Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 468

The side passage sloped upward. That was good. Up meant out. But it was also narrow and unstable. More cracks appeared in the walls as we climbed, and chunks of stone fell around us.

But Andrei was slowing down. I could see it in the way he moved, the way he had to stop every few steps to catch his breath. His legs were shaking worse than mine, and there was a glazed look in his eyes that scared me.

“Keep going,” I urged him. “We’re almost there.”

I didn’t know if that was true. I had no idea how far we were from the surface or if this passage even led outside. For all I knew, we were descending deeper into the mountain.

Suddenly, a massive tremor shook the passage. I fell against the wall, scraping my already injured shoulder. Andrei went down on one knee, barely managing to keep hold of our baby.

Above us, I heard a groaning sound–the stones were giving way.

“Move!” I grabbed Andrei’s arm and tried to pull him forward, but he was too heavy and I was too weak. The groaning grew louder. I looked up and saw the ceiling starting to bow inward.

This was it. We were going to die here, crushed under a mountain of stone. I’d killed the King, but it didn’t matter. We were all going to die anyway.

Then I heard footsteps. Running footsteps, coming from somewhere ahead of us.

“ANDREI!” A voice shouted. A familiar voice. Andrei froze, eyes widening in disbelief.

Damon burst around a corner, holding a torch. His mouth and nose were wrapped with a bandana. Behind him were several warriors, all carrying torches, faces covered the same way. Grace appeared at Damon’s elbow, and upon seeing the baby, she gasped and rushed forward. She took the baby and bundled her closely against her chest.

Andrei and I froze. I thought Damon was dead. I thought…. “How-”

“Move, move!” Damon shouted. He grabbed Andrei under one arm while two of the warriors took the other. They hauled him forward, and another warrior scooped me up like I weighed nothing.

We ran. The ceiling collapsed behind us, then beside us. The walls shook so violently I thought my bones might rattle apart. But Damon led us through passage after passage, turning left then right then left again, like he knew exactly where he was going.

The passage narrowed even more, forcing us to move single file. I could feel fresh air now, cold and clean and sharp. We were close. We had to be close.

One final turn, and suddenly I could see light. Real light. Daylight was filtering in through an opening ahead. Damon pushed forward, dragging Andrei with him. The warriors followed, and we burst out of the cave entrance just as the mountain gave one last massive shudder.

The sound of the collapse was like thunder that went on and on. I felt the warrior carrying me stumble and fall, and suddenly I was lying in snow. Cold, white, blessed snow.

I turned my head and saw Andrei collapsing beside me, face–first in the snow. He rolled onto his back and

Chapter 468

+25 Bonu2

gasped. Damon was on his knees nearby, breathing heavily with one hand pressed to his chest, Blood was seeping between the seams of his leathers.

Behind us, dust billowed out of the cave entrance. Then the entrance itself collapsed, sealing the tunnel completely. The King’s palace was gone. Buried under tons of rock and ice. No one would ever find it now.

I crawled over to Andrei. He was conscious but barely, his eyes half–closed. When he saw me, though, he managed a weak smile.

“We made it,” he whispered.

“We made it.” I touched his face, then looked over to see Grace bouncing the baby nearby, bundling her up in her

coat.

“Did you name her?” Andrei asked.

I shook my head.

“Hope,” he said. “I want to name her Hope.”

Hope. After everything we’d been through, after all the death and pain and darkness, we had this. We had her. Our daughter. Our hope.

I smiled.

The world was starting to blur around the edges now. My body had finally reached its limit. I could hear voices — Damon, Grace, others—but they sounded far away. I felt someone’s hands on me, lifting me, but I was too exhausted to tell who it was.

The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was the sky above me, impossibly blue and clear.

Hope.

BIG SALE: 3500 bonus free fou you