Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder
Chapter 291

Chapter 71: Trapped in the Desecrated Grave

Troy

I shook out the pants I had been wearing before I shifted, sliding what was left of them over mylegs. My shirt was a goner, torn to shreds from the sheer size of the beast that came into play whenMaeve collapsed in my arms and Damian made his move.

Thad done what I could to protect her, but Damian had planned for everything. I reached up totouch the gash on my shoulder, the skin prickling with heat as I ran my fingertips over the wound,wincing at the pain. A silver knife of some sort had been thrown, missing my throat by inches andlodging itself in my shoulder, knocking me off balance and giving Damian an opening to grabMaeve and move out of the way before Rex brought the whole damn tunnel down over my head.Bastards.

Rex had, however, dropped the lantern during his mad dash to the tunnel’s opening. I picked it up,wiping dust from the plastic cover that housed a battery-powered lightbulb, and looked over thetangle of rocks and splintered wood that was standing between me and saving Maeve.

I said a quick, somewhat sarcastic prayer to the Moon Goddess, asking her to keep the lantern litsince this was part of her predestined grand master plan. Then I turned toward the darkenedrecesses of the tunnel that led back into the wide, triangular room that Damian had torn to shredslooking for the moonstone.

Someone else had been inside the tomb, and they hadn't used the entrance.

That meant there was another way in, and out.

I set the lantern down and pulled on my boots, looking around at the walls of the tunnel. They wereetched with symbols from a language long forgotten. I had seen some of it on the map but couldn'tmake sense of any of it. Whatever I was looking at was totally and completely useless to me now.“F*ck,” I whispered as I stood to my full height, wincing as my shoulder throbbed and blood beganto trickle down my chest. Had the knife landed a little lower, or a little higher, I would have beendead in an instant.

The only solace I had was that Pete hadn't been in the clearing when the tomb’s door came down.He was gone, and I could only hope that he had gone back to camp to get help.

I began to walk forward into the tomb, taking my time to peer at the symbols and the contents ofthe many broken vases and clay pots. I was surrounded by gold, a true pirate’ s treasure, andcouldn't help but smirk as I picked up a small but heavy golden icon of what looked to be a manwearing a low, flowing cloak. I slipped it into the pocket of my jeans and tightened my belt againstits weight. I'd give it to Keaton to sweeten the apology he would no doubt be expecting for themess I had led him into.

I didn't know how much time I had spent milling around the room, kicking clay and sifting throughpiles of sand that had filled the vases. It wasn't until I found the altar that I realized we hadoverlooked something major, something Maeve had mentioned in the many stories she had toldme about her parents over the course of our journey. Something about a flower, but a specific one.I knelt and ran a finger along the carving of a lily at the base of the altar, tracing the stem to wherethe altar met the cracked tile of the ground. “A moonlight lily? Is that what it was called?” I askedaloud, looking around as if the Moon Goddess was going to appear before me and answer myquestion.

Maeve had told me the story of the battle, which had been one of her favorites when she wasyoung. Her mother needed the flower to save her father's life, and it only bloomed at a specifictime, under a specific moon.

And Rosalie’s blood had been needed to activate whatever powers the flower held.

"Well, why not-" I pressed the palm of my hand to my chest, the blood oozing between my fingersas I pulled it away and placed my hand firmly on the carving of the lily. I didn't have special blood, Iknew that much, but I had nothing to lose at this point.

I stood there with my hands pressed against the altar for several minutes and nothing happened.Frustrated, I pushed my hand against it with all my might, grunting with effort before pulling myhand away.

The altar had moved, shifting a fraction of an inch across the tile, a puff of dust in its wake.

I stood, using all of my strength to push against the altar with my full force, straining against thesheer weight of what must have been a solid chunk of granite. The altar crunched and splintered thetiles as it slid across the ground, revealing part of a trapdoor.

“Great,” I huffed, catching my breath. I wiped sweat from my brow and ran my fingers through myfilthy, dust covered hair. I felt like a little boy, bursting with childlike

anticipation as I pushed against the altar once more, revealing the trapdoor in its entirety. The woodwas ancient and broke easily when I slammed my foot through it, revealing a staircase leading downinto nothing but darkness.

I held the lantern over the hole, noticing a set of shoeprints in the thick layer of dust covering thestone steps. Someone had walked up and down the staircase several times, always stopping roughlysix steps away from where the trapdoor used to be.

My chest tightened with anxiety as I looked at the prints, knowing with all of my being thatsomeone had been trapped down there, much like I had been trapped in the main part of the tombmyself. I swallowed my fear and stepped down into the darkness.

The skeletal remains of the man were resting against the corner of the square room. In the center ofthe room was an open sarcophagus made of pure granite, its lid broken into pieces on the groundat my feet.

I was having a hard time catching my breath as I looked from the sarcophagus to what was left ofthe man who had gotten trapped within the burial chamber of Lycaon himself. What a way to die. Ididn't like this, not one bit.

I stepped forward, peering gingerly into the sarcophagus and let out my breath when I saw it wasempty.

Goddess, what the hell was I doing in here?

I moved toward the skeleton, holding my lantern up to look down on the man, or what I assumedhad been a man at one point. His clothes were nothing but decayed rags now, hanging off of hisbones. One of his hands was clenched into a fist, and the other held what looked like a book.

