want to set my eyes on her again.

However, I tell myself I’m only checking on the prisoner. That’s the word I use in my own head, deliberately, because prisoner is a manageable word and everything else I might call her isn’t.

I go down to the cells anyway, and while descending the stone stairs, my heart starts to race even faster. But why?

I honestly am not sure.

It’s dimly lit down here, with the only source of light being the flaming torches hanging on the stone walls.

The guard at the passage straightens when he sees me. “My lord. Did you need something?”