The Alpha's pretend mate

chapter 25

AVELORA

I hated the smell that filled my nose as I came to. It was an ancient earthy smell, like decay.

I was standing in the same clearing where most of my visions started from.

I saw the chief priestess standing over my mother. The silver blade in her hand glowed in the dim moonlight, the blood at the tip dripping onto the body on the ground.

I tried to scream as the blade descended again, but no sound came out. I watched as the Priestess reached down, her movements cold and clinical, and snatched the crying infant from my mother’s dying grip.

"You don't belong here," the priestess whispered.

She turned and ran. I followed, my feet barely touching the forest floor as I chased the woman who had just stolen my mother's life. We wove through trees. She was fast, unnervingly fast, until we reached a wall. She stepped through and vanished.

One second she was there, the next, the air shivered and she was gone.

I stopped running. The forest had gone silent. Behind the curtains of weeping willow branches was the mouth of the cave she had disappeared into. There was a faint light reaching out, my fingers inches from the entrance, desperate to see what layinside.

"Avelora! Breathe!"

The cave shattered. The vision dissolved into sparks.

The bioluminescent moss made the wall I was staring at look like it was covered in veins. I sat on the stone dais, my skin still buzzing from the tree's electricity, and looked around. My heart stopped. The jagged archway to the left, the way the shadows pooled in the corners, the rhythmic drip of water from the ceiling...

It was the same. Every stone, every curve of the rock matched the entrance I had seen in my vision. The Chief Priestess had vanished right here.

I choked out a gasp, my lungs burning as they inflated with cold air. The ceiling above me wasn't made of willow branches, it was the glowing wall of what seemed like a cave.

"I had her," I whispered, my voice raw. "The Priestess... she took the baby to a cave."

Khyrix was hovering over me. He looked exhausted and furious. His shirt was torn, and a deep gash on his shoulder was sluggishly bleeding. He looked like someone who had just crawled out of hell.

"You almost didn't come back," he snapped, though his hand was gentle as he helped me sit up. "You almost died."

"I didn't," I said as I stood on my shaky leg, holding him to maintain balance.

A deep growl echoed through the cave wall, causing my leg to give out and I fell against Khyrix. My hand wrapped around his shoulder and he groaned.

"Are you okay? What happened?" It felt like something was pacing in anger above us. Back and forth, left and right, each step causing pebbles of stone and sand to collapse over us.

"What is that and where are we?" I looked around, still watching out for his arm so I didn't hurt him more.

"No, I am not—thanks for asking. Just that the rogue showed up while you were passed out and now it is pacing over us in the cave that has been abandoned for more than ten years."

Good to know he isn't that angry.

"I'm sorry that you had to go through all that, but we need to take care of your wounds.

"Like I said, everything in here hasn't been used in the past ten years. I don't want to use some expired herbs." I nodded, finally taking the cave in.

It was wide. Instead of a natural formation of rock, it looked like it was carved by a perfectionist.

There were silver chains coming out of the wall on the furthest corner. Leathers and whips on a table beside it, a bottle of what looked like poison.

"Okay, so who used this place for b**m?" I chuckled to myself, but Khyrix didn't find it amusing.

"This is no time for jokes, Avelora." I shrugged, my finger trailing the chain on the wall.

"Don't you feel anything touching that?" I pursed my lips, clutching the chain tighter in my hand. "No, Alpha, I don't have a wolf."

"Not having a wolf doesn't make you immune to silver." I chuckled.

"I am practically human." His gaze was intense, almost burning a hole through my carefully forged armor. I mean, I can't even succeed in being a wolf

"What was this cave used for?"

"Endurance training." I raised an eyebrow.

"A training room having one thing that is supposed to weaken you is just diabolical." He shrugged.

My pulse was skittish, my body couldn't calm. Sitting in one place gave me a headache, so I stood again and started pacing the cave.

"Oh, wait—endurance. That is diabolical." I shook my head to exterminate the images of Khyrix being in pain when he had that silver bracelet on.

"So you've trained here too?" He nodded, his breath stalling as if remembering an awful memory. I stared at him, waiting for the rest of the information.

"Yes, when I was ten." My jaw almost fell to the floor.

"You were burned by silver when you were ten." The way he was so casual about it infuriated me.

"Why are you so casual about being abused at such a young age?" Yes, I was also an outcast at that age, but the situation was different. He was supposed to be the one born with the world at his fingertips.

"You were supposed to be running around with your teeth missing and no care in the world, not in some horror cave being burnt by silver." My chest heaved as involuntary images of a younger Khyrix in those chains while being tortured with those devices flashed through my mind.

Khyrix had gotten in front of me, a small smile playing on his lips.

"It was my duty. That was the system." I cooled my eyes, he was making excuses for behaviors that couldn't be excused.

"They could have had a better system."

"They couldn't change it."

I exhaled. "But you are trying to change it and escape it." His eyes met mine, studying and assessing. "I know you're not the best person out there, but I don't see you doing this..." I gestured around "...any of this to anybody."

His gaze softened, the corner of his lips twitched as he pulled me closer.

"I think just seeing you this angry in my place is enough."

He hugged me, his arms wrapped around me—a warm embrace that made me nuzzle into him more. "Thank you."

I don't know what he was thanking me for, but I knew the contact was sending me into a frenzy. I couldn't think straight anymore, my body was burning in every place we made contact.

I pulled away and cleared my throat.

"How long do we have to wait?" Khyrix looked up, listening in to the footsteps.

"I don't know." Good to know we were both stuck here under uncertain conditions and with the knowledge that this cave might collapse on us if the rogue kept that up.

"What did you see?" He asked. He was doing that thing again, where he stares at me so intensely I had no choice but to fess up.

"Nothing really, just the same thing." I lied, my voice trembling slightly. "The mother, the Priestess, the baby. It was all a blur of noise and light. I couldn't make sense of it." His eyes didn't leave mine, studying me with an intensity that was rendering me paralyzed. I have been able to keep my sanity because I avoided contact with him and stayed out of the room as much as possible.

He knew I was holding back. I could see the suspicion ripple across his face, the way his jaw tightened as he searched my eyes for the truth. For a long second, I thought he was going to demand the truth, to use that Alpha authority.

"Okay." He finally backed down, his attention back to the thing pacing above us.

It wasn't like I wanted to lie to him, but not knowing things was better than knowing the wrong version.

I wouldn't believe it either if someone said it to me.

The growl on top grew heavier, but then something shocked me.

The rogue began to walk away from the entrance.