My Stepmother Sold Me to the Alpha Who Hates My Father's Name, and the Child He Wants Is the Proof That Clears It novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Test

I read the test on the back slope above Laurel Gap, on the twentieth of November, with my bees humming at my back.

I had told no one.

I had driven up the mountain that morning because it was the last warm day before the hard frost, and the hives needed their winter feed.

The McCracken boy who rode with me on my route sat in the Honda and played with his phone.

I walked up the back slope alone.

The hive boxes stood in their rows on the old stands in the brown grass.

Ned had hauled them back up the hill himself in September, and none of his men had touched them since.

I went down the line with my smoker, lifting lids and listening to the cluster in each one.

It was the hum I knew best in the world.

I had been born on this hill.

My father had taught me to open a hive when I was six.

He had said, *You go slow, Caly. You don't take what they haven't got to spare.*

At the last box I sat down on the stand in his coat, with the smoker going at my feet.

I took the little plastic stick out of my pocket.

I had used it twenty minutes earlier in the one-stall bathroom of the Laurel Fork store, between a rack of motor oil and a case of cold drinks.

← Chapter 7 · All chapters · Chapter 9 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend