BREEDER FOR THE MAD ALPHA

CHAPTER 003

SERA

༺༺༒༻༻

I was still gripping the curtain with both hands when I heard him speak.

“Well, I was not expecting that.” He paused for just a moment. “Although I can still see you behind there.”

I looked down.

My feet were sticking out from under the hem.

I yanked them back.

He laughed quietly. “Your outline is still very visible, you know.”

I pressed myself flatter against the wall with my heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my teeth, and the only words my brain could assemble in that moment came spilling out before I could stop them.

“Please do not kill me.”

He did not respond immediately and the silence that followed was long enough that I started to regret opening my mouth.

“Kill you?” He sounded genuinely puzzled when he finally spoke. “Why on earth would I kill something as beautiful as you? Or harm you, for that matter?”

I had not been expecting that.

“Because—” I swallowed and tried again. “Because that is what they say you do. Everyone says that you are—” I stopped myself.

“Mad?” he offered.

I said nothing.

"These rumors," he said, and I heard him exhale slowly, "are genuinely getting out of hand. Please come out. I swear on the moon and every star above it that I will not lay a hand on you.

I stood behind the curtain and ran through my options, which were essentially nothing and nothing. Then I pulled the fabric aside and stepped out, keeping one hand gripped in it, and looked at him properly for the first time.

He was not what I had spent the night building in my head.

I had been expecting something wild and unhinged — a man whose face told you immediately why people lowered their voices when they said his name.

But the man standing across the room from me was composed and almost perfectly still, with calm eyes that were watching me the way you watch something you are curious about and do not want to frighten.

He was tall and the set of his shoulders said authority without any effort, and he was looking at me like I was the most interesting thing he had seen in a very long time.

My whole body was still shaking and I could not make it stop.

“What do you want with me?” My voice came out steadier than I felt, which was the one small victory I had. “I want to go home. I was brought here without my consent and I have no desire to be in this place and no desire to—”

“I know.” Something shifted in his expression. “And I am genuinely sorry for the way this happened. I want you to know that I had no hand in how you were brought here and I am not proud of it.” He paused. “My family acted without my knowledge and I am not a supporter of their methods. Not even slightly.”

I studied his face carefully and looked for the seam in it, the place where the performance cracked and showed what was underneath.

I did not find one, which did not mean it was not there. It only meant he might be good at acting.

I crossed my arms and kept my mouth shut.

He moved to the chair near the window and sat down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees so I did not have to look up at him.

"Let me clarify some things, because I think you deserve that much. Yes, I carry a curse that causes me to lose total control of my wolf on the full moon. Every full moon. That part of the rumors is true.” He met my eyes directly. “But it is not every day and it is not every week. It is one night a month, and outside of those nights I am as sane as any man standing in front of you. Whatever else you have heard is exaggeration.”

I frowned at him. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because if we are going to be..." He searched briefly for the word. "Doing certain things together, then you should not be living in fear that I am going to lose control and hurt you on an ordinary Tuesday."

"If you mean sleeping together," I said, and my voice came out flat and clear, "then sane or not, I will never give myself to you willingly." I held his gaze. "I was dragged here against my will to be a…a baby making machine. I have accepted that I cannot change where I am. But do not ever expect joy from me. Do not expect willingness. They brought me here by force and if you want anything from me you will have to take it the same way."

He was quiet for a long moment and I watched his face while he was quiet.

When he spoke his voice was low but sharp.

“Goddess forbid I ever become that man.” He shook his head slowly. “I would never touch you without your consent. I want to be absolutely clear about that. That would never happen, not today and not ever.”

I stared at him.

Was this some kind of trick, a mind game of some sorts to make me let my guard down?

How on earth is this man, standing here supposed to be the rumored mad King who could tear full grown men apart with his bare hands?

Or did he just make it a sport to make fun of his victims before he pounces on them?

After a moment he stood and crossed the small distance between us and reached out and touched the back of my hand very lightly.

I flinched away so fast I nearly stumbled into the curtain behind me.

He withdrew immediately, no offense in his expression, just a quiet acknowledgment. "Get some rest," he said. "I have a great deal I want to talk to you about later, and you need to be well rested for it."

I frowned. "What could we possibly need to talk about? How many children you want from your breeding machine?"

He laughed. It was a real one, unguarded, and it crossed his face before he could arrange it into something more appropriate. "You will find out soon enough. But I will say this — you can be so much more than a breeder here, if you want to be."

I opened my mouth to ask what that meant—

The door flew open.

The elderly woman from the night before swept in, her eyes moving across the room until they landed on him.

They narrowed immediately.

"Kael." Her voice was a blade. "What exactly are you doing in here?"

"Having a conversation," he said pleasantly.

"A conversation." She said it like the word tasted wrong.

"That is completely unnecessary. This girl is here for one purpose and it has nothing to do with conversation." She did not look at me when she spoke about me. "She does not get to engage with the Alpha. You have more important things to do with your time than sit in here with someone like her." She straightened her shoulders. "We will prepare her this evening and she will be sent to your chambers tonight to do what she was purchased to do."

Kael nodded once. "Alright."

His mother reached out and took his arm and steered him toward the door, already talking about a council meeting, about schedules, about things that required his attention, and I watched him go then frowned because it looked like he had transformed to something else entirely.

His shoulders were dropped.

The line of his back curved inward.

The man who had been sitting across from me seemed to have folded himself away, into a smaller dimmer version of himself.

It happened in the span of three seconds.

At the door he stopped and turned back.

He looked at me and winked.

Then he was gone.

I stood in the middle of the room staring at the closed door.

What in the world was going on in this place?