Page 93 of Sold to Three Alpha Kings

“I am what?” she growls, deep creases forming on her forehead. “Weak? You think I’m weak, don’t you?”

“I was going to say pregnant,” he clarifies.

Instantly, that shimmering rage settles beneath the surface. “Oh…” She scratches the back of her head. “Listen, I know you all mean well, but I need this. I need to be out there. Please.” Her hand drops to her lower belly, a mischievous grin tugging at her lips. “It’s what the baby wants.”

Wayne’s face is a mask of confusion. “Did she just blackmail us with our unborn child?” he asks me and Chris.

I shrug.

Chris smirks. “I think so.”

It’s settled; she’ll tag along.

We watch the grainhouse for four nights, exactly as she suggested, and the pattern holds precisely as her plan predicted. On the fifth night, the ship arrives.

Charlize stays back at a safe distance with a small guard, insistent on being close enough to see it through even though none of us will let her anywhere near the actual grainhouse.

Chris leads the assault on the building itself, Wayne intercepts the ship before it can push back off the dock, and I take a handful of soldiers to seal the surrounding streets so nobody slips away in the chaos.

It goes almost exactly the way she planned it.

The moment we breach the doors, chaos erupts. Shouts ring out from inside, men scrambling for weapons that never quite reach their hands before our soldiers close the distance.

It’s over faster than I expect—a dozen men disarmed and bound in chains before the fighting even has time to properly begin.

One of them breaks free from the scuffle, sprinting toward a side alley before anyone can stop him.

I catch him first, my hand closing hard around his collar, and slam him back against the wall until the fight drains out of him completely. Behind a locked door at the back of the grainhouse, we find them.

The women.

Charlize is there within minutes of the signal reaching her, pushing past the guards trying to keep her back, dropping to her knees in front of the nearest woman without a moment’s hesitation.

“You’re safe now,” she says, voice breaking slightly. “I promise you. You’re safe.”

As the soldiers take the women to safety and arrest the swindlers, she rises to her feet and faces us.

“Thank you.”

“No, we should be thanking you,” I say. “This was all possible because you thought about the women and came up with the plan.”

“He’s right,” Wayne adds, smiling. “You outdid yourself on this one, cutie.”

“And we’re proud of you.” Chris flashes that small grin of his.

Things move fast after that. I send word to King Jobediah, one region away. His pack is also closer to the ocean in his region, so I warn him of the possibility of such criminals.

Jobediah responds, sending word that he and the other two representatives will spread the word and search their territory.

This gives me some peace that if there are more of those rats, they’d be fished out.

We house the freed women at the palace over the following weeks, in rooms near Charlize’s own, and she visits every single day without fail.

She sits with them while they eat. She listens when they want to talk and stays quiet when they don’t.

She arranges healers, proper clothes, whatever small comforts might help stitch something back together after what they survived.

“You didn’t have to do all this yourself,” I tell her one evening, finding her in the garden after another long visit.