My Hockey Alpha

Chapter 236: The Search for the Dark Princess

Nina

With one last teary-eyed look at my friends, Enzo took my hand and we stepped through the portal together.

When we came out on the other side, we were in a different place than before. I still hadn’t perfected my portal skills, and so I had no way of knowing where exactly a portal that I made would open to. This time, we weren’t even in the forest.

In fact, as I looked around with confusion, I saw that we seemed to be on the outskirts of a town.

“Where are we?” I asked, glancing around at our surroundings with my eyebrows scrunched together. “This isn’t the forest.”

Enzo looked around as well. “I know this town,” he said. “But… It’s several hours away from the Alpha King’s mansion. Even longer on foot.”

I felt anger begin to bubble up inside of me, and I cursed annoyedly. This was supposed to be simple. I was supposed to get as close to the Alpha King’s mansion as possible so I could get all of this over with quickly, but now we were stranded far away from the mansion with no vehicle. The town was small, too, and appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. In fact, the town was hardly even a town at all; it was more of a roadside pit stop than anything. All I could see was a gas station, a general store, a bar, and a few houses. Mountainview was tiny, but this place made it look huge.

“It’s alright,” Enzo said, although I wondered if he truly meant that or if he was just trying to make me feel better. “Let’s go and ask around. Maybe we can find a ride.”

I didn’t think that anyone from such a small town would be so willing to give two strangers a ride to the Alpha King’s mansion, but it was too late. Enzo was already pulling me toward the gas station.

middle of the desert. The energy was the same, however. It was so quiet that I could have heard a pin drop, and there were

looked at us through the window made me

said nervously as he pulled me across the road. “They might

replied

trying to make me feel better, but it actually only made me feel worse. Before, I was worried about getting blasted off the face of the planet by a shotgun, and now I was

I had

small gas station. It had a flickering neon sign in the window that faded in and out, and much to my surprise, the sign indicated that the gas station was open twenty-four hours a day. For

inside of a gas station, and I had to resist the urge to pull my shirt up over my nose. There was an attendant behind the counter — a middle-aged woman with a ponytail and too many wrinkles, probably from all of the smoking — who just stared at us warily as we entered. Enzo, clearly not wanting to raise any alarms, led me over to one of the coolers. He grabbed two bottles of water,

slowly, never breaking eye contact with us. The intense smell of cigarettes was definitely coming from her. It was so strong now that it almost made

Enzo handed

plastic bag from beneath the counter and

sliding up to look at Enzo. She let out a sharp snort. “Ain’t no buses

about a place to rent a car?”

me up and down, chewing a bit of tobacco in

opened my mouth to answer, but before I could, Enzo interrupted. “Listen,” he said, somewhat sternly, “we really need a ride. We’ll pay for gas and for their time. We just

by Enzo’s sudden demand, and looked him up and down in the same way that she looked at me. She looked like she was about to tell us to fuck off, but