Sold as the Alpha King’s Breeder by Alice Knightsky
Chapter 127: Bad News Times Two
**Soren’s POV**
The war was not exactly going as planned, and it was starting to p*ss me off. It seemed like Ethan was a ghost, like he was somehow everywhere and nowhere all at once. Whenever I turned around, he was there, attacking. Yet, somehow, he was also behind me.
It was getting really f*uc*king annoying.
So… I had gone to the front myself. With Ethan cutting off our supplies, I knew we wouldn’t be able to hold him off for long. However, I just needed to distract him a bit longer.
I cursed under my breath. D*mn it, Damian, you’d better be quick!
Sitting in my makeshift headquarters, an older home we’d confiscated in one of the villages we’d been holding for a while, I looked at the information that had been brought to me and tried to come up with something. Even my most intelligent commanders were at a loss, and my eyes were beginning to cross from staring at the data for so long.
“F*ck Ethan!” I mumbled to myself.
A knock at the door had me turning around as Thomas came in.
“What is it?” I asked him, not wanting another update about how Ethan and his ghost brigade had managed to take another shipment of supplies before they reached our troops.
Thomas had a look on his face that told me that whatever it was he was about to tell me, it wasn’t good. In fact, his wrinkled brow and the way his mouth was drawn down at the corners told me it was perhaps the most grave of all of the reports I’d gotten so far.
“Just tell me, Thomas,” I implored him, trying to keep my composure.
“I have two pieces of information to tell you, sir, and neither of them are good,” he said.
“Then you may as well just spit them out,” I replied.
He cleared his throat. “I’ve just received word from Commander Edgar that we need to move. It’s no longer safe for us to be here as the line is beginning to buckle. If you stay here much longer, you’re likely to be taken prisoner.”
I stared at him a moment before I said, “I can fight, you know? I’m fully capable.”
He nodded. “Of course, I know that, sir. All of us are capable. It’s only… the enemy forces far outnumber our own, and many of our warriors have already retreated to a point south of here, abandoning this position.”
I squeezed the bridge of my nose fora long moment, cursing every single one of those cowards before I said. “Fine.
We’ll make preparations to move somewhere else. For now. Until we can figure out how to take this position back and hold it. What else?”
Thomas stared at me unspeaking, and it was confusing to me.
“You did say you had two things to tell me, did you not?”
“Yes, I did,” he finally said, dropping his eyes to the ground before he lifted them slightly. “I received a phone call from Lola earlier.”
“A phone call?” I repeated. “I thought we weren’t calling because of the lines of communication being compromised.”
“That’s right, sir, but under the circumstances, she thought it best, and we had a code word anyway for this situation. We hoped it wouldn’t ever need to be used.”
I felt the blood running out of my face as I tried to figure out what he might be referring to. I swallowed hard, not wanting to hear what he was about to say, though I already knew what it probably was Lola had called to tell him. Really, wasn’t there only one thing the maid that worked in both my home and Rosalie’s could be calling to say? “Wh-what was she telling you, Thomas?” I asked him, trying to keep my lips from trembling.
“She wanted to let me know that Rosalie… is gone, sir.”
The words didn’t surprise me, but I needed a moment to digest them, to let them settle around me, before I could respond to them.
It didn’t seem like it could be true. Why would Rosalie leave? Especially now? Since she’d had the baby, she seemed so happy, and she wouldn’t want to put the baby in harm’s way, would she?
“She left?” I asked him, and Thomas nodded in confirmation.
I took a deep breath and considered the situation.
“Well… she has to be on the island somewhere,” I reasoned. “After all, I know everyone who comes and goes from the island. Have the guards—”
Thomas was shaking his head. “That’s been done, sir, and a report of two women leaving the island in a small boat early in the day a couple of mornings ago was taken. Additionally, one of our war vessels spotted a boat in the water around the same time but thought it was just a local fisherman that fishes around there. No one thought that it was Rosalie.”
