Sold as the Alpha King’s Breeder by Alice Knightsky
Chapter 191 The Moonlight Lily
“Today is the sixth,” Cerina said. “The sixth of Wheat Month by the ancient calendar.” My breath stuck in my throat, and I braced myself as tears rushed up my eyes. “We have two days.”
Hanging against the cliff, I kept telling myself not to look down, to focus on going up. We were not far from the top. I could do this.
“I don’t understand.” Soren’s voice echoed from below me as he followed me up the cliff, finding holes for his hands and feet. “Why does the Moonshine Lotus have to make it impossible for people to get to it?”
“Moonlight Lily.” Georgia corrected him. “I know you lost to Behar, but did you also lose your mind?”
“Hey, Georgia, I didn’t lose to—’’Soren pulled himself up, and when he finally stepped on a rock and could take a breather, he continued, “—Behar, okay? I wounded him severely. See, at least I am able to come on this trip. I bet Behar still can’t get out of bed.”
Georgia smirked, “You’re able to move around because of Rosalie’s blood.” As soon as she got to the top of the mountain, she offered me her hand. I took her help and finished my last few steps.
“Nice job, Rosalie,” she said, embracing me.
“Thank you,” I told her, but I was so tired that I struggled to catch my breath and really wanted a drink of water.
I couldn’t imagine how the rest of the Drogomor people still had the energy to carry on a casual conversation during this kind of endeavor.
I heard Georgia continue to shout down to Soren. “You were pretty messed up to be honest. Speaking of, why did you come if all you want to do is to complain?”
“Because that jack*ss is also my brother!” Soren gritted his teeth, and with one final pull, he was up on the flat ground too.
In the past day and a half, we had gone through the putrid and disgusting swamp, the forest that was covered by sharp thorns that were almost impossible to get through, and the sheer cliff. Based on the map, we were getting close. Hopefully, this was the last crazy obstacle.
After finding out about the Moonlight Lily’s next blooming time, I left the palace with a small group to pick the flower. Talon, Georgia, Soren, Jace, and another twenty elites from both Drogomor and Winter Forest pack joined me.
I turned down General Vandough’s proposal of bringing a larger team, because while the trip would be treacherous, more manpower wouldn’t be the solution to it. In addition, while King Kai’s side was recouping from the loss from the previous battle, it was still likely that they could attack, and we needed to have enough soldiers on the frontline.
Most importantly, Ethan’s current status was still a secret to the enemies. We couldn’t let them know what had happened. Therefore, we needed to avoid drawing any unnecessary attention to our operation.
Thankfully, the rest of the journey was relatively easy. Finally we reached an open field at the top of the mountain.
Most of the landscape was barren, save for large fields of moonlight stone, glowing white in the bright beams of the orb they were named for.
A few scraggly bushes grew amidst them, their brown trunks twisted, their green branches like crooked fingers stretching out into the open space around them, but there wasn’t much color, and nothing stood out as remarkable or beautiful.
Except for one dark green steam in the middle of the field.
It didn’t look particularly special at the moment, but I recognized the plant immediately. It was the Moonlight Lily.
It was well past dark. A glance at the sky told me we had about half an hour before midnight of the eighth day of the Wheat Month, when the flower would bloom.
We settled in for a quick rest. We needed it because as soon as we got the flower, we’d need to rush back to the palace. The good thing was that it should be much easier on the way back now that we had cleared the hazards.
“Look!” All of sudden, Georgia pointed to the moon.
Everyone looked up, and the sky above us began to darken as the moon took on a tinge of red on one side.
It was a lunar eclipse!
Slowly, the tinge of red increased in size, and the moon seemed to turn to blood as the shadow of the earth came between the sun and the moon.
It was clear why it was called the blood moon as the giant orb hung there the same shade of crimson as the liquid I used to save so many.
I watched as the bright silver glow of the moon slowly replaced by the splendid scarlet. When the color change was completed on the entire moon, it was midnight.
I jarred my head to look toward the Moonlight Lily. The flower was blooming under the blood moon!
As quickly as possible, I grabbed the knife from my pocket and slashed my arm. As my blood dripped into the center of the petals, I cut cleanly through the stem of the flower in its mesmerizing blue glow.
Immediately, the flower took on a purple hue, like the red from my blood had mingled with the blue of the flower, and it was clear to me that this was exactly what I’d needed to do.
“You did it!” Soren whistled.
“Yes, thank the Goddess!” I told him. “Now, let’s get back!”
I grabbed my bag and opened it, getting out the case I had for the flower. I dripped some more blood into the flower before I packed it away.
Just as I turned around, I saw Talon’s face turn from relieved to solemn. “Wolves are approaching, and they are not friends! Everyone, get ready to fight!”
