Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder novel Chapter 910

Chapter 116: Just a Little Longer

When my eyes opened, they were crusted with dried tears. I rubbed them with my fists and sat up.

It was still dark but completely quiet and still. I sat up and noticed that the door to my room was open. The hall beyond was completely dark.

I shivered and hugged myself. A soft breeze blowing in through the window.

I swore I'd closed that before going to bed....

Someone had definitely been in my room. Quickly, I patted myself down and checked to make sure nothing had changed.

I still had my clothes on, nothing was missing… except the ring that Jared had ripped off my finger.

Sighing, I slowly got up and peeked out my door into the empty, dark hallway. I strained my ears and listened to the mansion.

Silence.

I couldn't hear a thing–no whispered voices, no distant footsteps. I got the sense that the entire mansion was empty.

It also felt like every light in the mansion was turned off.

I stepped out of the room and walked up and down the hallway. All the other doors were closed. I tested one of them and it was locked.

That was weird.

This whole thing was weird.

But it was dark, I was alone, and I was out of my room....

This was my chance to escape. I raced back to the room I'd been trapped in and came to a screeching halt.

Wait, before I ran off, I needed a plan.

Jared was about to do something extremely stupid. Whether it was to do what Hestia wanted or to face off with her alone, both ideas were bad....

I needed to catch up with Jared and Hestia.

Or, maybe I needed to go to the capital and get in touch with my cousin. She could help, and it was only fair to warn the Alpha King and Luna Queen about the potential dangers coming.

They needed to know about Hestia and Aries, especially if they succeeded in their plans.

I shrugged and looked around the room. All I knew was that I didn't have time for both.

Returning to the bed, I sat on the edge and weighed my options. Maybe Jared had communicated some kind of message to me in all the things he said.

I bit my lower lip and forced myself to think about all the things he said.

Automatically, my heart rate increased. I rubbed my chest, trying to soothe it as all the pain rushed back.

He'd been so cruel and violent, like a completely different person.

It was still hard for me to believe he'd acted like that. I closed my eyes against the pain and focused on the words he'd said to me.

Multiple times, he'd mentioned the mansion and me returning to the mansion.

It was the one thing he'd repeated the most, other than not wanting or needing my help… was that his hidden message? Did he want me to go back to the pack mansion?

But for what purpose?

No, that couldn't be the only message. There had to be something deeper.

“Urgh!" I jumped up and started pacing. “Come on brain, work."

I had to think fast. For all I knew, Hestia and Jared were already at the stone circle.

I paused.

But which stone circle? There was one near the packhouse and then there was the stone circle where I was cursed.

They were pretty far away from each other, and if I picked the wrong one, it would be all over....

Had Jared told me which one they were going to?

He kept telling me to go back to the pack mansion. Was that code to go to the stone circle near the pack mansion?

Then again, Jared did know that I didn't like to follow the rules or his instructions. He might have said to go back to the pack mansion so that I'd go to the stone circle where I'd been cursed.

This was impossible. How was I supposed to figure it out and come up with the right answer? He hadn't given me much to go on.

But Jared was going to need all the help he could get when dealing with Hestia. He might have thrown me aside, but I wasn't going to leave him out there to face all this alone.

I couldn't wait around here any longer. I went to the closet and dug around, finding a backpack and some clothes to throw in there. I'd need to stop by the kitchen on my way out and grab some snacks.

I turned to leave the room and light from the open window caught something on the dresser. It glinted brightly.

Gasping, I ran over and picked up my engagement ring....

Jared must have left it for me on the dresser. How else would it have gotten there? Hestia wouldn't have left it; she needed it to complete the ritual and enact Jared's plan.

My heart thudded heavily and I slipped the ring back on my finger.

I held my hand up and examined the ring. It was back where it belonged.

More than that, it was a sign from Jared. He'd left it here so Hestia couldn't do her ritual, which meant that he didn't really want to help her.

He left it to show me that he still cared.

My heart fluttered and I smiled, spinning around in a circle.

This was his plan....

I ran down to the kitchen and stuffed some snacks in my bag and ran to the front door. I pulled it open, my wolf salivating in my mind, ready to shift and track Jared's scent.

I stopped dead on the front porch.

It was Archer. He ran across the lawn toward the mansion.

“Archer?" I squinted into the darkness.

“Eliza?" He slowed down and breathed heavily, catching his breath.

