Mated to the Alpha: Sold to the King

Chapter 62: 0062

Lorelei POV fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

Why was he yelling at me?

I thought as I stared blankly at the man in front of me, listening to him go on and on while looking at me like he wanted to strangle me to death.

But this time, I really hadn’t done anything wrong.

Darius was the one who approached me. He gave me permission, and he got me this dress. So why was I the one being punished again?

Of course, he should have been apologizing, but look at him getting angry instead.

These men were truly all the same.

They were all—

"I’m sorry."

My breath stilled at the words.

For a moment, I genuinely thought I had misheard him. There was no way...

"I’m really sorry," he whispered again, and this time, the tears I had been desperately trying to hold back finally spilled down my cheeks.

"I messed up. I let my anger get the better of me," he murmured.

As he spoke, his lips brushed gently against my neck, pressing a soft, agonizingly tender kiss there. His warm breath sent a violent shiver racing down my spine, causing the walls I had carefully built around myself to crack.

"I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I shouldn’t have said those cruel things to you yesterday. It’s my fault."

I squeezed my eyes shut, my small fists trembling at my sides as I listened to the ruthless Alpha King apologize like a desperate child.

Was he saying all of this just so he could sleep with me?

The bitter thought flashed through my mind immediately.

If that was the case, then I really had to commend his dedication. He was willing to go to such extreme lengths just to get what he wanted from a mere maid.

And even though I had agreed to it, it still hurt.

As if sensing my thoughts through my silence, Kaelen’s lips trailed slowly up my jaw. He nibbled gently at my skin as he moved, his touch entirely too intoxicating for my own good.

"So please don’t cry," he murmured against my skin, his voice cracking.

But the second he said those words, they had the exact opposite effect.

The dam broke completely.

A quiet, broken sob tore from my throat as even more tears spilled down my cheeks, and before I knew it, I was crying harder than before.

Hearing me sob, Kaelen pulled back instantly.

His amber eyes scanned my face in panic, and he lifted his hands, gently brushing the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. But they were falling too fast.

A low, desperate sound escaped him before he leaned forward again. He gently licked the salty tears from my skin, whispering repeatedly against my face, "Don’t cry... please, Ella, don’t cry," while pressing more soft, frantic kisses across my cheeks, my eyelids, and my jaw as if he could somehow soothe the pain he had caused.

It was truly crazy.

One second ago, he had been yelling at me like a beast, and now he was speaking so softly, as if he was afraid his voice alone could shatter me.

I didn’t understand the sudden shift.

It was confusing, and a dark part of me couldn’t stop wondering if this was some cruel mind game he was playing on me.

Yet despite the confusion and the fear, my hands slowly rose to wrap around his neck, pulling him closer until his lips found mine again.

And this time, I kissed him back.

I kissed him just as desperately, tears still streaming down my face as violent memories from my past flashed behind my closed eyes.

Painful, suffocating memories of being whipped, beaten, starved, and locked away in the dark flooded my mind. The phantom pain of those old wounds made my hands tremble against his skin, causing me to cling to him even tighter.

I was terrified that if he let go of me right now, I would fall straight back into that pit. Back into the place that had tortured me for years.

It felt as though a switch had been flipped inside my head.

The past came rushing back all at once with such brutal force that a pained, choked groan broke from my throat, forcing me to tear my lips away from his.

The room suddenly began to spin, and my vision blurred heavily around the edges.

I tried to snap out of it. I really did.

I desperately clawed my way back to the present, trying to focus on Kaelen, on the room, on anything other than the memories threatening to drag me under.

But I couldn’t.

Everything felt too heavy.

My knees buckled as every last bit of strength drained from my body, and I lost consciousness.

But the last thing I felt before the darkness completely swallowed me was his arm catching me.

And his distant voice sounding almost panicked as he called my name.

"Ella! Ella!"

Then there was nothing.

****

Blackness pressed heavily against my chest, suffocating and endless, dragging me deeper like a relentless current.

For what felt like an eternity, I existed somewhere between reality and the dark.

I would drift toward the surface, the thick fog clouding my mind thinning just enough for fragments of sensation to slip through.

I felt hands on me. Sometimes they were gentle. Sometimes they trembled with urgency as they touched my skin.

I felt cool cloths wiping the sweat from my brow and fingers brushing through my hair.

I tried with everything in me to react.

I tried to move a finger.

To open my eyes.

To lean into the comfort.

But my body felt impossibly heavy, as though it no longer belonged to me.

I was trapped inside it.

Voices swirled around me, forming a muffled, distorted chorus that seemed to echo from somewhere far away. It sounded as though they were speaking underwater.

I couldn’t tell where the voices were coming from.

I couldn’t understand the words.

I couldn’t even recognize who was speaking.

And then the darkness would claim me again.

The cycle seemed never-ending.

Time passed without my consent, slipping through my fingers while I remained suspended between waking and unconsciousness.

Once, my eyelids managed to flutter open, and blinding sunlight flooded my vision so suddenly that it burned.

But before I could even process what I was seeing, exhaustion dragged me right back under.

Another time, I managed to open my eyes again.

Everything around me was dark.

The sunlight was gone, replaced by shadows that swallowed the room whole.

But just as I began to register that fact, the darkness swallowed me again, pulling me back into its depths before I could fully wake.

Day turned into night, and night turned into day, becoming a revolving door of consciousness that I had absolutely no control over.

Until one day, I finally managed to gather enough strength to pull myself fully out of it.

My eyes fluttered open, and I blinked several times as my vision slowly came into focus.

I was in my bedroom.

I was lying in my bed, the soft cream sheets tucked snugly around me while warm afternoon sunlight streamed through the window.

As my gaze drifted around the room, it eventually landed on Skye.

She was sitting in a chair near the window with a book open in her lap. Her head kept dipping forward every few seconds before jerking back up again as she fought a losing battle against sleep.

I tried to speak, but my throat felt painfully dry.

"Skye?" My voice came out weak and raspy.

The second I called her name, her head snapped up.

The book slipped from her lap and hit the floor as she shot to her feet and rushed to my bedside.

"Oh, thank the Moon Goddess, you’re finally awake!"

She grabbed my hand immediately, tears already spilling down her cheeks.

But I could only stare at her in confusion. My mind felt sluggish as I tried to piece together how I had ended up here.

"What happened?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.