Page 79 of Sold to Three Alpha Kings

I don’t have the answers, and I don’t want to wait any longer. The only thing that comes to mind is to run away. I have more than enough to leave the island and start a new life somewhere with my baby.

I place a hand on my belly, and with the back of the other, I wipe my tears. Their indirect rejection hurts even more this time because I’ve already let myself fall deeply in love with them.

I hear the accusation echoing at the back of my mind, and something in me that’s been carefully rebuilding these past weeks cracks straight down the middle.

They’ll say it to my face eventually. Maybe not today. But someday, when the pressure builds enough, they’ll look at this child and decide he or she is not worth it. I refuse to sit still and wait for that particular door to close on me twice.

So, I pack what little I have—crying out my eyeballs while at it. Disguised in a red robe, I slip out through the same servants’ passage I used before, and hop on a carriage that takes me straight to the docks.

The docks are busy at midday, nothing like the hollowed-out quiet of that first night. Vendors call out over crates of salted fish.

Sailors haul rope and cargo between ships, shouting numbers back and forth. Gulls wheel low over the water, screeching at scraps.

I keep the hood of the robe low and join the line at the harbormaster’s booth, the same as any other traveler. A tired clerk barely glances at me, taking my coin and stamping a slip of paper without a single question about where I’m headed or why.

Nobody looks twice at a red-robed woman buying passage south. That, more than anything, is what makes it easy.

I follow the crowd down the gangplank onto a modest two-mast vessel, one of a dozen just like it moored along the pier, and duck below deck before anyone thinks to ask my name.

I sit there with my knees drawn up, telling myself this is the only sensible choice left to me. My heart is broken into a million tiny pieces, and I simply can’t stop the tears in my eyes from streaming down my cheeks.

The ship rocks steady beneath me for the first stretch, the motion almost soothing once my stomach settles into it. I watch the coastline shrink behind us through a small porthole, the palace already swallowed by distance, and something in my chest aches at how easily it lets me go.

I can’t believe I actually made it onto this ship—I can’t believe I’m finally leaving this cursed island for good.

Salt air fills the cramped space below deck. The creak of timber and rope becomes its own kind of quiet, steady enough that I almost convince myself I’ve made peace with leaving.

I press a hand to my stomach more than once, whispering apologies to the child for a decision that feels less certain the further we sail.

Hours later, the sky outside turns dark with blinding lightning streaking the clouds. Heavy footsteps stomp on the wooden ceiling of the deck as men run around, trying to control the situation.

“There’s a storm coming!” someone shouts.

A loud thunderclap follows the sound of his voice, and I flinch, pulling my legs to my chest.

I’ve never been on a ship before, and on my very first time I boarded one, a storm already hits us? Maybe I really am cursed.

The storm is raging, rocking the ship back and forth. Thunder claps, lightning flashes, and a heavy rain traps us at sea.

Everything is happening fast, faster than anyone on board seems prepared for; the ship is pitching hard enough that I’m thrown from my corner within the first few minutes.

There’s lots of loud shouting above deck. Water is pouring in through gaps I didn’t know existed.

“No, no, no, no…” Panic sets in, and I can barely hold it together.

I claw my way toward the stairs, toward air, toward anything solid. The deck tilts hard beneath me, and my hands lose their grip entirely. But I don’t give up. I keep pushing until I make it above deck.

It’s chaotic up here.

Before I can understand what’s happening, the ship rocks sideways. And because I’m not holding onto anything, I fall off, plummeting all the way into the ocean.

Splash!

The water closes over me in total silence, cold, dark, and strange after all that noise. For one suspended moment everything goes still.

My dress is billowing around me, bubbles are streaming past my face, and the hull’s black shadow is looming somewhere above. Then my lungs catch up to what’s happening and start screaming for air.

My eyes widen, and I start kicking upward, one hand curling instinctively over my stomach even as the current tries to drag me the other way.