“What are you doing here?" I asked.

The backpack slid down my arm and hung in the crook of my elbow. I adjusted it quickly.

“Jared came here looking for you. He insisted on coming alone but told me to wait three hours and then follow."

A smile broke across my face. “Then he does have a plan!"

Archer creased his brow. “A plan for what?"

“What did he tell you was going on?"

“Nothing. He just took off and contacted me through the mind link to tell me to follow him after a certain amount of time. What… what happened?" Archer's eyes roamed over the quiet, dark mansion.

“Well, Aries and Hestia are working together again," I said. “Aries took me captive to get Jared to come here. Hestia wants him to destroy the bridge between the Light and Dark Realms," I said in a rush.

“Jared wouldn't do that."

“Well, he made it sound like he was going to. Aries went north to meet up with his new army that Hestia raised for him. Jared and Hestia left to… get an artifact to destroy the bridge between realms." I sighed and looked at my feet.

“Eliza, where did Jared go?"

I shrugged slowly. “I don't know. I think he tried to tell me but...."

“What did he say?"

“Okay, I know that Hestia is looking for an artifact in a stone circle. She didn't say which one, and the two I know of are the one near the pack mansion and the other where I was cursed."

“And he didn't give you any indication of which one he and Hestia were going to?" Archer looked at me expectantly.

“Well… umm… he might have."

“Come on, Eliza, think. Whatever he told you would be something only you understood."

I nodded and scratched my chin, thinking through all the different things Jared had said.

It didn't hurt that much this time. With my ring back on my finger and knowing that Jared had a plan, I could think through it all rationally.

I remembered the whispering winds around the stones before the Cryptex came to life and sliced through my hand. Hestia also said the bones amplified artifacts. That would definitely explain that.

My mind kept coming back to his insistence that I return to the pack mansion. At the very least, he wanted Hestia to believe I would go where he said. She would have no other reason to think I'd go anywhere else.

“He wants us to go to the stone circle where I got cursed." I said firmly.

“You're sure?"

“Yes. I thought about everything he said and I'm sure. He knows how much I like to do the opposite of what he says." I grinned.

Archer shook his head at me. “We better get going. Follow me."

He led me away from the mansion, but I knew we weren't going in the direction of the stone circle.

“Umm… Archer, where are we going?"

“The rest of the men are at a nearby encampment. We need to regroup with them and then we can go after Jared. But we need numbers."

“I don't disagree with you on that."

As we went, I thought about what Hestia told Jared he had to do.

“Archer, do you know of anything called the Bones of the First Witch? Hestia said it was some kind of artifact."

“Hmm…" Archer frowned slightly. “It doesn't sound familiar. Are you sure that's what it's called?"

“Yes. I hadn't heard of it either."

“It sounds pretty ominous."

I nodded in agreement. Anything to do with witches, bones, and artifacts couldn't be good.

When we got to the camp, Archer immediately had his men pack everything up. He stuck close to me, and I got the feeling that I was being babysat.

I took that to mean that Jared still cared about me. He probably left instructions with Archer to protect me.

That made me feel a lot better.

As we set off to the stone circle with a large force behind us, I thought of more questions for Archer.

“How rare are moonstones in this realm?" I held out my engagement ring.

“That depends. Some of them are really rare, like the one on your ring. Others are a lot more common."

“And if Hestia wants to use a moonstone to do something like break the bridge between the two realms, she'd need a powerful moonstone."

“Yes, probably one of the rare ones. Moonstones are funny. With a lot of gems, the bigger it is the more valuable it is. With moonstones, it is all about the purity of the stone. Some of the smallest are the most pure, and they are the most powerful."

I thought about what Archer said, tucking my left hand in my pocket. Hestia would be pissed when she found out that Jared didn't have the moonstone.

Then again, this was Hestia. She probably had a backup plan and a whole pocket full of moonstones. She wasn't the type to take chances.

Her desire to have Jared remove my ring could have been her way of making him prove that he was loyal to her.

Just in case, I slipped the ring off my finger–no sense taking it right back to her. My heart was heavy as I handed the ring to Archer and told him to have a messenger get it to the palace. If my parents were still there, then they would know that the ring and the message that came with it were from me.

If Hestia did have spare moonstones, then Jared's attempts to stall her wouldn't work.

“Hang on Jared, just a little longer. We're almost there," I whispered to myself.