The Alpha Breeder

Chapter 3

IT WAS as if I took one step forward, only to move a thousand steps back.

After that night, something snapped within him. It was like our intercourse made something inside of him severed. He became even more distant. I didn’t understand. Of course, I didn’t have any expectations at all. I didn’t think he would lay out everything to me in a sweet manner. I didn’t expect him to whisper sweet nothings to me, lay me on my back, touch me gently with affection.

Of course not.

Rhys was not capable of those things. He ripped open the cage, threw my body against the cage like an animal, and then he ravished me like the beast that he was. He didn’t make love to me, he attacked me, devoured me, and consumed every part of me like it was the last thing he could do before he died. Rhys treated me like trash, a plaything, a tool for his own satisfaction.

After he was done, he spit to the side. He yanked my head backward and whispered, “Are you happy now, Marigold?” His hand fisted on my hair. “Are you happy now that I touch you like my saddles?”

I couldn’t talk. The words froze on my tongue. My brain stopped working after he so mercilessly demolished me to the bones. I could only whimper when he shook my head and twisted my hair to the side.

“Answer me!”

“Yes,” I hissed at him, grabbing his hand with both of mine. I gasped as he shoved me into the cage. My body convulsed with pain. “Yes, Alpha Rhys.”

He sneered. “There won’t be next time in a long time.” With that, he let go of me and disappeared into the open night, leaving me feeling used and broken to the last drop of my blood.

~ ~ ~

He wasn’t kidding when he said there won’t be a next time in a long time. He didn’t even look at me now. He acted like I didn’t exist. That night when we somehow mated, never happened as far as he was concerned.

“The Alpha calls for you.” An old woman who I recognized as one of the maids in the palace came through the door. She walked over to my cage and unlocked it. She waited until I got out and led me to what I assumed would be another night of torture seeing him with another woman.

The lady didn’t say anything at all. I watched as the warriors moved in perfect sync when we crossed the yard that leads to the lake. The lake itself was a beautiful small one, dark and shadowy. It lay perfectly at the side of the palace, surrounded by a garden full of flowers.

My feet halted when the lady led me towards it. “What are we doing?” I asked, confused.

The lady shrugged her shoulders. “I only do what he orders me to do.”

I guess I was wrong. It’s not another night of watching with pure agony and jealousy as Rhys touched another woman.

I followed her to the garden surrounding the lake. There was a slight current on the water when the wind stirred, blowing my long and dark hair to the side. I could sense him before I could see him. The wind carried his smell to my senses. It woke me up fully and made me alerted to his presence.

He was standing near the edge of the lake, waiting, observing. Just like me, he could sense me before he could see me. His back went straight, shoulders bunching up. He rolled his shoulders backward as we rounded the lake and stood in front of him.

The lady bowed her head, and I did the same.

The last time I refused to bow, he locked me inside one of his dungeons and starved me for two days. He only let me out because he knew that being separated from me would cost him a lot, especially as he so happily marked me the first day we met.

From that day forward, he already sealed our connection.

“Alpha,” she greeted. “I brought her.”

Her. No one ever really regarded her with my given name in this place. It was either her, the caged lady, or Alpha Rhys’ rejected mate.

Rhys only nodded his head once, and that was a sign of his dismissiveness. The lady left me with him without glancing back even once.

I held my breath. This would be the first time we ever interacted again after that one night two full moons ago. He stared at me with that sinful eyes. The gold of it glowed under the dark sky. The night swallowed him whole as if he was one of them. It was magnificent to see him standing at one with the darkness, but I knew he was the darkness itself.

“Marigold.” His whiskey voice penetrated my heart. I almost purred in satisfaction, my wolf yelped with joy. “It seems like you’re not out of my system yet.”

“What—what?” My feet faltered. I took one step backward from him.

Rhys wet his lips. “You, Marigold, are the bane of my existence. I hate you. You make me repulsed. The very thought of you existing in this world disgusts me. You are nothing but an impediment.”

“Why? Because everyone knows I’m your weakness?”

“I don’t have any weakness,” he hissed. The wind swirled between us, as if his hard voice made them fly with fright. “Because you’re nothing to me.”

My mind couldn’t even comprehend his thoughts anymore. Everything that he said didn’t make sense to me. “And then what? You want to use me again?”

Rhys’ jaw clenched.

“Tell me. At least that way, I actually have used in here,” I goaded him, knowing that I was signing my own death. “You’re going to throw me away again after you’re through with me?”

I could feel the tears at the back of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. This man had seen everything of me, had taken everything away from me. I wasn’t going to let him get any more of me.

Rhys was a coward. That much I knew. He was afraid because I was the only thing in this world that could be held against him. I was his very own kryptonite.

And because of that, he hated me.