“So, they just let her go?” Anger began to burn inside of my veins as I imagined finding those witnesses and banging their heads together until they exploded like coconuts, spewing their contents all over the beach.
Thomas didn’t answer my question directly. He concluded from his analysis, “Sir. Now, we’re not sure where she might be, but we believe she’s likely made her way to the mainland and could be headed back to her father’s house,”
Thomas surmised.
“No,” I said quickly. “Rosalie most definitely wouldn’t be going to her father’s house. But… did you say two women?”
Thomas nodded. “That’s right. Seraphine is with her.”
“Seraphine?” My eyes widened. “So… the midwife has betrayed me, huh?” That explained a lot. In fact, that explained everything. I got up from the chair I’d been sitting in and walked to the nearby window.
In the distance, I could hear howls and growls and remembered what Thomas had said about us needing to leave.
I would—but not just yet.
“That’s the only explanation. D’mn it!” I said, ramming my fist into the windowsill.
“Boss,” Thomas asked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean.. .Seraphine must have known the truth about Rosalie. I don’t know how, but she did.”
Seraphine must have told Rosalie everything as well. She must’ve told her everything that I did, all of the lies that I told. However, she didn’t know… she didn’t know that I wanted to make up for all of the wrong things I’d done to Rosalie in the past.
She didn’t know the truth, that I really would protect Rosalie, care for her and her baby… love her.
“Do you know where she would’ve taken her?” Thomas asked me.
“Show me the map and their route.”
It only took a moment for me to understand their plan. They were heading to the eastern mainland for sure, however, most of the country was at war. Knowing Rosalie and Seraphine, there would be no way they’d go to places where Ethan could find them easily…
“Yes, of course,” I told him, spinning around to look at him. I couldn’t help the excitement building in my voice. “Thomas, get ready!”
I imagined the possibility of a happy reunion between myself and Rosalie in the near future. I’d find her and explain myself to her, and she’d believe me and forgive me for everything.
Rosalie, the baby, and I would be together forever after all.
“Excuse me, what would you like to do?” Thomas asked for confirmation, not looking quite as enthusiastic as I was feeling.
“We’ll go after her, of course,” I told him. “We’ll find her, and when we do, we’ll take her back to the islands where she’ll be safe. She’s in danger out here.” Even if I sent out a directive to all of my warriors not to hurt a woman and her baby, there were rogues and all kinds of other heathens and dangerous characters out there.
I couldn’t guarantee Rosalie’s safety out here, and I needed to make sure that I found her as quickly as possible to make sure that she wasn’t harmed.
“Why are we doing that, exactly, sir? What about Commander Edgar?” Thomas asked.
“Edgar can handle this by himself. Damian should have news for us very soon. Just because a few of us are not here won’t really change anything.”
Thomas continued to reason with me and himself, “That is… are we going after her because you… need her… for the war effort?”
I looked into Thomas’s eyes and could see that he was concerned about my motivation.
I nodded. “Of course,” I told him. “Yes. We need her and the baby back. It’s Ethan’s child, and we need the baby because he’s collateral. And the mother comes along with the child. That’s the only reason.”
Thomas only stared at me for a long moment, like he didn’t quite believe me.
I told myself that my reasoning was well-founded, that I needed to stay focused on that. Having the baby would make my efforts to win the war all the more successful.
It didn’t matter that I was in love with Rosalie.
I needed Ethan’s heir—the kingdom’s heir—and his mother was just… an extension of him.
“Come on, Thomas,” I said as the howls in the distance grew even closer. “We need to get moving before the war is right on top of us.”
“Right,” he said. “I believe I was the one who mentioned that, sir.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” I told him. “Have all of this packed up and moved.” I waved at the contents of my office. Thomas signaled for servants to come in, and I prepared to move out.
“Where are we going?” Thomas called after me, and I didn’t hesitate to reply to his question with only one word. “North.”