Page 121 of Rejected and Pregnant By the Alpha King

“Raine.”

Startled, I look back at him. “Yes?”

“I cansmellyou overthinking.”

My entire face heats up instantly.Shit.

I want to have this conversation but I’m absolutely terrified of the answers. Having my heart broken by one alpha king nearly killed me. Another one doing the same? I don’t even know how I’m going to take that.

Oh gods, I can’t do this.

“Why are you pruning?” I ask, desperate to change the subject.

Thankfully he takes pity on me. “I believe my mother would raise herself from the dead and give me quite the earful if she were to find out I let her plants wither and decay in my care.”

Wow, that’s…not what I was expecting to hear at all.

“So, all of this was hers, then?” I wager, slowly moving around him and taking a seat at the end of the bench.

Looking at him from this angle, he’s focused intently on the plant in front of him, carefully clipping it with the kind of precision that I would expect from him.

“Yes. It was a gift from my father when he took her as his Luna.”

“That’s sweet.”

“He could be at times.”

I want to know more. I want to know everything there is to know about Nyx. He hardly ever talks about himself outside of his duties as alpha and dealing with the issues that come with the territory. He knows plenty about me, even if I’ve left out the nitty-gritty details.

Not like any of that would change my story, so getting into the thick of it just seems like it’d be complicating things too much.

“What was your mother like?” I ask.

His brows pull together while he thinks, continuing to prune the bushel in the silence that follows. I’m in no rush to push him on anything and will wait for him to talk again on his own time.

He’s been plenty patient with me and my shit, anyway.

“She was…loved by our pack,” Nyx finally settles on. “When she passed, we all felt it.”

Nodding, I say, “You must miss her.”

“Yes and no.”

I wait for more but it never comes.

See, the thing about Nyx is that he’s quite the puzzle. Needing the question to be shaped just correctly enough for him to actually open up and give the entire truth and not just small snippets here and there that are more or less satisfying for the time being.

My need for him to let me in is undying. Overwhelming, even.

I want to know it all.

“Why do you say that? Are your memories of her fading?” I ask.

His pruning pauses. “Not exactly…I do miss her. She was my mother, after all. However, I believe that she is in a better place. She endured a lot living under my father’s rule.”

My heart sinks for him.

Unfortunately, with becoming a Luna, it’s common for things like that to happen. Don’t get me wrong, not every alpha is abusive or rules with an iron fist, but many of them have a hard time letting up control in any space—especially their personal lives.

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