Sold as the Alpha King’s Breeder

Chapter 54: What Happened to Seraphine?

Rowan-Valoria

Boy, did things unravel.

We hadn’t been able to sleep for long before Damian’s warriors found us again. Dad led us deeper into the forest, crossing the river and attempting to back track towards Mirage, but it was too late. The forest was full of wolves. We were two against an impossible force.

“What pack did that woman say she was from?’ Dad said, his voice cracking over the mind-link as we began to climb up the base of the mountains, our paws slipping on the uneven, fragile shale rock.

“Greenbriar, I think,’ I answered, my legs sore and hips aching from the exercise. I ran in my wolf from every single morning and had done so for years. But spending over twenty-four hours as a wolf was causing an indescribable exhaustion and something I had never experienced before.

Plus, I was watching my dad’s plans fall through, and he was pissed. Especially after we crested the top of a cliff face looking over the forest and our plane buzzed the top of our heads.

*Damnit!” he said, turning his head to watch it ascend into the clouds.

‘That was us, wasn’t it

‘Yes, obviously. Come on, we have no choice but to keep going. They’re pushing us into the mountains, and we’re outnumbered-‘

The mountains? What exactly are you planning,

‘I was wrong, Rowan. There’s too many of them. I hadn’t expected Damian to have made alliances with other packs in Valoria, especially without my knowledge. We have to get home

“By crossing the mountains? Are you insane? That’ll take us weeks!”

.

Howling drifted from the trees below as we continued to climb, and I winced, torn between two impossible paths.

How did I prefer to die? Being torn apart by wolves, or dying of exposure in the mountains between the North and Valoria?

‘We have no choice. They’re expecting us to travel through the forest until we reach the Northern Tier. Stop whining, let’s go.’

I followed him up and over another ridge, padding further and further into the clouds until I finally looked down, seeing a full view of what had once been Mirage. Fires burned in pockets across the city. I could see the destruction of the buildings from our perch. And there was the castle, standing like an untouchable fortress amongst fields of golden grass.

And ahead of us?

I looked up where Dad had stopped and stretched his legs.

Nothing but miles, and miles, and miles of stone.

***

One Week Later

I had pulled over my head. Dad was lacing up a

to know?” he said through his teeth as he tied the other boot. We were sore and dead tired, having spent nearly a week trudging

the terrain we were in now was remarkably changed, the once perfectly sculpted mountains giving way to deep craters and sharp, uneven peaks. Nothing grew here, and fields and fields of boulders marked our journey between valleys. This hadn’t been

saw a flag. A familiar flag. Waving in the stiff,

narrow cave opening and inside we had found

at the cave’s entrance for a long time, peering into its depths. We didn’t speak as we inspected the bodies, still fully dressed under layers of rotting fabric. He counted them, one by one, and after we found their backpacks, we shifted and changed into the spare clothes they had

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54: What Happened to

bodies were nothing by bone by now, and must have been here for a long,

been here for roughly fifteen years, give or

kid? Really? This is them?” I looked down at the bones at my feet, my stomach tightening as the memory of their departure

remembered looking back at Gemma, who had tears in her eyes as she watched her mother lead the group. Seraphine had

They never came back.

I tried to remember what Seraphine might have been wearing, but they had dressed in a similar fashion for the journey. It was damn

I’m not sure,” Dad said briskly, tossing an empty backpack out of the cave opening. He turned back, walking deeper into the cave where it

“Dad!”

the packs for anything like flashlights or matches. They had a fire in here, I

I was told, rifling through each of the backpacks. I collected two matchbooks that were in decent shape and at least half full, and a lighter that was dry, useless. I also found a compass and popped it open, noting we were facing exactly

were they looking for?” I asked as Dad came out of the darkness. He had his hands tucked into the pockets of the jacket he had found as he scanned the ground once more, crouching down

mountains. No one had ever crossed the mountains before, at least as far as we know. Generally speaking, when we travel by land from the Northern Tier to Mirage, we do so through the forest, but she was convinced there was more to find to the east, that it could be faster if we found this river. It’s hundreds, if not a thousand miles of mountains and valleys between Winter Forest and Valoria on the east. This was shortly after the war when our planes and boats were in disrepair and supplies

Not in a bad way,

It sounded plausible. There were warriors that

for the expedition. I wanted to

with a sober smile, “You fought us for

whole new world for me and the other boys in Winter Forest. We were the generation born after the

I asked, moving towards the entrance of the

need to inspect them closer, but for now, we need to find

ground squirrels

“Should we bury them,”

shouldn’t disturb them. I’ll do my best to identify them so I can give their families closure when we return to Winter Forest, but that’s all. I don’t

was thankful to leave, walking a quarter mile away over the boulders

examined the shallow cave. We could fit inside if we crouched and sat, but we couldn’t stand. “We’ll sleep here,” Dad said,

ground as I moved through the boulders. They were black rocks, uneven. Likely

the strange landscape and cave

Dad’s head disappear as he made his way back to the final resting place of the expedition. I felt a pang of regret as I watched him, wondering what he

felt he had failed to save his daughter, who lost his hold on

Then I heard a whooshing sound and turned to it, right as something

I tried to maintain my balance. I could taste blood, feel it

“What,”