Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder
Chapter 618 - 121 : The Mark is Gone

Chapter 618: Chapter 121 : The Mark is Gone

*Xander*

“Xander!”

I swung wildly into the dark, my clenched fist meeting with the side of someone’s jaw. My knuckles cracked against bone, my skin splitting with the impact. I roared with fury, fear, and pain.

I couldn’t see anything. Why couldn’t I see anything? Someone was holding me down, voices erupting nearby, all around.

“Sedate him–”

“Stick him with that needle, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do!”

Adrian’s voice rang through my ears, and I gasped, bucking against whoever or whatever was holding me down.

“I can’t see,” I rasped, whipping my head from side to side, “Adrian!”

“I’m here, Alpha.” I felt Adrian’s grip on my forearm and momentarily relaxed before reality rushed back to me, taking my breath away.

I thrashed against what felt like several people holding me down, the voices surrounding me now shouting in desperation to be heard.

“Xander, listen to me–”

“Where is Lena? Where–where am I?” I cut Adrian off, unable to hide the panic in my voice.

I felt a gentle touch against my cheek, someone with soft, feminine hands. For a moment I thought it was Lena, my heart skipping a beat and then breaking as someone else’s scent hit me.

“Take a breath,” Rosalie whispered, and I did, my body surrendering to her words while my mind fought against them. She reached to the back of my head and fumbled in my hair for a moment, then I felt fabric slide loose and graze my cheekbones as light flooded my eyelids.

I blinked frantically to adjust to the bright light overhead, some kind of lamp shining directly in my face.

My eyes began to adjust to the light as several shadowed figures hovered over me, their faces blurred and distorted.

“Are you going to freak out if we let you go?” Rosalie asked lightly, her voice warm and motherly as she gently tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear.

I shook my head, or attempted to, the act sending a ripple of searing pain down my spine. I felt everyone holding me down ease up on their grip, and I shot straight upward in a seated position, screaming in agony.

“Damnit–his sutures!”

“Xander, lay back down!”

“Xander, listen to me–”

I couldn’t differentiate the voices around me as my mind spun and my vision blurred with black spots. I fell back again, panting as heat coursed over my skin. I felt everything–every scratch, every bruise, every break... every bite.

“The Night Realm–” I choked.

Rosalie shushed me as though I was a sleepy child, her touch the only thing keeping me shaking uncontrollably.

“You’re in Breles, Xander.”

Oliver. Oh, my Goddess, that was Oliver’s voice, muffled and wet like he was speaking with a mouth full of water. I blinked into the light, my vision clearing enough to catch a glimpse of him standing behind several unfamiliar people. He was pressing an ice pack to his jaw, his skin sporting a deep purple bruise around the white plastic holding the ice.

“Did I punch you?” I asked stupidly. My ears began to ring violently, and I couldn’t hear his reply, but based on the look in his eyes, I was sure that I’d split my knuckles open on his jaw only minutes ago. “You’re alive.”

“Unfortunately–ow!” Oliver hissed as he was nudged hard in the ribs by none other than his mother, who was hovering next to him, pale as a ghost.

I looked around the area, noticing the shredded canvas ceiling. I could see the stars above me, the sky fading into dawn. I was in a tent–one of the war tents in the camp in Breles. I was... I was in a healer tent, surrounded by....

I locked eyes with a man dressed in a white coat soiled with blood. His eyes were narrowed on me, but not in a menacing way. He was watching me closely, scanning me from head to toe.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when I looked down at my body. I gasped, then panicked, and hands came flying to hold me down again as I struggled to catch my breath.

Thick, black sutures ran from my wrists to my forearms. Gauze covered my legs, soaked with blood. My chest was bare and wrapped in criss-crossed bandages. I didn’t know what my face looked like, and maybe it was a good thing, because when Adrian let go of my arm again I reached up to touch my cheek, then my forehead, and felt along the thick bandages wrapped around my skull.

I’d been shredded. I’d been flayed open.

“You’ve had three doses of my blood,” Rosalie said, giving me a weak smile. “It... it kept you alive–”

“What the fuck happened? How did I get here?”

“It’s a long story,” Oliver huffed.

Adrian shot him a careful look, and Oliver’s eyes dropped to the floor.

“Where the fuck is Lena?”

“Luna,” came a male voice from just outside the tent.

Maeve’s head whipped in his direction and she stepped away, speaking in low tones as she retreated out of sight. Through the ringing in my ears, I could hear the sounds of a distant battle. I thought....

“The portal is closed,” Oliver said flatly, his voice void of emotion.

“Lena–”

“Me,” Oliver said sharply, his eyes fixed on mine. He straightened up, something flashing in his eyes that I didn’t recognize as he held my gaze for a moment longer, then he walked away, pushing through the crowd of people who were gathered around the cot I was laying on.

Adrian’s hand clutched my shoulder; his face turned to watch Oliver go. Everyone was silent for a moment before the healer cleared his throat. “I really need to continue patching him up,” he said, every word laced with annoyance. I hadn’t registered the Egoren warriors standing in the group until Adrian tilted his head toward the tent flap, and six men walked outside–guards. They had been here to guard....

