Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder
Chapter 793

Chapter 4 : There's Something About Her

*Jared*

There was a point in my life when returning from a bounty hunt was met with raucousabandonment. Parties were held for days, drinks seemed bottomless, and the celebrations werelively and unending, at least until our crew had to set off again.

It wasn't like that now, at least not for me. I felt the strain of what had been a two-week longjourney just to locate the man we'd been paid to kill as I sat down at my desk in my study, lettingthe fatigue inch its way up my legs.

I was young. It shouldn't be this way. But I was on borrowed time. I'd gone too hard, done toomuch. Rescuing Eliza, who clearly believed she did not need saving, hadn't made things easier, thatwas for damn sure.

We'd only been home for three days and already she was making a name for herself. Miriam hadnothing but good things to say about her, and the other servants and maids I employed in myhouse seemed to love her, if not slightly fear her. I'd only seen her a few times since we'd returned,and all in passing. She was social, well-mannered, and aimed to please.

But not when it came to me.

There was something about her that made me tense with suspicion. There was something in thatblue-green gaze of hers that cut me to my soul. It was a constant, silent challenge of violence if Ieven looked at her the wrong way. But I couldn't help myself.

I'd run into her this morning on my way to the kitchen to pick up a quick breakfast before meetingArcher and Brandt for training. She'd been leaning on the kitchen counter, chatting amiably withGiselle, a young black-haired woman who was the house gossip.

Eliza hadn't even looked in my direction when I entered the room. Her body didn't go rigid withfear. She simply went on, talking loudly about men and their “swelling egos,” her eyes flicking in mydirection for a fraction of a second before turning back to Giselle.

Eliza herself wasn't a threat to the safety of my people and my crew.

But that mouth was going to be a problem.

“Well, I like her,” Archer mused as he flopped down on the couch in my study. He crossed his legs,his ankle resting on his opposite knee. “I've never heard a woman cuss like that before."

"She might belong on the crew," Brandt added, his eyes slowly meeting mine. I gave him a look as Ibrought a cup of coffee to my lips, shaking my head.

“She has the mouth for it. The personality, too. That mop of hers blends right in with the lowlandheather,” Archer laughed as he waved his hand over his hair, alluding to the wild, unruly mess ofthick brown curls she didn’t even try to keep contained. “She's a riot. I wonder who sold her—"

I clutched the coffee cup tight enough to cause a small crack to form along its base, but I hid it fromthe two men sitting across the room from me. I'd almost washed the memory of the breederauction from my mind-almost. Things like that tend to linger, to fester in your soul. I detested thedisgusting practice of selling and buying women. It wasn't even legal anymore in most places, notsince Alpha King Alexander took the throne.

“I replace it unlikely anyone sold her,” I said casually. “Someone is probably looking for her. She'seducated, I believe, and it's obvious she's used to being fed regularly.” I hated the way the wordstasted, but there was no way around it. This conversation needed to be had.

“Her father, perhaps? But where could she even be from? What was she doing this far—"

“I don't know, Archer,” I ground out, tapping my fingers on my desk. Brandt was unusually quiettonight, so I turned my attention to him, raising my brows as I willed him to add to theconversation.

“Maybe she ran away from home,” he mused, shrugging helplessly.

“That's not a bad thought, actually,” Archer nodded, stretching his arms across the back of thecouch. “Look, Jared. All I know is I've never met a woman like her in these parts.”

"Giselle" Brandt began, but Archer waved him away.

"Giselle is different. She's mouthy, sure, but she's a gossip. She doesn't have that look in her eyes,you know? Eliza looks like she's-like she's—"

“Calculating... like every move we make, and everything we say," I began, leaning back in my chair,"is being stored in some mental library for later use?”

"Yes, exactly!"

“Then she's a spy?” Brandt scoffed, shaking his head. “If she's a spy, then she's a damn good actor"Archer and Brandt continued to speculate, their words dancing around the snug room andricocheting off the glass panes of the display cases lining the walls, broken up by ceiling heightbookshelves.

Eliza could be a spy. It was, at least based on what little I knew about her at all, the most logicalexplanation to her state and behavior. That, or she was an educated, high ranking member of someaffluent pack overseen by the Alpha King himself, and someone would be looking for her, eventuallycoming here.

