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

jeans on and tucking in the sweater I had pulled over my head. Dad was lacing

his teeth as he tied the other boot. We were sore and dead tired, having spent nearly a week trudging

craters and sharp, uneven peaks. Nothing grew here, and fields and fields of boulders marked our journey between valleys. This hadn’t been what I was expecting. The mountains were far east,

saw a flag. A familiar flag. Waving in the stiff, unrelenting breeze. The flag of

the entrance to a narrow cave

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

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54: What Happened to

by now, and must have been here for a

They’ve been here for

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 memory of their departure from Winter Forest, all of us watching and cheering them on as they disappeared into

watched her mother lead the group. Seraphine had looked back at her,

They never came back.

have been wearing, but they had dressed in a similar

opening. He turned back, walking deeper into the cave where it was dark enough to swallow his body

“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 ash on the

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 a compass and popped

were they looking for?” I asked as Dad came out of the darkness. He had his hands tucked into the pockets of the jacket

it 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

there was a river?” | asked. I remembered Seraphine, and she was always a strange woman. Not in a bad way, but in a way that made me wonder if she knew and saw

were warriors that wanted to go, begged in fact. So,

them leaving for the expedition. I wanted to go

with a sober smile, “You

the other boys in Winter Forest. We were the generation born after the war, confined to one place while the

moving towards the entrance of

now, we

ground squirrels for a

“Should we bury them,”

I’ll do my best to identify them so I can give their families closure when we return to Winter

leave, walking a quarter mile away over

examined the shallow cave. We could fit inside if we crouched and sat, but we couldn’t stand. “We’ll sleep here,” Dad said, “look for something, anything, we can burn. We can’t have a fire inside, but we can

the uneven ground as I moved through the boulders. They

the strange landscape

final resting place of the

Ethan, who likely felt he had failed to save his

tucking them under my arm. Then I heard

I tried to maintain my balance. I could taste blood, feel

“What,”