Mated to the Alpha: Sold to the King

Kaelen POV

By the time I stepped back into my office, Darius was already there, exactly as I expected, waiting for me with infuriating patience.

The sight of his calm, unreadable expression poured fuel onto the last embers of my anger.

Without a word, I crossed the room and drove my fist straight into his face, and he didn’t even try to dodge.

He stood perfectly still, allowing my fist to crash into his jaw with a sickening crack. Before he could recover, I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and slammed him hard against the office shelving. Books and stacks of documents rattled violently from the impact, several folders tumbling onto the floor around us.

"You snuck her out of the estate without my permission, and for what?" I growled, my face only inches from his as my fangs slid free. My wolf snarled beneath my skin, demanding blood. "You couldn’t even keep her safe. Is this your pathetic way of getting back at me? Huh? Answer me!"

"Stop spewing bullshit," Darius snapped, glaring right back at me without the slightest hint of fear. Blood trickled from the corner of his split lip, yet he didn’t even seem to notice it. "Nothing happened to her out there."

"Nothing happened?" I roared. "Then why is she falling apart? Why is there so much suffocating fear pouring off her right now? Explain that to me, you piece of shit!"

"I don’t know!" he fired back, his jaw tightening. "We were having a great time. She was laughing. She was relaxed. She was perfectly fine until it was time to come back. So who knows? Maybe the thought of returning to this estate and being trapped here with you was enough to push her over the edge!"

"She is no longer a prisoner here!" I shouted, the words ripping from my throat.

But even the lie tasted bitter, considering I had locked her inside my chambers only minutes ago. Yet I forced the words out anyway.

"I gave her freedom!"

"You call this freedom?" Darius roared.

Before I could react, his hands shot up and locked around my wrists. With one violent shove, he ripped my grip from his shirt and threw me backward, forcing several steps between us.

I caught my balance as he straightened his rumpled shirt, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. When he looked at me again, there was nothing in his eyes except disgust.

"She wakes up, takes a walk, lets you fuck her, goes back to sleep, and then does it all over again," he spat. "Do you have any idea how miserable that kind of life is? She was perfectly fine with me today. She was smiling. She looked like she was actually enjoying herself for the first time in a long time. Whatever panic attack she’s having has nothing to do with what happened out there. It has everything to do with what she’s forced to come back to in here."

My breathing slowed.

The rage that had been consuming me faltered just enough for his words to sink in.

My brows drew together as I replayed everything he’d said, forcing myself to consider the possibility that he wasn’t lying.

No.

That couldn’t be right.

It couldn’t possibly be the truth.

But the more I thought back over the last few weeks, the more everything began falling into place in the worst possible way.

Seeing the hesitation creep across my face, seeing the first crack in my composure, Darius didn’t stop.

He drove the knife in even deeper.

"Do you know what she said when I suggested we leave the estate for something as simple as getting ice cream?" he asked, his voice thick with furious disbelief. "She looked at me like I’d suggested committing treason and said, ’What if Kaelen finds out?’"

He let the words hang for only a second before continuing.

"Do you even know Princess Nala invited her clubbing tonight? And when I asked if she wanted to go, do you know what she said?" His eyes locked onto mine. "She asked, ’Won’t Kaelen have a problem with this?’"

Darius took a step toward me and jabbed a finger hard against my chest.

"Every single time she wants to do something, she stops herself because she’s worried about what the great Alpha King will think. Isn’t that obvious enough for you yet? Haven’t you ever wondered why she never tells you these things? Why she never tells you how she really feels? Why she keeps hiding pieces of herself every time she’s around you?"

His voice rose with every question until he was practically shouting.

"It’s because she’s still terrified of you, Kaelen! And no amount of sweet words, expensive gifts, or fake freedom is ever going to erase what you’ve done to her!"

His words struck with enough force to make my entire body flinch.

Ice cream.

They had snuck into the city just to get ice cream.

And clubbing...

She wanted to go to a nightclub.

Was she planning to sneak out again tonight?

No.

She never would have made it past the estate security without me knowing.

Then why hadn’t she just asked?

If she wanted to go out, if she wanted to have fun, why hadn’t she simply walked into my office and told me? Why did the thought of asking me seem more frightening to her than sneaking behind my back?

Was she really still that afraid of me?

But I had honestly believed we were getting closer. I thought the walls between us were finally starting to come down. I thought she was beginning to trust me.

Shit.

I’d just locked her inside my chambers like a prisoner.

Again.

What the hell had I expected?

The bitter realization settled heavily in my chest.

But I couldn’t help it.

What if she realized she had other options and decided to leave me, just like Seraphina had? Everything I’d done had been driven by one desperate need to make sure history never repeated itself.

Even if she wasn’t my fated mate, she was still the woman my wolf had chosen.

Every instinct I possessed insisted she belonged with me, so wasn’t it only natural to protect what was mine?

Right?

The question echoed through my mind, but this time I couldn’t convince myself of the answer.

I searched desperately for something, anything, that would justify my actions.

Nothing came.

The fragile logic I’d been clinging to shattered beneath the weight of the truth.

My shoulders sagged as the fight slowly drained out of me, and I released a long, exhausted breath.

When I looked back at my Beta, the murderous edge that had filled my eyes moments ago was gone.

"So what do I do?" I asked quietly, my voice rough and hollow. "How do I make her look at me the way she looks at you?"

The words tasted like humiliation.

I sounded pathetic.

Even Darius just stared at me, his expression shifting into something I couldn’t quite place. Shock. Disbelief. Maybe even discomfort. He had probably never imagined seeing me this broken over a woman again.

But what else was a desperate man supposed to do?

My mind drifted back to the fertility pills and the conversation I’d already had with the pack healer.

Even if everything went exactly as planned, it would still take at least a month before there was any sign that it had worked.

I didn’t have a month to keep making the same mistakes.

If I kept pushing her away, if I kept controlling every part of her life and locking her up whenever I panicked, she would grow to hate me even more than she already did.

And if that happened, she would never willingly welcome me into her bed.

The distance between us would only keep growing until it became a canyon neither of us could ever cross.

I had to fix this, even if I hated it.