Sould As The Alpha King's Breeder

Chapter 54: What Happened to Seraphine?

Rowan-Valoria

Boy, did things unravel.

We hadn’t been able to sleep for long before Damian’s warriors found us again. Dad led us deeper into the forest, crossing the river and attempting to back track towards Mirage, but it was too late. The forest was full of wolves. We were two against an impossible force.

“What pack did that woman say she was from?’ Dad said, his voice cracking over the mind-link as we began to climb up the base of the mountains, our paws slipping on the uneven, fragile shale rock.

“Greenbriar, I think,’ I answered, my legs sore and hips aching from the exercise. I ran in my wolf from every single morning and had done so for years. But spending over twenty-four hours as a wolf was causing an indescribable exhaustion and something I had never experienced before.

Plus, I was watching my dad’s plans fall through, and he was pissed. Especially after we crested the top of a cliff face looking over the forest and our plane buzzed the top of our heads.

*Damnit!” he said, turning his head to watch it ascend into the clouds.

‘That was us, wasn’t it

‘Yes, obviously. Come on, we have no choice but to keep going. They’re pushing us into the mountains, and we’re outnumbered-‘

The mountains? What exactly are you planning,

‘I was wrong, Rowan. There’s too many of them. I hadn’t expected Damian to have made alliances with other packs in Valoria, especially without my knowledge. We have to get home

“By crossing the mountains? Are you insane? That’ll take us weeks!”

.

Howling drifted from the trees below as we continued to climb, and I winced, torn between two impossible paths.

How did I prefer to die? Being torn apart by wolves, or dying of exposure in the mountains between the North and Valoria?

‘We have no choice. They’re expecting us to travel through the forest until we reach the Northern Tier. Stop whining, let’s go.’

I followed him up and over another ridge, padding further and further into the clouds until I finally looked down, seeing a full view of what had once been Mirage. Fires burned in pockets across the city. I could see the destruction of the buildings from our perch. And there was the castle, standing like an untouchable fortress amongst fields of golden grass.

And ahead of us?

I looked up where Dad had stopped and stretched his legs.

Nothing but miles, and miles, and miles of stone.

***

One Week Later

the jeans on and tucking in the sweater I had pulled over my head. Dad was lacing up a pair of boots, grimacing as he pulled the

through his teeth as he tied the other boot. We were sore and dead tired, having spent nearly a week trudging through overgrown valleys and over the peaks of

and sharp, uneven peaks. Nothing grew here, and fields and fields of boulders marked our journey between valleys.

in the stiff, unrelenting breeze. The flag of Winter

had marked the entrance to a narrow cave

for a long time, peering into its depths. We didn’t speak as we inspected the bodies, still fully dressed under layers of rotting fabric. He counted them, one by one, and after we found their backpacks, we shifted and changed into the

0.00%

12:250

What

hair. The bodies were nothing by bone by now, and must have been here for a long, long time. But their clothes were surprisingly modern compared to how old

for

mean the expedition you sent out when I was a kid? Really? This is them?” I looked down at the bones at my feet, my stomach tightening as the

back at Gemma, who had tears in her eyes as she watched her mother lead the group. Seraphine had looked back

They never came back.

had dressed in a similar fashion for the journey. It was damn near

cave opening. He turned back, walking deeper into

“Dad!”

going to go far. Look through the packs for anything like flashlights or matches. They had a fire in here, I can see the

as I was told, rifling through each of the backpacks. I collected two matchbooks that were in decent shape and at least half full, and a lighter that was dry, useless. I also found

He had his hands tucked into the pockets of the jacket

could be faster if we found this river. It’s hundreds, if not a thousand miles of mountains and valleys between Winter Forest and Valoria on the east. This was shortly after the war when our planes and boats were in disrepair and supplies were short. We were desperate, and Seraphine, she well. She said halfway through the mountains was a river that she believed linked up with the river that runs through Valoria, through Mirage. She believed she could find it,

did she know there was a river?” | asked. I remembered Seraphine, and she was always a strange woman. Not in a bad way, but in a

matter to me at the time. It sounded plausible. There were warriors that wanted to go, begged in fact. So,

remember them leaving for the expedition. I wanted to

with a sober

whole new world for me and the other boys in Winter Forest. We were the generation born after the war, confined to one place while the adults cleaned up the mess. Suddenly, the small bubble we had been living in had

asked, moving towards the entrance

closer, but for now, we need to find a place to

my head. We had been eating rabbits and ground squirrels for

“Should we bury them,”

Dad said quickly, grabbing the packs as we exited the cave, “We shouldn’t disturb them. I’ll do my best to identify them so I can give their families closure when we return to Winter Forest, but that’s all. I don’t

I was thankful to leave, walking a quarter mile away over the boulders

here,” Dad said, “look for something, anything, we

the uneven ground as I moved through the

the strange landscape and

towards the caves, seeing the top of Dad’s head disappear as he made his way back to the final

to save his daughter, who lost his hold on the castle

dry grass and rose, tucking them under my arm. Then I heard a whooshing sound and turned to

maintain my balance. I could taste

“What,”