Pregnant With Four Alphas' Babies: A Reverse Harem Romance Chapter 122: What the King Stole

*Barbara*

Kane must be dead.

If he isn’t, he will be soon enough.

It’s been more than a day since our last mind-link conversation, and he still hasn’t arrived at the castle to save me from this shithole.

Now, he isn’t even answering me on the mind-link! It’s like he was trying to come and free me and got into a serious battle outside of the castle with the guards or one of those fucking Alpha’s forces and was dispatched.

As I pace back and forth in my tiny little cell, the stench of mildew continuing to burn my nose, I ask myself where I went wrong. How did I fail to seduce a single Alpha? How did I fail to convince Gene that he should go ahead and declare that I would be the next queen? How did I fail to convince Kane to storm this castle and free me from this horrible place?

It seems like my knight in shining armor has rusted and gotten stuck somewhere out in the woods.

Walking over to the bars, I take hold of them and give them a shake. Of course, nothing happens except I get rust all over my hands. In frustration, I shriek and rest my head on bars.

“I’m going to have to figure out how to get out of her myself!” I growl.

“Hee, hee, hee!”

I hear a creepy laugh from the darkness to my left and freeze. I know there’s no one else in this cell with me because I’ve paced back and forth a thousand times. I would’ve tripped over the person by now!

“Who’s there?” I demand, glaring at the solid stone wall between my cell and the next one over, which is where I’m assuming the giggler presides.

“Oh, no one,” a male voice says. He sounds old and tired, despite his chipper attitude.

Walking over to the wall, I fold my arms under my chest. “You’ve gotta be someone to be laughing at me like a fucking hyena,” I growl at him.

“Nope. I’m no one,” he insists. “I’ve been no one for close to thirty years. I just sit down here, eat my three meals a day, piss in a bucket, take a dump wherever, and sometimes dream about the past. What’s the point in having an identity when that’s all there is to your existence?”

“So you’re a fucking psycho then?” I ask, rolling my eyes. There’s no point in me standing here and talking to someone who didn’t even let me know he existed until a few seconds ago when I’ve been here for days.

“Oh, I might be,” he says with another chuckle that basically confirms it. “But I used to be someone, a long time ago.” He sighs, and I think I hear a bit of sadness in it.

“Well, I apologize that I don’t have time to feel sorry for you right now,” I growl, sinking down onto the floor with my back to the wall. “I’m a little busy trying to figure out how the hell to get out of here.”

“You can’t,” he says. “Not unless King Gene comes and lets you out.”

“Shows what you know,” I say, scoffing. “Gene isn’t even king right now. Tristan is.”

“Tristan is only temporary king,” he tells me like he’s a reporter for the fucking daily news. “Gene is the true king, and he’ll be back soon enough. If he wants you here, this is where you will rot. And this is where you will die.”

“Maybe that’s the case for you,” I tell him, picking flecks of dirt off of my bare leg. “But I have connections to the outside world. I’ll be sure to get out of here, probably in the next couple of hours.” I look at the gate as if I expect Alpha Kane to be standing there with a big smile on his face and the keys in his hand.

But of course, there’s no one outside of my cell. There’s hardly anyone outside of my cell–ever. About three times a day, a guard brings a bowl of slop and slides it through the grate without a word, and it’s usually accompanied by some brownish water. That’s the only time I ever see anyone.

“I thought the same thing.” The man’s voice isn’t so cheerful now. “I thought for certain that someone would come soon to let me out. I mean, I had friends! I had mind-link capabilities. Why wouldn’t they come and release me? It’s not as if I’d done anything wrong.”

I try not to even listen to him because I know that it will only make me feel worse about what is happening to me, but his words continue to seep into my ears.

“For the first few days, my friends assured me that they were on the way, that they would be here to get me out as soon as possible. I waited patiently, trusting in them. Getting into this cell so far under the castle is no easy feat.”

“I guess you’re still waiting?” I ask, sarcasm dripping from my voice.

“No, no,” he says quickly, like I was serious. “I gave up on that a long time ago. No, whether my friends decided it was better not to go against the new king or they decided they weren’t quite my friend after all. Ultimately, after a few weeks, I realized no one was coming. So… instead of waiting for rescue, I started to wait for a trial, to be judged and have a punishment handed to me.”

“And how did that go?” I brush my fingernails over my shoulder, bored but also a bit frightened to hear his answer.

He clears his throat, all of that joy now gone from his voice. “It never happened.”

I sit up a little straighter. “You never had your trial?”

“No, I was just… forgotten. Left here. So, now, instead of waiting for a trial, I’m simply waiting… to die.”

His last words send a shiver down my spine. I don’t want to sit here until I die. I have to convince myself that that can never happen to me. “Did you ask what the deal is? Why you hadn’t gotten a hearing with the king?”

“Ask?” he says with that same chortle I heard when he first began to speak to me. “Ask who? It’s not as if King Gene wanders down here to have a look around every couple of hours!”

He has a point. I’m not sure who I would ask either. The guards who bring our food sure the hell aren’t going to respond to us begging to speak to someone.

I don’t want to admit it to this guy I can’t even see, but I am starting to get a bit worried. The idea of spending the next thirty years of my life down here makes me want to vomit, but there’s nothing in my gut to throw up because I haven’t eaten anything since I arrived here.

“What did they lock you up for, anyway?” my neighbor asks me.

I sigh loudly. I don’t want to get into it, but I have nothing more pressing to do. “Originally, I was a captive in the castle. King Gene and I came up with a scheme where I would pretend to attack the capital so that I would be arrested. But I was supposed to be free to roam about the castle. I was supposed to be helping him with something. “ I don’t think I should say aloud what it is I was supposed to be doing.

“And it was Tristan who put you here? When Gene temporarily gave him the throne?” he asks.

“Yes,” I reply quickly. “For no damn good reason at all!” I figure the fewer people who know I almost killed Emily the better. But in my defense, she had attacked me first.

I was just defending myself!

“Well, I hate to burst your bubble, girly, but I think I’d just start to get used to it if I were you. People like us… we don’t get second chances.”

“Speak for yourself!” I tell him quickly. I don’t know how he’s lumping me into the same group as him. He was probably a petty thief or something. “What are you in for?” I ask. “Did you steal something from King Gene?”

“No,” he says, his tone more serious than ever. “Not at all.”

“Then… why are you here?” I repeat.

“King Gene stole something from me.” I can hear the bitterness in his voice now.

My forehead crinkles as I try to determine how the hell he is the one in prison if King Gene stole something from him. “Like what?” I ask.

He is quiet for a long moment before he replies, “The throne.”