Page 76 of Rejected and Pregnant By the Alpha King

If anything, it terrifies me even more to consider that he truly is an enigma, capable of just about anything.

He bends over to open up a cabinet on the ground, grabbing something heavy and lifting it into his arms. He sets it down on the counter above and rips it open, digging a plastic scoop into it and pulling it out to hand to me.

I move through the plants carefully, trying not to touch anything lest I accidentally knock something over and destroy it, like I seem to have a knack for lately.

When I reach him, I take the cup and look down into it, realizing that it’s full of pellets.

For the fish.

He doesn’t say anything before turning back around, sealing the bag up, and shoving it back under the cupboard.

“You want me to feed your fish?”

“Do you have a better idea to get them to calm down?” He lifts a brow at me.

Well, obviously not.

“They won’t calm down on their own?” I ask.

He very slowly crosses his arms over his chest. That’s when I realize that he’s also in what looks to be pj’s—a loose fitted t-shirt and relaxed cotton bottoms, both of them black.

A thought occurs to me. “Why areyouawake and out here at this time of night?”

“I can’t wander my own lands?” he counters immediately.

Touché.

“I should be asking you the same,” he says, nodding to me. “Why are you outside?”

Instantly my body freezes.

Apparently in my almost-kind-of near-death experience, I’d gotten too comfortable in addressing him and not been scared shitless that he caught me out here without asking him first.

Sure, he told me earlier that I was welcome to wander the parterre, but that was before I disturbed his fish…and him.

Now he has grounds to keep me locked inside, never to see the light of day ever again.

34

Nyx

Raine’s entire body grows stiff at my question, the stench of her fear bitter on my tongue when I breathe it in.

How odd, to be so nervous when an alpha is asking her to explain herself. Just what exactly was done to her in her previous pack, that such a simple thing would lead her tothiskind of reaction? A submission through intimidation is strange for a breeder.

Her pack alpha contacting me hadn’t been that much of a surprise, as I’d been in the market for a breeder for a while. A veryspecifickind of breeder, at that.

Picking her up had given me the impression that her pack’s tradition of taking care of their breeders either wasn’t being followed or they simply had no cluehowto.

Which had struck me, and Wren, as odd. Why in the world would they raise a breeder they had no intention of caring for? A cash grab? Something else?

It seems like too much of a long ploy to risk raising a breeder in the hope that another pack will eventually be in the market for one. Our fertility rates have been going up for decades, leading to the inevitable extinction of the need for someone to supplement that.

“Um,” she mumbles.

I sigh.

My goal isn’t to intimidate or control her—far from it. As long as she fulfills her end of the bargain, then I truly don’t care what she does. Aside from upsetting my pack in some way, though with her acting like a shy and meek deer, I find that to be an unlikely possibility.

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