Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder
Chapter 1097 - 8 : In the Field of Temples

Chapter 1097: Chapter 8 : In the Field of Temples

Daphne

We had been walking for what seemed like forever that day.

“Let’s stop and make camp here,” Rion said, clapping his hands.

Suddenly the pillowcase was yanked from my head. It annoyed me the way he did that, though I wasn’t sure why. I suppose that he was annoyed in general with me now. The fact that he was my captor soured how I felt about him.

“Come with me,” he said.

I followed him toward a wall, where there was a small ledge that caught my eye at first. He unhooked his backpack from his shoulders and rummaged through it. I glanced around as he dug, looking at the ancient architecture around me. It was all foreign to my eyes, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

“Over here,” he said.

I tore my attention away from the murals and the cornices and saw him sitting on the floor.

He had unrolled a bed roll onto the ground and said, “Lie down and get some rest. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

I looked at the bed roll on the hard ground. I cringed as the image of bugs crawling into my orifices crept into my mind, but I cringed even more when I glanced around at the other gang members who would surround me as I slept. It made me feel gross and exposed.

I shook my head. “I’d prefer not to be horizontal while in present company.”

He looked around at his gang, seemingly confused with my sentiment until slowly, it dawned on him. Then he said, “Suit yourself.”

I walked over to a nearby wall beneath another mural. The art style seemed old like it was from a different world completely, but I found it enjoyable to look at. I sat down on a small bench built into the wall, but as I did, I felt the eyes of my captor on me. I tried to ignore it, but the gaze was intense even though I did not make direct eye contact.

The others dispersed to find places to sleep. Some of them spoke amongst themselves in whispers as they unrolled sleeping bags onto the hard ground. It would be an uncomfortable night for everyone... or maybe they were just used to sleeping the rough way.

All the while, I kept on my toes. The kidnapping and the trip with the pillowcase over my head made me rattled and on edge. I figured that falling asleep might prove difficult.

My thoughts were interrupted by a plastic object hitting my chest. I jumped and caught it in my cuffed hands, then looked down and found it was a packaged protein bar.

My stomach practically screamed at seeing any kind of food and my mouth watered. True, it was not what I normally ate, but these were far from normal circumstances.

I looked up and saw Rion.

He shrugged, nonchalant. “It’s a long walk, and I don’t want you fainting on me. There’s no way I’m carrying you the whole way there. I’m strong, but I don’t need an added burden.”

I nodded and looked down at the protein bar. The plastic glistened under the moonlight. Suspicion crept in at seeing any kind of food coming from him. I felt around the edges to see if it had been opened prior to him throwing it at me, but as far as I could tell, it was unopened. That was a relief. At least there was no way it could have been poisoned.

He stepped closer to me. I looked up to find him handing me a plastic water bottle. It wasn’t normal for me to eat anything in such a cheap plastic container, but I knew those circumstances were anything but ordinary for me.

My mind wandered back to my circumstances and I wondered just how far I had gone away from home. I had thought about it and knew we were just outside the capital, judging by the architecture. Although I had never seen it in person, I saw on old maps a field of temples somewhere between the dark forest and the tunnels. My memory was hazy, though, and I was not entirely sure.

Then, a new thought occurred to me. The walk to the dark forest would be a week, assuming we didn’t encounter too much trouble along the way. Even if I did escape, I knew it would be long hours of running on foot to get to safety.

I needed to conserve my energy if I even had a smidgen of a chance of getting out of that situation. Maybe eating the cheap meal wasn’t such a bad idea, I thought. In any case, it would keep me occupied for the time being and distract me from how bad the situation really was.

I ripped into the energy bar and devoured it like a ravenous animal. It was a little embarrassing how I scarfed it down, even forgetting briefly that he stood there watching me, but I was far removed from the social niceties of palace life. For the time being, I was not a princess but a prisoner. My body had already accepted this fate.

I grabbed the bottle and gulped it, using both my hands like a toddler guzzling it down. After I finished, I took a moment to catch my breath and glanced back at him to find he had another bottle and protein bar ready for me to snatch greedily from his hands.

