The Alpha's pretend mate

chapter 30

AVELORA

I shoved my way past the crowded bleachers, barely acknowledging the students who called out my name. Their voices was like a low hum that my brain couldn't process.

My heartbeat was an erratic rhythms against my ribs while my breath came in shallow, brokengasps. I practically threw myself into the thick bush at the edge of the grounds, aggressively hacking and parting the shrubs as I forced my way through.

"Damn it," I groaned in frustration when a stray, stiff branch whipped sharply across my cheek.

Every time my pulse spiked, a wave of disorientation hit me. It felt like I had stepped into the wrong part of the woods entirely. The surroundings felt alien and unnerving yet deeply unfamiliar, which made no sense, considering I had spent more time in these woods than I had actually spent attending classes at the academy.

Although I was completely lost, my feet kept moving on instinct. It was like my body had a map my mind hadn't found yet.

I pushed deeper, breaching the threshold into the forbidden part of the woods.

I turned a sharp right, trusting the strange magnetic pull in my gut as I plowed through dense shrubs that towered over me. I wasn't exactly short, standing at five-foot-nine, but the foliage here felt monstrous, actively trying to swallow me whole.

Finally, the suffocating wall of branches broke. I stumbled out onto the edge of a clearing where patches of grass formed a border.

It was very quiet. The silence was heavy, there were no birds chirping, no insects droninh, it was as if nothing lived here.

I stood dead in the center of the grove, staring ahead as the silhouette of a cave became clearer through the gloom. As I took it in, a cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. Something was different.

This was the same clearing from my dreams, it had the same cold air. But the cave entrance was wrong. The trees at the stone mouth were unfamiliar.

And it was rotting.

A foul, putrid stench hit me. It smelled as if every horrific, decaying scent I had ever encountered in my life had been aggregated into one singular, toxic cloud and hurled directly at my face.

I retched violently, my hand flying up to cover my nose and mouth as my stomach turned completely inside out.

Stepping forward with a grimace, I pulled a heavy, dead branch aside, revealing a rough tear in the hillside. No, it wasn't just a natural cave. The entrance had been intentionally camouflaged by thick, thorny vines that looked like they had been cultivated there on purpose to keep people out

My heart hammered frantically against my ribs. The feverish heat in my veins flared, my body alarming and screaming at me to turn around. 'go back' a voice whispered in the back of my mind. 'turn around right now'

Instead, I stepped inside.

The pale light of the full moon only reached a few feet into the mouth of the tunnel before it was completely swallowed by a darkness. The air inside was freezing. I ran my palm along the wall to steady myself, expecting the cold, damp stone, but my fingers sank into something soft and dry

Fur.

I froze, my breath hitching in my throat. My skin crawled as the reality of what I was touching set in. Trembling, I reached into the small, hidden pocket of my dress, silently thanking the Goddess that the stylist had sense enough to add them, and pulled out my phone. I flicked on the flashlight.

A sharp gasp tore from my lungs, the sound echoing hollowly down the tunnel as the beam of light illuminated the nightmare around me.

The walls weren't bare stone, they were lined entirely with the stretched hides of animals. Worse, several of the massive pelts hanging further in looked suspiciously, terrifyingly like wolves.

In the dead center of the cavern sat a makeshift altar constructed from stacked and bleached bones. Resting on top of the pedestal was a single, rusted iron shackle, and right beside it, a small, hand-carved wooden toy shaped like a wolf.

My stomach turned over. This wasn't a dumping ground, someone or something was living here. The space was organized in a state of chaotic madness. Dried herbs hung in shriveled bunches from the low ceiling, casting skeletal shadows, and the bones on the floor were arranged in a specific, meticulous ritualistic pattern.

Driven by a morbid curiosity, I followed the trail of bones deeper into the dark partr of the lair. The further I went, the colder the air became, and the overwhelming scent of decay began to mix with a sharp scent that burnt my throat.

The tunnel was a dead end. There, carved directly into the rock of the back wall, was a heavy, reinforced iron door. Etched deeply into its center was a stark, stylized symbol.

My blood ran entirely cold. It was the exact same symbol I had seen stitched onto the Chief Priestess’s cloak in my vision.

Creak.

The unmistakable sound of a floorboard, or perhaps a brittle bone snapping under a heavy weight, uhoed behind me.

The terror was so sudden that I couldn't even scream. The air left my lungs in a puff as an overwhelming, predatory presence entered the cave, instantly blocking out what little natural light I had left. A massive shadow stretched down the tunnel toward me.

"You're trespassing," an impatient voice boomed.

Heavy, violent footsteps came stomping down the cave corridor with a terrifying might, each stride hitting the ground so hard it felt like the stone walls themselves were shaking around me.