Sold as the Alpha King’s Breeder

Chapter 291

Chapter 71 : Trapped in the Desecrated Grave

Troy 

I shook out the pants I had been wearing before I shifted, sliding what was left of them over my legs. My shirt was a goner, torn to shreds from the sheer size of the beast that came into play when Maeve collapsed in my arms and Damian made his move.

Thad done what I could to protect her, but Damian had planned for everything. I reached up to touch the gash on my shoulder, the skin prickling with heat as I ran my fingertips over the wound, wincing at the pain. A silver knife of some sort had been thrown, missing my throat by inches and lodging itself in my shoulder, knocking me off balance and giving Damian an opening to grab Maeve and move out of the way before Rex brought the whole damn tunnel down over my head.

Bastards.

Rex had, however, dropped the lantern during his mad dash to the tunnel’s opening. I picked it up, wiping dust from the plastic cover that housed a battery-powered lightbulb, and looked over the tangle of rocks and splintered wood that was standing between me and saving Maeve.

I said a quick, somewhat sarcastic prayer to the Moon Goddess, asking her to keep the lantern lit since this was part of her predestined grand master plan. Then I turned toward the darkened recesses of the tunnel that led back into the wide, triangular room that Damian had torn to shreds looking for the moonstone.

Someone else had been inside the tomb, and they hadn’t used the entrance.

That meant there was another way in, and out.

I set the lantern down and pulled on my boots, looking around at the walls of the tunnel. They were etched with symbols from a language long forgotten. I had seen some of it on the map but couldn’t make sense of any of it. Whatever I was looking at was totally and completely useless to me now.

“F*ck,” I whispered as I stood to my full height, wincing as my shoulder throbbed and blood began to trickle down my chest. Had the knife landed a little lower, or a little higher, I would have been dead in an instant.

The only solace I had was that Pete hadn’t been in the clearing when the tomb’s door came down. He was gone, and I could only hope that he had gone back to camp to get help.

I began to walk forward into the tomb, taking my time to peer at the symbols and the contents of the many broken vases and clay pots. I was surrounded by gold, a true pirate’ s treasure, and couldn’t help but smirk as I picked up a small but heavy golden icon of what looked to be a man wearing a low, flowing cloak. I slipped it into the pocket of my jeans and tightened my belt against its weight. I’d give it to Keaton to sweeten the apology he would no doubt be expecting for the mess I had led him into.

I didn’t know how much time I had spent milling around the room, kicking clay and sifting through piles of sand that had filled the vases. It wasn’t until I found the altar that I realized we had overlooked something major, something Maeve had mentioned in the many stories she had told me about her parents over the course of our journey. Something about a flower, but a specific one.

of the altar, tracing the stem to where the altar met the cracked tile of the ground. “A moonlight lily? Is that what it was called?” |

story of the battle, which had been one of her favorites when she was young. Her mother needed the flower to save her father’s life, and it only bloomed

been needed to

oozing between my fingers as I pulled it away and placed my

with my hands pressed against the altar for several minutes and nothing happened. Frustrated, I pushed my hand against it with all

altar had moved, shifting a fraction of an inch across the tile, a puff of dust in

using all of my strength to push against the altar with my full force, straining against the sheer weight of what must have been a solid chunk

wiped sweat from my brow and ran my fingers through my filthy, dust covered hair. I felt like a little boy,

trapdoor in its entirety. The wood was ancient and broke easily when I slammed my foot through it, revealing a staircase leading down

the hole, noticing a set of shoeprints in the thick layer of dust covering the stone steps. Someone had walked up and down the staircase several times, always stopping roughly

that someone had been trapped down there, much like I

the corner of the square room. In the center of the room was an open sarcophagus

man who had gotten trapped

into the sarcophagus and let out my breath when

what the hell was I doing

lantern up to look down on the man, or what I assumed had been a man at one point. His clothes were nothing but decayed rags now, hanging off of his bones. One of his hands was clenched into a fist,

stooped, biting my lower lip as I carefully and gently took the leather-bound book from

jumped to my feet as his bones gave way, splintering into a

his skull slumped forward and his hat fell off. I picked it up, dusting it off

once last, weary glance before ! slumped against the far wall and set the lantern on the floor. I looked around, seeing no other way in or out of the burial chamber than the stairs. That meant the dead man had made it into the burial chamber from above

its age, which based on the last entry was over three hundred years ago. The paper was yellow but sturdy, and the ink he had used to write was still legible although it

here, man?” | whispered, glancing

I read the

finally breached the innards of what appears to be an old temple of some kind. It took all of our tools, plus some fashioned from split and broken rock fragments, to loosen the stone blocks these ancient people had somehow carved and placed in a puzzle -like pattern, making it nearly impenetrable. Casimir has called off any further exploration for the day, as it is now raining harder than I’ve ever seen it and our site is flooding, but I am hopeful that our party can go

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