Before I did so, however, I stopped myself from my baser instincts and looked up at him. His sudden generosity confounded me. I reached out, cautious, fearing he may strike me or grab my wrists and pin me to the wall like he had before. When I saw that it was not his intent, I took the water and food and clutched them in my lap.

Our fingers brushed and I felt something spark between us. It was a small spark, but it was there. Or maybe it was wishful thinking. Before I could say anything, he turned away, leaving me to another animalistic bout of consumption.

I tore through the second package, but then I paused and tried to take my time. I knew it could be a long while before I saw my next meal. I washed it down with another row of long gulps from the water bottle.

When I looked up, he was only a few feet away, watching me. I suddenly felt a pressure building in my lower regions. Great. I awkwardly and timidly smiled at him.

“Hey,” I said.

He nodded, a quick masculine gesture of his chin. “What is it?”

“I need to use the bathroom.”

There was a soft flicker in his eyes before he walked back toward me. “Alright, come on.”

He led me away from the temple, out the front entrance, and onto an old path extending from the temple’s door. The trailhead led us back out toward an alcove of trees where the woods began.

I looked at our surroundings. Beyond the temple, the woods were pitch black. If I had dared to run at this point, I would have gotten miserably lost. There was no way I could run into the darkness and come out unscathed.

Besides, I really did need to use the bathroom.

We walked to a row of trees with trunks thick enough to conceal me, but the idea of pulling down my pants anywhere near him made me uncomfortable, especially since there were gaps between the trees large enough to put a hand through. He stopped and pointed to the cluster of trees.

“Alright, go and do your thing. But, you have exactly one minute and you need to be singing the entire time,” he said.

I turned to him and frowned. “Sing? Why?”

“So I can make sure you’re where you’re supposed to be.”

I wanted to quit the whole thing right there and make a break for it but instead, I nodded and walked behind the row of trees. I pulled down my pants and squatted, then jumped when his voice boomed from behind the protection of the trees, “I don’t hear singing!”

My cheeks flushed and my mind went blank from embarrassment. I wanted nothing more than to be out of this whole mess, but I forced myself to think of a tune. A song from my youth jumped out at me in my mind and I began singing an old nursery rhyme. My voice came out uneven and shaky.

“Don’t be afraid of our sharp teeth,

We only bite when we eat,

We love to play, we love to sing,

We are the werewolves, we are the king”

I felt the pressure in my lower abdomen but nothing came out. I was too scared. I had never done it outside before.

“Thirty seconds!” he barked.

I cursed, interrupting my song, but continued to sing and tried not to think about my situation or what I was doing and pretended I was back at the palace in my proper bathroom.

As I did my business, I considered running away. Although it was dark, there was a chance for me to escape.

“Time’s up!”

His barking urged me to find a way out of the situation. Before I made my way around the line of trees, I found a pile of old bricks lying on the ground. Still humming, I bent down to pick one up. My hand shook and I hesitated, caught between desperation and fear of the consequences of my next action.

“I’m coming for you if you don’t come back,” he warned.

Then I remembered the way he’d forced me against the wall and decided that hitting him was for the best. I waited for him to enter the little alcove where I had relieved myself and sure enough, found his silhouette emerge.

“What’re you doing back here?” he asked. He walked with uneven steps. In the dark, I could tell he was covering his eyes.

I hid the brick behind my back and walked closer.

“Right here. I just got my zipper stuck.”

He paused. In the dark, I couldn’t tell if his eyes were reopened. I erred on the side of caution and assumed they were.

“Well, let’s go back. I’m tired.”

We began walking back to the temple. I hated myself the whole way back for not swinging the first chance I got, but we were still a ways off. My nerves tightened, and I fought myself about whether or not to go through with it.

Finally, I found my next chance. He walked quicker than me and was a few feet ahead. I swung at the back of his head as hard as I could.

My heart lurched a little at the sickening sound of brick smashing flesh. I almost expected him to turn around and pounce on me in rage. To my surprise, he fell forward onto the ground with a groan and a thud.

I let the brick slip from my fingers as I turned on my heel and ran into the darkening forest.

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