Sold as the Alpha King’s Breeder

Chapter 43 The Dungeon

*Theo*

“Where shall we take him, my lady?” one of the guards asked Sophia as I stood in front of them, wearing the torn remains of my guard pants.

Sophia puzzled over me, stroking her chin with one finger as she thought about what to do with me. I knew that Ciana was panicking back behind me in the garden area still, near where all of the shredded rose bushes lay, but there were guards between us.

“Take him down to the basement,” Sophia said. “I saw some kind of cages down there. Put him in one of those.”

I snickered, knowing she couldn’t legally hold me. After all, ‘she wasn’t yet married to the king, so she wasn’t the Luna Queen. She had absolutely no authority whatsoever to take me prisoner or hold me in a dungeon.

But I went along with her, all of it part of the plan.

“You can’t do that!” Ciana shouted.

I turned and looked at her, willing her to be quiet. She had to know by now that I was up to something, didn’t she? The panicked look on her face said otherwise.

Was she really worried about me? That silly woman…

It was nice to think that she might care a little bit about what happened to me, but in reality, she was probably just concerned that we’d never get back to our own reality if I was locked up somewhere and not able to help with our plan.

In the basement, I immediately noticed that it was not a dungeon. There were bars here and there that formed different areas, but I saw telltale signs that this room held lots of secrets. I had to wonder who had lived here before Sophia and what kinds of activities they might have used the area for.

It wasn’t to hold people as prisoners, not for long anyway. Of that, I was fairly certain.

“This’ll teach you!” one of the guards said as he shoved me behind a flimsy barrier of bars.

“Yeah, he’ll die down here! Starve to death!” another one laughed.

They all traipsed up the stairs, and I shook my head. Getting out of there would take me less than five minutes.

But that wasn’t what I had in mind.

was more to it than that, and I intended to discover exactly what it was, even if no one else understood my purpose. It might seem to be a distraction

interested me more than others. I thought I saw a switch mechanism in the floor, but I was afraid to push it because I didn’t know exactly what it did. It would probably be better to do that under

of the bars out of nowhere. “You

look on her face actually made me feel good. What

I addressed her. “It’s not as bad as you think. Didn’t you notice

that she was always looking at every

asked me. “You’re trapped

my head at her. “I don’t think

side of the bars to stand beside her. “What in the world happened?” Warren asked, still thinking he was the king. “I’ve heard Sophia was giving you a hard time.

and it made me want to lash out irrationally at him. How dare

in our favor if Warren was

king,” I said, my eyes narrowing as I felt a darkness settle over my countenance. “Who do you think you are? If you’ve made the decision to abandon her, why are

coming a bit closer. He and Ciana were right on the other side of the bars now.

at him, I approached the button in the floor I’d found earlier, a loose stone cast among the others. I wanted to get out of there so I could teach him a lesson. No longer caring that it would be better to do this behind his back, I stepped on it, hoping that the

saw Ciana’s eyes widen first as her hands went shooting up in the air. Warren’s did, too, but I wasn’t

just so happened that both of them

a bit on the edge of the part of the floor that fell away, so I hoped I might be able to reach her or that she might

my knees and shoved my hand through, straining to reach her. Just as my fingers grazed the back of her knuckles, she lost her grasp and disappeared from my sight with a

I fell back onto my ass. That had not been what I had in mind

***

*Ciana*

the sound of flowing water. My body ached, and my eyes refused to open at first. But somewhere nearby, there was definitely a body

to open, doing my best to ignore the splitting headache that made even the dim, flickering light around me painful. I managed to sit up, pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead, and slowly, I focused, trying to figure out where I

something out of a dream. I’d been in a few enchanted forests in my time since I loved to chase animals and explore, but I’d never been to any place like

a few stalagmites and stalactites here and there. The rich sienna color glowed in the amber lights that flickered off and on all around us, and when I tried to get a

drowned. Something told me I

that I realized that I was thinking “we” because I wasn’t alone. Warren was lying on the ground next to me, and it was clear that his injuries were worse than mine. His

slightly. “Wake up, please. Open your eyes.” I slapped his cheeks a little until he began to blink. Then,

are we?” he asked. “What