Sold to the Alpha King, Pregnant by a Stranger Chapter 14

Sold to the Alpha King, Pregnant by a Stranger Chapter 14 Mine

Nova and Wilder Draven were born on a Tuesday in March, eight minutes apart, screaming their heads off.

Nova came first – of course she did, she’s been first at everything since with a full head of dark hair and her father’s exact scowl. Wilder came second, quiet, watchful, with silver–grey eyes that tracked the room like he was

taking notes.

Rune held them both at once, one in each arm, and stood in the middle of the room saying absolutely nothing for

eleven minutes.

“Are you okay?” I finally asked.

“No,” he said. “Wren. I’m not. Look what we did.”

The Luna ceremony was three months later.

They put me in silver and moonstone and walked me through a hall of four thousand wolves, and every one of them

went down as I passed, and I thought about a girl in a bathrobe standing barefoot on cold pavement listening to a lock

turn behind her.

My father was there, in the back, in a borrowed suit. He’d asked permission to come. He’d asked, not assumed, which

was new. Twice a month he takes a train eleven hours to sit on the floor of a nursery and read to two babies who

scream when he leaves. It isn’t forgiveness. It’s something we’re building slowly, with real materials, for the first time in

my life.

My mother wrote a book. Raising a Queen: A Mother’s Story. It sold nine copies before the royal legal office removed

it from print, and Sable had one framed for my office as a joke.

Delphine married a mid–tier Alpha in the south. She sends Christmas cards. I have never opened one.

And Rune?

Rune is exactly who he was in that bar. Cruel mouth. Terrible sense of humor. Sleeps with one hand on my hip and

wakes up at any sound the twins make before I do.

Last week, after both babies were finally down, he found me in the training hall at midnight, taped up, working the heavy bag.

He leaned in the doorway and watched for a while.

“You know,” he said, “there’s a rumor going around the Bloodmoon Circuit. They say the Ghost is coming back.”

“Do they.”