“D*mnit!” Georgia murmured, “Who the f*ck could it be?!”
“Ha, ha, ha!” A menacing laugh pierced through the night. “Well, well, if it isn’t the little queen who led us right to where we need to go. And it was so much easier for us, too, because they already cut through all the tough obstacles before us!”
Madalynn!
“Look at you, f*cking w*hor*e! Aren’t you surprised to see me?” She continued to glare at me in the darkness.
I stared at her but didn’t speak. How did they know we were here?
Madalynn smirked. “Don’t look that f*cking stupid! Without Ethan, you’re just a piece of sh*t! Now, hand over the flower, and I may consider letting you go!”
My eyes widened. She knew about Ethan, and she knew about the purpose of our trip! Someone… someone betrayed us. Who could that have been?
However, the most urgent thing at this moment was to figure out a way to return to the palace with the flower.
I looked around and tried to figure out our best move. I realized that they had at least three times more men than our meager twenty-member team, and we didn’t know whether they had reinforcements on the way.
We had less than one day to get the flower back to Ethan so that the nectar could be fed to him to help him to wake up. That meant we would all have to kill three of Madalynn’s men each, just to get away. The odds were not in our favor.
But then, I had some pretty good warriors with me, and I knew Talon and Georgia would do whatever it took to make sure that I was able to get the flower back to Ethan. So if we could figure out a way for Madalynn’s forces to be kept occupied while the flower was smuggled back to Ethan, maybe this would work after all.
I returned my attention to the confrontation in front of me just in time to hear Soren taunting our enemy.
Soren provoked, “Hey, Maddy, how’s Behar? Oh, what’s the matter, he’s not here? Aww, what a pity! If you want to save your mate, why don’t you kneel down and beg Rosalie instead? You know, if she’s in a good mood…”
“You son of a f*cking b*tch!! Soren, I’m gonna kill you!!” Madalynn screamed.
Soren smiled carelessly. “Go ahead and try!”
“You guys get him!” Madalynn ordered, and three of her men shifted and darted toward Soren. At the same time, her other wolves also ran toward us while Madalynn herself was charging toward me. The fight was on!
The two sides collided, and even though it was tempting for me to get into the fight, I stayed back. I put the backpack over my shoulder. No matter what happened, I had to make sure it didn’t fall into Madalynn’s grasp.
It was clear that she wanted to taste my blood, but she couldn’t get to me at that moment. “Rosalie, you w*ho*re, now, hand me the flower!”
“Over my dead body!” I exclaimed and shifted.
“You asked for it!” With that, Madalynn shifted and so did I. Just as I was about to fight, Talon leaped out in front of me, with Georgia on his back..
“Rosalie, leave this to us. Don’t forget, you’ve only got one day to get back!”
Although we were outnumbered, I watched as Madalynn’s wolves were torn apart. Unable to get up again, they were left for dead. Madalynn was furious, but even with her helpers, she wasn’t able to break through the defense Talon and Georgia held together.
I shook my wolf head, trying to tell Georgia that I couldn’t just leave my friends and people there, but Georgia shouted again, “We’ll be fine! Trust us! Soren, you go with Rosalie too!”
A mournful howl went up from a few feet away, and I saw that Madalynn had her snout pointed to the moon, howling in anger and frustration. While it was true she still might’ve been able to stop me from taking the flower to Ethan if she had more troops with her, our side was stronger, and her forces were depleted.
Soren got rid of the ones he was dealing with and joined me at my side. He nuzzled me and started running back toward the palace.
They were right. I needed to trust my friends and bring the flower to Ethan in time. Otherwise, all of our efforts would be wasted. Also, as soon as I got back, I would need to figure out who the spy might be. We wouldn’t be able to win the war if we were infiltrated.
I took a deep breath, and looked back one more time at Talon, Georgia, and the rest of the group, then turned around to follow Soren.
We sprinted the entire way back except for a few quick stops for water. There was minimal communication between me and Soren since we couldn’t connect through mindlink, I spent most of the time contemplating my action plan when I got back. It was a great distraction to take my mind off my sore legs from running. Both of us were exhausted by the time the palace was visible from afar. As soon as the palace was back in sight and we entered the mindlink range, I slowed down my pace.
I wasn’t planning to actually go back into the palace. Instead, I reached out to Cerina, ‘Cerina, I’m back! But I need you to remain silent and listen to me carefully.’
‘Yes, Your Majesty, I’m listening,’ she responded in mindlink.
Ask Seraphine and Vicky to bring Ethan to me. I’ll wait for them in a cave not far away in the woods outside of the palace. I’ll let Seraphine know which cave to bring Ethan to. But do not tell anyone else I’m back.’
‘Understood.’