I stooped, biting my lower lip as I carefully and gently took the leather-bound book from his hand.I jumped to my feet as his bones gave way, splintering into a heap of bone fragments and dust atmy feet.

“Sorry,” I whispered, wincing as his skull slumped forward and his hat fell off. I picked it up, dustingit off on my pants before placing it back on his head.

I gave the skeleton once last, weary glance before ! slumped against the far wall and set the lanternon the floor. I looked around, seeing no other way in or out of the burial chamber than the stairs.That meant the dead man had made it into the burial chamber from above and had beenpurposefully left down here. How he had gotten into the tomb itself was a mystery.

I dusted off the book and opened it, replaceing it in a fairly good shape for its age, which based on thelast entry was over three hundred years ago. The paper was yellow but sturdy, and the ink he hadused to write was still legible although it had faded to a pale gray. I scanned through it, readingwhatever pages weren't stuck together, and found out the dead man’s name, Charles

"How the hell did you get in here, man?” I whispered, glancing over at him.

Then I read the letter.

May 1: Casimir and his crew have finally breached the innards of what appears to be an old templeof some kind. It took all of our tools, plus some fashioned from split and broken rock fragments, toloosen the stone blocks these ancient people had somehow carved and placed in a puzzle -likepattern, making it nearly impenetrable. Casimir has called off any further exploration for the day, asit is now raining harder than I've ever seen it and our site is flooding, but I am hopeful that our partycan go further into the underground dwelling by daybreak.

“May 5: The rain has finally stopped, but now we are down five crewmen. A strange sickness hasgripped the camp, and it has taken some of our best archeologists into early graves. At first, Ibelieved what the camp doctor told us; it was only a flu. But the men who died were the ones whohad removed the stones blocking our entry to the temple. I mentioned that it was odd but wasdismissed by Casimir. He is ready to continue exploration of the site and is sending some meninside the temple in the morning. I must go with them, as I am the only one who can read theancient Lycaonic script found all over the site.

“May 6: To whomever is reading this, heed my words. Whatever is inside of this temple is cursedbeyond a reasonable doubt. No sooner did we breach its walls into what looked like an ancientroom for worship did two of our men succumb to fits of tremors so violent they cracked their skullson the tiles, killing them almost instantly. Had it only been one man, I would have had my doubts,but two was proof enough that we were not meant to be inside these walls. Casimir wouldn't hearmy protests, and instead pushed forward. He bypassed the riches in plain sight and began toroughly dismantle the altar, pulling it from the very ground. Again, my words of harsh reproachwere cast aside, and within an hour his men had pushed the altar sideways, revealing an entrance towhat I now call the stairway to hell, to my own demise.

“Oh, how I wish I would have listened to my instincts that begged me to turn and run from not onlythe temple but the island altogether. But I was just as greedy as Casimir. I wanted to know what laybeneath this ancient city. I needed to understand the ways of these people, long lost to time. Butthe second I laid eyes on the resting place of what I knew was once a cherished Alpha, all was lost.“They desecrated his grave, smashing the lid of his tomb into pieces and plundered the jewels thatonce hung around his neck and fingers, his body long turned to dust. All that time left behind werelinens so ancient they disintegrated in one’s hands. I realized at this point that Casimir was lookingfor something specific and had yet to replace it, because he had grown desperate, and was barkingorders as though I were one of his warriors and not a man of knowledge.

“Gentle reader, I leave out the next passage to spare you the details of an event I do not have wordsin which to describe. All I can say is that I woke up alone, locked in, nothing but a single candle tolight up the eternal night and a silver dagger lodged in my side.

'l am dying, and it will not be slow, for which I am grateful. I had only the strength to walk the stairsto confirm the worst, that Casimir had abandoned me. But see here, in my hand, the stone I havefound. How imperfect the shape, as though it was once a stone much larger, having lost a piece ofitself. I found it in the belly of the rags left behind by its once majestic owner. Had he swallowed itto keep it hidden? Why be buried in such finery yet hide such a strange gem within oneself? Buthere I am, talking in riddles.

“May 7: My dearest Mary, know that I love you, my darling. Know that someday, in another life, wewill reunite. Callum, my son...

The journal entries ended abruptly; the ink smudged as though Charles had died while writing hislast entry. My heart was in my throat as I looked over at him.

“I'm so sorry,” I whispered, rising onto my knees. I picked up the lanterns and stood, adrenalinesending prickles of heat through my fingertips as I made my way towards Charles.

They had come in through a wall in the room above my head, likely through another tunnel. I hadn'tnoticed a doorway, or even a hole, during my exploration of the area, but if they had brokenthrough it once, it was likely in a fragile way already. I could get out. I would get out.

But first I knelt beside the dead man, holding the lantern over his remains. The silver dagger wasbehind him, hidden by a piece of fabric.

“I'll tell your story,” I said earnestly, taking the dagger by the hilt and looping it through my belt.The bones of one of his hands remained intact, wrapped tightly around something in his palm. Itook a deep breath, then reached out to take hold of the small stone glimmering in the lantern lightas his bones fell away at my touch.

I held it up to the light.

A moonstone.