Mated to the Alpha: Sold to the King novel Chapter 196

Chapter 196: 0196

Lorelei POV

I was practically biting back a smile, trying my best not to let my nerves show. Everything had been going perfectly so far. Even Kaelen seemed unusually excited, his intense gaze locked onto me with that possessive look that always made my stomach do ridiculous little flips.

But then Darius stepped closer and whispered something into his ear.

I watched the change happen almost instantly.

The warmth disappeared from Kaelen’s face, replaced by a coldness that made my stomach drop. He tried to hide it quickly, probably because he didn’t want to scare me, but it was too late. I had already seen it.

"Kaelen?" I asked softly, my eyes narrowing with concern. "What’s wrong?"

He didn’t answer.

That only made the uneasy feeling in my chest grow worse. I watched his face, waiting for him to say something, but the longer he stayed silent, the heavier the tension between us became.

Finally, Kaelen looked back down at me. He reached for my hand, his fingers closing around mine a little tighter than usual.

"Lorelei..." he said quietly, and the careful tone in his voice immediately made my heart start racing. "You can’t leave with me."

I stared at him, barely processing what he’d just said.

"What? Why?"

"Something came up," he replied, his jaw tightening as he tried to keep his voice calm. "I need to handle it, and I need to do it without you."

"No."

The answer came out instantly as I shook my head, fear already creeping into my chest.

"I don’t want to go alone. I don’t want to. What if something happens to me? What if something happens to you? What if..."

"Hey, look at me."

Kaelen’s hands came up to my face, gently cupping my cheeks until I had no choice but to meet his amber eyes.

"Nothing is going to happen to you," he said firmly, his thumb brushing gently over my cheek as if he could somehow calm the panic building inside me with the simple touch. "I’m the one being targeted right now. If you stay with me while I deal with this, I’m worried I won’t be able to protect you the way I need to."

His gaze stayed locked on mine, steady and reassuring despite the tension I could still see beneath his calm expression.

"And you’re not going alone," he continued. "You’ll have twice the number of our best guards around you. I’m going to handle this quickly, and I’ll be right behind you before you even have time to miss me."

Those words were supposed to reassure me, but somehow, they did the exact opposite. If anything, they only confirmed what I had been trying not to think about.

There really was a serious threat against him.

I wanted to tell him that if someone was targeting him, there was a good chance I would be a target too. They had already managed to drug me once, and thanks to Chelsea, or whoever else was still secretly working against us from inside the estate, they already knew exactly what I looked like.

All those arguments rushed through my head, begging to be said out loud, but I swallowed every single one of them.

Kaelen wasn’t stupid.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify