Page 44 of Sold to Three Alpha Kings

For a girl who has never really belonged anywhere, this is starting to feel dangerously close to home.

That terrifies me more than anything else has since I arrived here.

Because I know how this goes—I’ve lived it once already, in a throne room with blood still drying on my cheek. They looked at me and decided, out loud, in front of witnesses, that I wasn’t worth the trouble of wanting.

Nothing about who I am has changed since that night—I’m still shiftless in every way that matters. I’m still an unstable, half-formed thing the healer isn’t certain will ever fully wake. The only difference is that right now, in this fragile, borrowed peace, they’ve decided to forget that.

They won’t forget forever. Something will remind them—some council meeting, some elder muttering about weak bloodlines, some quiet moment where Chris looks at me and remembers exactly what he said the first time.

And when that happens, what’ll happen to me?

I’ll be the one left standing in the wreckage of it, the same way I always have been. The thought terrifies me so much my chest hurts.

I can’t let myself build a life around three men who might wake up tomorrow and decide, all over again, that I’m not worth keeping.

I make my decision on a gray, quiet afternoon, while all three of them are occupied with council matters I wasn’t invited to and wasn’t expected to care about.

I still have my pouch. Fifteen silver, forty copper, sewn into the hem of the same dress I was brought here in. I’d managed to convince Briana and Martha—the elderly servant—not to touch that particular dress.

They let me wash it myself and let me add it to my collection of fancy, royal clothes. Amidst my new outfits, though, my old dress looks more like a rag than something someone wears. But that rag is where my money is hidden.

It isn’t much. It might be enough to buy passage on a smaller vessel, something that doesn’t ask too many questions about a woman traveling alone.

I tell myself this is sensible. Practical. The same plan I had before any of this happened to me. I tell myself none of that changes the math—that whatever these Alpha Kings feel toward me now is built on the assumption that I’d stop being the weak wolfless character they met at first. On the fact that I’m a new thing to them… something curious, that they are unused to.

In my head, newness fades, and if I don’t get better, they’ll get bored. When it happens, I’ll be exactly what I was in Ashwick. Extra. Unwanted. An outcast.

It’ll hurt more than before now that I’m already starting to like these Kings. I’m starting to enjoy their company—together and individually.

I’d kissed all three of them on different occasions, and deep down, my body wants more. My body craves more. And no day goes by that I don’t imagine being intimate with all three.

It’s not something I’m used to. It’s not something I’ve ever even dreamed of—being dominated by three powerful Alpha Kings. However, the thought of it always stirs something primal within me.

I want them. All three at once. It’s my darkest desire.

But every time that thought pops up in my head, I remind myself that nothing is etched in stone. These Kings might reject me again later on.

What if the healer was wrong about my wolf? What if it’s actually dead and no amount of resting can revive it? What if all of this was some kind of a mistake and I’m not what the Kings think I am?

If I let myself be with them, running away would be more complicated.

I know I shouldn’t entertain such negative thoughts. But I can’t help it.

“Nothing good can ever come out of you. You’re a cursed child!” That’s what my own father once told me. “You ruin everything you touch!”

I manage to convince myself that there’s no true happiness for me here. So, I make up my mind to escape.

***

I already know all the exits at the palace—courtesy of Brianna. She’d taken me on a tour around the building more than a few times when I was bored.

Tonight, dressed in a black cloak with my money pouch in my pocket, I sneak out of my room. By now, I’m familiar with the guards’ routines and the time intervals between their shifts.

I’ve already studied their movements and discovered the perfect window for my escape. And when the opportunity presents itself, I don’t hesitate to take it.

I slip out through an old passage that leads out of the palace. And from there, I make my way toward the lower town where the docks are supposed to be.

It’s dark, and the full moon is at its peak in the night sky, its ethereal glow silvering everything it touches. Under the cold and distant stars, I run through the woods, breathless and thoughtless, until I reach my destination.