Being his weakness has an advantage for me. For so long I failed to realize that. Having just a slight taste of it, made me discover that particular benefit. I could use this as my own gain. With that thought, I stepped closer to him, even when I received a growl reverberating through his chest. His towering figure should have intimidated me, but at this point, I couldn’t even acknowledge that fear anymore.

I was tired. I was exhausted. I didn’t know what I would do the longer I stayed here just as his plaything, his trophy, his rejected mate. I knew I had no place here. I didn’t belong here. So, with pure determination once again, I stepped even closer. “What do you mean you want to get me out of your system again?”

“You’re like a disgusting worm,” he spat. “You’re slithering inside my head, like a parasite. I can’t get you out of my brain. It’s revolting to have to think about you again and again.”

I clench my teeth. “So?”

“So,” Rhys’ hand closed around my upper arm, drawing me closer. Close enough that I could feel his warmth ebbing from him through his clothes. In the middle of the cold breeze, I feel warm. I bask in it, knowing I would never have the same opportunities again. It hurt me, knowing that it took everything to be able to get close to my own mate, but I forced myself to focus, to not let fate decide my life.

I would set my own destiny.

“So, you’re mine. And I can use you however I want,” Rhys growls. “And right now, I have this itch I can’t get at the back of my head. You, Marigold, are going to help me get rid of it.”

I knew what he meant even before he said it. In my head, I already escalated everything to the very end, making sure that it was exactly how I wanted it. Rhys wasted no time. Right there at the lake, in the middle of his big, big castle, with the moonlight shining down upon us, he took me from behind. He ravished me again, like the beast that he was. I let him do whatever he wanted to me. Shame shook my frame every time I thought about who could possibly see us. His huge warriors walked the perimeter, maids bustling around, his people sauntering over the lake.

I knew it, but I let it happen.

Because I had the perfect plan in my head, which was to tame him.

The only way to tame the beast is to satiate the hunger within him.

~ ~ ~

When he was done, Rhys collapsed to the side, eyes high and lips apart. I could only crumple the ground. My body felt weak, aching, and sore to the bone. He didn’t hold back. He just didn’t care if he was capable of breaking my body in half. The beast only took, filling his need.

I listened to the quiet lake. The bugs and the night creatures sang their songs. The night deepened, and when I didn’t hear any footsteps at all, I knew this was my chance.

I felt my heart pound, my mind absorbing the length of this plan. If I fail again, I would probably feel his wrath months from now, having defied him all over again. But, if I didn’t try, I would regret this for the rest of my life.

I couldn’t stay here. No.

Not when two days ago, I found something inside of me.

I discovered that I was having his child.

Alpha Rhys’ child.

I just knew that I would never be able to escape this man ever again, not when I was chained to him with this cub. I took a good look at Rhys, sprawled on his back in all his naked glory. He was magnificent. It hurt to think about the stunning beauty that he was but accompanied by such a terrifying persona. He stirred, his eyes twitching for a second. In this light, he looked innocent. He looked like an angel, unlike the devil that he was.

My heart clenched for the man I would never have, for the mate I would never get. And then he moved. He moved towards me, leg over my hip, my ripped dress making my upper hip exposed. Skin over skin. I trembled with the sensation, but I held through. The connection between us was a ghost. A phantom of emotion that would never become true.

His mouth curled, and as if he found something that he liked, he snuggled closer to me, draping one arm over my chest, holding me close against him like he was seeking warmth. He turned his neck and angled it under the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply.

Be still, my heart.

Without his clothes, naked as he was now, I refuse to think that this was him in his entirety, the man and the beast.

I was sure that my plan would work. The beast is satiated. And now, as I slowly lifted his arm, I knew that my chances were high. It didn’t take me long to get rid of his leg too. And by the time I was done, I sat on my knees, looking at his perfect face.

“You’re right, Rhys. There won’t be a next time,” I murmur as I let my hand stroke his cheek. “You won’t be seeing me ever again.”

I put on his T-shirt. It fell right under my knees. I swallowed my heart in my throat. Could I live without him?

But, as I thought back on all the times he tortured me, both mentally and physically, I knew that this would be the perfect choice. He wasn’t capable of love. He didn’t know how to love. He didn’t know what love is.

He would never be able to love his own child.

I went up to my feet, my heart thundering as I processed everything. Before I could chicken out, I had already moved in the dark, having memorized every single way, and exited this castle. I easily moved between the shadows, the trees, and between buildings, until I got to the edge of the wood. I glanced back, looking at the sleeping figure of Rhys Ethelwulf. I saw him breathing peacefully, not knowing his own mate, weakness, and his unborn baby about to leave him forever.

My hand slid down to my stomach.

I looked into the man that was fated for me, and I sealed our fate.

“Goodbye, Rhys.”