The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 289

Where I was found

Where I was found

(sla)

I kept my eyes on Derek. He had known where I was found all these years and had never once told me. That place might still contain something about the wolves who hid me. I needed every detail

he remembered.

“Where?”

Derek looked at Caius before answering.

“South of Ashcrest.”

I waited for him to continue. He explained that there was an old stretch of forest beyond what had once been part of Ashcrest territory. His father had taken him there when he was young. At the

time, Derek hadn’t understood why.

“Did he show you where I was?”

“No.”

I frowned.

“Then what did he show you?”

“A stone entrance.”

That caught my attention. I remembered the chamber Vaela had shown me through the Celestial Stone. Symbols had covered the walls around the place where I’d slept. One of them had belonged

to the Keepers.

“What was inside?”

Derek looked down at the records.

“Nothing when I first went there.”

His father had only shown him the entrance and told him to remember how to find it. Derek hadn’t returned for years. By then, his father was dead and the strange lesson had become another family story he hadn’t expected to matter.

“How did you know when to return?”

Derek looked at me.

“A message came.”

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Where I was found

Caius moved nearer to the table.

“What kind of message?”

“A letter.”

Derek said it had arrived without a name or territory written on it. There had been no explanation

about who sent it. The message contained only a few words telling him that what the Thornes had protected was ready to be collected.

“Do you still have it?”

“No.”

I studied him.

“What happened to it?”

“I burned it.”

Of course he had. I wanted to ask why anyone would destroy something that strange, but the answer probably wouldn’t help us now. What mattered was what happened afterward.

“Tell me what you found.”

Derek looked at Helene.

“She was with me.“‘

I turned toward her.

“You went too?”

Helene nodded.

“I did.”

She came closer to the table but didn’t sit. Her face held none of the confidence she’d once carried in Ashcrest. She looked at Derek before turning back to me.

“When we arrived, the entrance was open.”

I listened as Helene described the place. They had walked through a short passage before

reaching a stone chamber. There were markings everywhere, but neither of them understood what they meant. At the center had been something neither expected to find.

“You.”

My breath caught even though I’d known where the story was going.

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Where I was found

“What did I look like?”

Helene looked at me.

“Like a sleeping baby.”

Three centuries had passed while my body remained unchanged. Derek and Helene had walked into that chamber and found me exactly as Corvin’s people had left me. I tried to imagine what

they must have thought.

“Were I awake?”

“No.”

Derek answered that one. He said I hadn’t moved when he first lifted me from the stone where I’d been placed. For several minutes, he’d wondered whether I was even alive.

“What happened when you carried me outside?”

“You opened your eyes.”

I stared at him. So leaving the chamber had ended whatever kept me asleep. Whoever sent the letter had known exactly when that would happen.

Vaela came forward.

‘The Keeper.‘

I thought the same thing. Someone had known I was ready to wake and had contacted Derek at the right time. That wolf might have been watching the chamber for generations.

“Did you see anyone else?”

“No.”

Derek answered without hesitation. He hadn’t seen another wolf anywhere near the entrance. Whoever sent him there had made sure not to be present,

Caius placed the copied Keeper symbol on the table.

“Did you see this?”

Derek looked down.

His face answered before he did.

“Where?”

I moved the page closer to him.

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Where I was found

“Did you see it?”

“Yes.”

Derek pointed to the symbol. It had been carved above the entrance to the chamber. He’d

remembered it because his father had shown him the same mark years earlier.

“Did your father tell you what it meant?”

“Only that it belonged to the wolves our family answered to.”

I looked at Caius. That was more than we’d had when we arrived. The Thornes hadn’t simply been

connected to Varen.

They had answered to the Keepers.

“Did Garron’s name ever come up?”

Derek looked at the old record.

“Yes.”

I waited.

“My father said Garron failed.”

That surprised me.

“Failed at what?”

“He never told me.”

I didn’t accept that as the end of it. Derek’s father had taken him to the chamber and taught him

about a responsibility that had survived for generations. There had to be more.

“What else did your father tell you about Garron?”

Derek thought before answering.

“That he was supposed to keep the child until someone came for her.”

I stared at him. Garron hadn’t been meant to raise me. He’d only been another part of the plan.

“Then I disappeared before that happened.”

“According to the story.”

That changed how I understood Garron and Elira. Perhaps they hadn’t placed me into the protected sleep themselves. Someone could have taken me from them.

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