Page 65 of Princess Redeemed

“Is it enslavement?”Alara asks.“Or is it a gift?”

“A gift to need blood to survive?”This time I don’t hold back my scoff.“It’s a curse.”

She steps toward me, her hands held out, and she smiles.Even in her advanced age, she exudes ethereal beauty.I can’t help but be mesmerized by her.

But I shake my head to clear it.“You’ll never convince me that the need for blood is a gift.”

“The blood gene gives you more than just the necessity for blood to survive.Has your father never explained this to you?”

I draw in a breath.“I try not to speak to my father if I don’t have to.He wastes no time in calling me to his bidding, and I’m—” I stop abruptly.

“And you’re what?”Alara asks.

“My blood tie to him always made me go to him when he needed me for something, but ever since Rogan…”

“You were able to resist,” she says.

I nod.“Yes.I mean, I still felt the pull, but I could challenge it in a way I couldn’t before.”I tilt my head.“Why is that?”Before she can respond, I continue, “I thought it was because we were fated to be together, but that can’t be it because my father manipulated the whole thing.We’re not fated.”My heart drops.“He’s mated to someone else now.”

An image erupts in my mind.Rogan and his wolf mate, in wolf form, frolicking through the green meadow in the ether where he and I made love so many times…

“Fight that,” Alara says.

I clear my throat, erasing the thought.“Fight what?”

“Those thoughts, Hannah.Rogan is following his own path now, and it has diverged from yours.But you still carry his child.Your paths will cross again.”

“Not the way I want them to,” I say softly.

“Perhaps not,” she says.“But perhaps they will.Nothing is set in stone.”

“But they’refatedmates.”I shuffle my feet on the dirt floor.“She’s the one the universe chose for him.”

She steps toward me, her eyes narrowed.“Hannah, I understand your pain.But you must cast it aside for now.For you, and for the son you carry.He needs your strength.And your people need your strength.You must let Rogan go.”

She’s right, of course.Pining for a wolf who was never mine isn’t productive.

I meet her gaze.“Tell me what to do.”

39

“You tell me first,”Alara says.“Tell me why it’s easier now to resist the blood pull from your father.”

“I don’t know.I thought it was because of Rogan,” I say again, “but…”

“But your tie to him wasn’t real.So what, then, was it that enabled you to resist the pull your father has over you?”

I stomp my foot, indignant.“If I knew, I’d tell you.Christ.Why all the questions?I asked you to tell me what to do.Tell me how to harness this power you speak of, and if you can’t do that, let me go back home.I need…”

“What do you need, Hannah?”

I shake my head with a sigh.“I need Rogan.I need the father of my child.”

“You will always have him.”

“As my child’s father, yes.But not the way I yearn for him.”Then I remember what she said only seconds before.“Explain it to me.”

“Explain what?”