Page 1 of The Alpha's Sold Pregnant Mate

Prologue - Esme

As a child, Esme didn't understand why she was different or why she was strange, why she was hated by many and feared by a few. Mysterious things often happened around her, especially when she was angry, afraid, or even sad.

She could still remember vividly, like it was yesterday, what happened in her father's garden, the death and the restoration that made his jaw drop in shock. She didn't know what she had done or how she managed to do it, but she did it.

Six-year-old Esme was in the garden, playing in the rain with her father's plants. She called him ‘Father’ even though he was always quick to remind her all the time that he was not her real dad, that he just happened to pick her up. She never really understood what he meant by that or why he always treated her with so much cruelty. But he was the closest thing to a father she had.

Rolls of thunder rumbled in the dark clouds above, accompanied by flashes of lightning streaking across the sky. Drenched to the skin and unaffected by the cold or the steady downpour, she sat there in the garden, covered in dirt, as she played with some tomatoes and potatoes.

She had always been drawn to nature, fascinated by how the ground sprang up plants. Her favorite color happened to be green, maybe because that was the color of nature, or maybe it was simply because green was the color of her eyes. Whatever the case, nature was intriguing to her, and plants were her only friends. At some point, she started to think that she could communicate with plants, that they could hear her.

Whenever she was sad—and she was mostly sad—they always offered her a sense of comfort, joy, and peace. She was happy only when around nature, only when surrounded by leaves from plants and trees, and when the air was enveloped by the sweet fragrance of flowers.

She was so excited about spending time with her only friends in the garden when she accidentally uprooted one of her dad's tomatoes.

“Oh, no!” she said quietly.

It was then that she realized she had actually uprooted quite a number of them. She must have been so carried away that she didn't realize what she was doing.

With her muddy hands, she tried to stick them back into the earth before her father saw her through the window, but it just wasn't working. She continued to make feeble attempts until he saw her.

The door opened, and he stepped out, staring at her with so much hate in his eyes. Speechless, she stood in front of him, holding an uprooted plant in her shaky hands.

“I'm sorry, Dad. I didn't mean for it to come out,” she said to him, on the brink of tears.

He took a look around and saw his tomatoes and potatoes lying uprooted. “You stupid little girl!” He threw a slap across her face, and for a second, she thought he burst her eardrum.

For the next few minutes, she struggled to hear what he was saying but couldn't, so she resorted to reading his lips. One thing was certain: he was furious. She knew he was an exasperatingly difficult man to live with, but this was just a couple of plants in a garden full of them.

His mouth was moving, but the ringing in her ear wouldn't let her hear his words. She could tell that he was raining curses on her, probably reminding her that she was not his daughter and that she was good for nothing.

Her ear cleared just in time to hear him say, “You're absolutely good for nothing!”

Yeah, I was right. I know you hate me and that you regret ever picking me up, she thought to herself.

“I hate you...and I should have just left you to die in the woods that night together with your mother!” he yelled at her.

With a breaking voice and eyes full of tears, masked by the rain, she once again apologized, “I'm so sorry, Dad…”

She hadn't even finished her statement when another slap knocked her down. “Don't you ever call me that again, you hear me?” He barked, “You're no daughter of mine!” he blurted out. “This garden better be back to the way it was by tomorrow morning, or you will have me to contend with.”

Esme didn't know which hurt more, the slap or the words that came out of his mouth, words that she was still not used to hearing even though she had heard them every day of her life.

As a child, she was desperate to win her father's love. All she wanted was to be loved by him and not be treated like an outcast… like the ‘Forest Baby’ that others used to call her.

Even as she lay there in the dirt, a hand over her cheek—which she was certain would be red and swollen the next morning—as she watched him spit at her before leaving, she could clearly hear the jeers of her peers calling her that name she hated so much.

“Forest baby! Forest baby!”

Their mocking voices continued to resound in her head as she wept. Her heart was broken, shattered into a million pieces. Her father hated her, the kids in school hated her, and the townspeople hated her and even went as far as warning their kids to stay away from the girl. Nobody wanted to be with Esme or to play with her. Everywhere she went, she was constantly reminded that she wasn't wanted, that she was an outcast, a girl without origin. She just wanted to fit in somewhere, to know what it was like to be loved by someone… by anyone.

Her mind drifted back to that day at the playground in school, where she sat under a tree, watching the students play with one another. She knew better than to try and play with anyone, so she sat all by herself, watching them from a distance. At intervals, she would smile when she saw something funny, like the belly shrills of kids who dared to go down the slides.

“Hey, there, orphan!” Erin had called her attention as she stood before Esme with her friends.

“I'm not an orphan!” Esme had snapped, angry that Erin would call her that. “An orphan is someone without a mom and a dad. I have a dad,” she said, rising to her feet.

“My mom says your old man Job isn't really your dad…”

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