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.

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

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

rather impulsive,” Ciana said as she rushed in, seemingly appearing on the other side of the bars out of nowhere. “You had to go and destroy all of

on her face actually made me feel

as bad as

that she was always looking

me. “You’re

shook my head at her. “I don’t think I am.

could finish, I heard the familiar voice of my brother and saw him traipsing over to the other 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

possibility he still had feelings for her, and it made me want to lash out irrationally at him. How

actually work in our favor if

do you think you are? If you’ve made the decision to abandon

address me in such a manner?” he asked me, coming a bit closer. He and Ciana were right on the other side of the bars now. “You’re just a guard,

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

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

And it just so happened that both of them had been standing

her through the bars. She was 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 be able to grab hold

disappeared beneath the floor almost immediately, but Ciana’s hand darted out to catch the lip of the opening. I dropped to 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

That had

***

*Ciana*

refused to open at first. But somewhere nearby, there was definitely a body of

eyes 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

was unbelievable, like 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 this before, and

all around us, and when I tried to get a sense of just how many fireflies

in it, thank goodness, or I likely would’ve drowned. Something told me I had been there a while. Looking straight up, I couldn’t see the hole I’d fallen through.

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

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

are we?” he asked. “What