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.

the way the stones were constructed both in the walls and the floors that this place wasn’t as solid as it was meant to appear to be. There 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 from the true matter at hand, but I needed to sort it all out because I thought

looking at the different way that the rocks fit together, searching for some sort of weakness, a breach in the strong hold. A few areas 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

side of the bars out of nowhere. “You had to go and destroy all of those rose

made me feel good. What the heck was wrong with

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

she thought I did. I saw the way that she was always looking at

she asked me. “You’re

her. “I don’t

side of the bars to stand beside her. “What in the

me want

would actually work in

the high and mighty 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 you

asked me, coming a bit closer. He and Ciana were right on

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

Ciana’s eyes widen first as her hands went shooting up in the air. Warren’s did, too, but

fell away-it was the floor! And it just so happened that both of them had been standing over the trapdoor

part of the floor that fell away, so I hoped I

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

onto my ass. That had not

***

*Ciana*

ached, and my eyes refused to open at first.

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

fallen into another realm. The place where I was lying was unbelievable, like something out of a dream. I’d been in a few enchanted forests in my time since I loved to chase

in a cave. The walls were high and smooth, with 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 sense of just how many fireflies were flickering as they fluttered by, I

in it, thank goodness, or I likely would’ve drowned. Something told me I had been there a while. Looking

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 face was pale, and his

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

are we?” he asked.