“The vampires are still here–”

“We’re taking Breles back,” Rosalie replied, nodding at the healer, who turned his back to us and began rifling through a cart of supplies. “It’s nearly morning. It won’t be much longer until we can... until we can announce a victory.”

I felt a pinch, and Adrian snarled audibly as the healer, who I hadn’t seen step toward me again, retreated a few steps, a syringe in his hand.

“I just fucking told you–” Adrian growled, nearly foaming at the mouth with rage.

“He can’t be awake for this,” the healer replied flatly.

I swallowed against the panic rising in my throat as I painfully turned my head to look up at Adrian, who was seething.

“For what? What–”

Fatigue was rushing over my body, threatening to take me under. I fought against the darkness creeping into my mind, the numbness making it hard to breathe.

It might have been instinctual, or maybe habit, but before I succumbed to sedation, I reached up to touch Lena’s mark on my shoulder.

Pain flowed beneath my gentle touch. I met nothing but open flesh, and oozing wound.

“No!”

“Close your eyes, Xander,” Rosalie said, her voice trembling with emotion.

“No...” My voice was nothing but a strained, forced whisper. Through the numbness taking over my body, I could feel the anger roiling. Her mark, her mark that had cemented us as mates–it was fucking gone, cut out of me, torn from me.

I opened my mouth as the light above me began to fade. I might have screamed. I might have roared like the wolf struggling to gain control inside of me.

***

“When is he returning to the camp?” I asked the healer, a different one from the man who’d done his best to sew the gaping hole in my shoulder together only hours ago.

The new healer, an older woman with a round, somewhat plain face but striking dark brown eyes, only shrugged at my inquiry. “This is war. There is no schedule,” she replied tersely, motioning for me to relax so she could redress the bandages covering my body.

“I need to speak to him,” I said through gritted teeth as she pulled the blood soaked bandages from my chest, revealing deep, jagged puncture wounds–bite marks, hundreds of them, all over my body.

“Like I said an hour ago,” she breathed, annoyance flashing behind her eyes, “I don’t know when he’ll be returning.”

I exhaled, nostrils flaring as I relaxed against the pillows, tapping my fingers on the side of my cot and wincing as she not-so-gently splashed what felt like a bucket of rubbing alcohol over my wounds.

“Fuck!” I hissed, but she didn’t bat an eyelash.

She looked like she’d seen worse, much worse.

I turned my head toward the tent flap as the opening darkened, and Rowan stepped forward, his eyes bloodshot and edged with black circles. He looked like hell. He looked like he’d seen hell for himself. He also didn’t look thrilled to see me.

“I’ll let these air out for a while,” the healer said curtly, casting me a sharp-eyed glare before she walked away. She bobbed her head at Rowan before disappearing through the tent flap.

I would have made a comment on how much this new healer despised me, but there was no humor in this situation whatsoever. Rowan looked pissed, and he roughly grabbed a flimsy wooden stool from the side of the tent and took a seat next to the bed, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Where is Lena?” I asked before he could say anything. His eyes darkened, his chest heaving a breath that he blew out through his teeth.

“Not here,” he said, his blue eyes meeting my own. They were Lena’s eyes, but a deep cobalt that shone like gems in the afternoon light pouring through the shredded ceiling, not the pale gray I loved.

“What do you mean, not here?”

“She didn’t make it back before....” Rowan struggled to finish the sentence, his face falling with an describable pain that tore through me.

“What?” I choked. “No–”

“I don’t know what else to say,” Rowan said, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat, standing up and turning toward the tent flap. He hesitated, his fists clenching and unclenching as though he were about to say something else.

“What happened?” I asked, but my words fell in the stale air.

He was already gone, the tent flap rustling as he brushed past.

I heaved another breath and strained against the stiffness in my legs as I twisted in the cot and got my feet on the ground. Pain, that was it. It just hurt. Nothing was broken. Nothing was so severely wrong that it wouldn’t prevent me from walking out of this tent and grabbing the fucking Alpha King of Valoria by his collar.

But something had been severely wrong. I could feel the remnants of death lingering in my body as I stood, swayed, and caught myself on one of the posts holding up the tent. I knocked over a cart of medical supplies as I swung a barely functioning arm toward a stack of pants and shirts, likely for the healers to change into, but I didn’t care.

I dressed, much slower than I would have liked, and the shirt grazed against my wounds as I pulled it over my head.

I was barefoot, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything but finding out where my mate was, and how the fuck I ended up here when she hadn’t.

I staggered out of the tent, momentarily blinded by the afternoon sun that was beating down on the camp. It was... warm, very warm. And as my eyes adjusted to the sunlight, I noticed flashes of green grass creeping along the edges of the tents.

Spring.

But, it had been... it had been early April when Oliver and I went to Crimson Creek. How long had I been out? This far north, spring shouldn’t have arrived until at least late May.

Based on the way my muscles protested my staggering limp away from the medical tent, it had been a while.

“Xander.”

I turned around, nearly falling over out of shock.

An old man walked up to me, steadying me with a hand on my elbow.

“Henry?”