“I'm taking her to Aeris,” I said without much thought.

Archer turned to look at me, his mouth ajar in surprise.

I shrugged, pulling a ledger from the pile of books on my desk. “Don't act so surprised.”

"Why would we take her with us?"

“I'm not taking her with us to retrieve our bounty prize,” I corrected, dipping a quill in a jar of ink.“I'm giving her to Aeris. His brother bought her, after all, and likely with the funds he stole fromAeris. That would make her his property.” The words tasted like acid against my tongue. It was true,however, and I was not in a position to put my entire crew at risk by keeping her here in the eventAeris found out what his brother had been spending his stolen loot on.

I could see the silent argument behind Archer's eyes as he stared me down from across the room,that blue gaze narrowed in anger and suspicion. We'd taken in women like Eliza before. We'd giventhem a home, jobs, and in many cases they'd found their mates within our ranks and settled downto start families in the outlying village.

“If someone is looking for Eliza," I continued, “I can't have them looking here, not when half of ourmen have bounties on their own heads. It's done."

Archer crossed his arms, but nodded in reluctant agreement. Brandt, on the other hand, was staringblankly at the sheet of paper I'd been toying with without even noticing I'd been doing it. I set itdown.

"And Aeris has what you need for sure?" Archer said hotly. I shrugged, tapping my fingers on thesketch I'd been erasing and redrawing for years now.

“I have his word-"

"And Aeris's words are so trustworthy?"

Archer was fuming. I knew this situation ran a little deeper for him than most. Orphaned before hisfirst birthday, he'd grown up in an orphanage not far from our own village. He left to join my crewwhen he was seventeen, but he'd left someone behind, making her a promise that in the end, hecouldn't keep.

Scarlett had been one of the women who'd come to live with us, but she'd endured horrors that lefther scarred. She barely spoke, and never to Archer. Scarlett had never forgiven him for leaving herbehind, and he'd never forgiven himself.

But Eliza was different. This situation was different. And I didn't have time to ponder the what-ifs."We leave in a week's time, and just the four of us. Eliza has yet to come into her wolf by allaccounts, so we'll have to make the journey on foot," I said with a resigned sigh.

Archer chewed his lower lip before shrugging, and Brandt simply blinked up into the light of thedusty chandelier above our heads.

“Well, I'm hungry. It's already past dinner,” Archer said as he rose and stretched. Brandt followedsuit, dipping his head to me in farewell. I stood from my desk to follow the men out, but stopped atthe threshold to my study, noticing a figure standing flush with the wall across the hallway.

Archer and Brandt hadn't noticed her. They walked by without a passing glance. But I saw her, and Ilingered for a moment, wondering if she was going to drop the basket of laundry she was holdingin surprise if she turned and caught my gaze.

Eliza was beautiful, I gave her that. She had soft facial features and eyes that seemed a little toolarge for her face, fanned by dark lashes and dark brows. Her face was innocent, childlike, which wasa startling contrast to her voice and personality. Her hair was just as ill-behaved as I found her to be,sticking up and springing loose from the knotted bun of curls she wore at the crown of her head.Sea-green eyes slowly moved my way as I turned my back to her and stepped back into my study.She hadn't noticed that I'd seen her, and that was probably a good thing. I didn't want to have toexplain that this area of the house was generally off-limits. Sure, she could drop off my laundry inmy bedroom, but my study?

This place was strictly off-limits to even the maids. I wasn't going to risk giving her a single glimpseof what was inside in the event she was truly a spy.

I rounded my desk and sat back down, pulling the paper I'd been toying with earlier in front of me. Ilooked down at it for the millionth time.

I traced the outline of the amulet I'd drawn over, and over, and over again. I had no memory of it,nothing tangible. But it was all I had to go on, and unlocking its secrets was the only way I wasgoing to save my own life.

The amulet itself would be ancient, from the time of Lycaon himself. Maybe it had only been just apiece of jewelry at one point in time. Some rich woman may have worn it around her neck. I didn'ttruly know its history, and it honestly didn't matter.

I had a single piece of it, locked away in a box beneath the floorboards under my desk. The twoother pieces were missing, and without them, I'd lose everything in a matter of months.