Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder
Chapter 846 - 62 : Curse of the Dark Witch

Chapter 846: Chapter 62 : Curse of the Dark Witch

Abe looked like a completely different person without his finery. His fingers were bare, his clothes simple and plain. His royal blue eyes shone against his cream-colored poet shirt, which was tucked into navy blue trousers. Knives lined his leather belt, all of them a similar size and fashion as Jared’s.

I warily sat down on a chaise, watching as Jared and Abe looked over the ancient map I’d stolen from Aeris’s castle, as well as the roughly drawn map I’d made to interpret Jared’s tattoos.

Brandt was standing on the far side of what must have been Abe’s office, staring out the window. It was no longer raining, but a thick fog covered the entire village and the rolling fields of grass beyond.

“She’s right about the pass, right here,” Abe said softly, his finger tapping the map. “There used to be a village here, so there’s a trail.”

I turned away from the conversation, gazing up at the art lining the walls from the baseboards to the ceiling.

“The legend of Draven mentions....”

“It would be here, likely situated between these two mountains.”

“How would we even access it? These mountains are unpassable.”

“Eliza?” Jared said, breaking me from my musings.

I looked over at him, sliding my legs off the chaise as he beckoned me over. I was dressed in a similar fashion to men. Abe made sure everything was fitted to a woman’s body, however. The pants I was wearing fit snuggly but comfortably, and my shirt didn’t drown my body like the clothes I was accustomed to back in his village. Abe eyed me for a moment, but then looked back down at the map, his eyes glazing.

He’d dropped his charismatic act, that princely attitude waning as he ran his finger through his unstyled hair.

“What is it?” I asked, my thighs brushing the table as I stood between them and peered down at the maps covering the space.

Abe tapped a modern map, frowning. “If Myrel is where you think it is, there’s no way we can get to it. These are the tallest mountains in the realm, and they’re covered in ice and snow year-round. I can’t imagine a city being able to prosper in these parts.” Abe straightened his back, groaning softly. “It would have been impossible for anyone to access it or even leave the city.”

“Maybe that’s what Draven wanted,” I interjected, turning Abe’s map so I could examine it properly.

“Sure, but how did people come and go? How was trade–”

“There’s probably access somewhere at the base of these mountains,” Jared cut in, his finger tracing a ling across the formidable mountain range. “Tunnels, caves.”

“Jar,” Abe snorted, shaking his head. “You think these early people had access to the kind of machinery needed to tunnel through these mountains? That’s something even the people in Eliza’s realm didn’t have at the time.”

“The Pack Lycenna settled in a cave system made by a volcanic eruption,” I offered, shrugging my shoulders as I looked between the two men. “Are any of these mountains volcanoes, by chance?”

“This one is,” Brandt said over my shoulder.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I hadn’t noticed he’d come up behind me.

“But it has never erupted, as far as written history goes.”

Jared heaved a breath, shaking his head as he met my eye. “Going on a quest to find a mythical city is one thing, Eliza. But a volcano–”

“It’s dormant... probably.” I gritted my teeth, my skin crawling with the idea that this city had been built inside a tunnel system inside of a volcano. This was getting more and more complicated.

Abe straightened up, his eyes flicking toward the window as he backed away from the table. Brandt turned as well, his cheeks flushing as he followed Abe to the window.

“Lock’s back,” Abe said, turning on his heel and walking towards the door to his office. “Eliza, where is the Cryptex?”

“In my room–”

“Go get it,” he said, his voice void of the warmth it normally carried.

A chill ran up my spine as he disappeared into the hallway. I glanced at Jared, who wasn’t looking at me. He was still peering down at the map.

I ran my fingers over the table as I followed Abe into the hallway. He disappeared down the stairs while I continued forward to the room I shared with Scarlett. She was with Archer and Gage, Scarlett’s son, which I was thankful for. Brandt, Archer, and Scarlett were leaving tomorrow to take Gage back to our village.

Jared, Abe, and I were going north to find out what we could about Jared’s curse.

Tensions were high in Abe’s house today, and with the mysterious Lock returning, I could imagine it was going to get worse.

I found the pieces of the Cryptex and gathered them in a towel before carrying them back to Abe’s office. Lock and Abe were already there, the men standing around the table without speaking. Lock’s strange silver eyes met mine as I walked into the room and I froze midstep.

He produced Jared’s locket from his pocket and set it on the table.

“Hestia is off her trail, for now,” he said to Jared and Abe, but his eyes were still locked on mine.

“Who’s Hestia?” I asked, gingerly crossing the room and settling the towel on the table, using the corners to spread the two whole pieces of Cryptex and the broken shard out so we could view them.

“No one we need to worry about now,” Abe said.

His eyes flicked to Jared, who nodded. I pursed my lips. Unease blossomed in my stomach as I glanced between the men. What weren’t they telling me?

Abe moved toward the Cryptex, his hands tucked behind his back. He’d mentioned he’d been able to feel its powers to me before, and I could see the apprehension in his eyes as he leaned over the table to get a closer look. He reached out, grabbing the locket and rolling it over in his hands. His eyes narrowed. He placed it next to the broken shard, then smiled.

“How long have you had the broken piece, Jared?” he asked without looking up at any of us.

“It was delivered to our village shortly before I left on our bounty hunt for Aeris’s brother,” Jared said, coming up to my side. “I sent our healer out to find out where it came from. I didn’t know it was part of the Cryptex until Eliza–”

“Why the healer?” I asked, cutting him off.

Jared’s hand came to rest on the lower back. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking down at the locket, his brow furrowing.

“What did you do to the locket?” he snapped, straightening up and locking eyes with Lock. Lock’s tongue darted out, running along his lower lip.

“Cleaned it,” he said coldly, the words clipped to a blunt edge. “It was painted–”

“It was my mother’s–”

I reached out to touch it but hesitated. The brassy sheen was gone, replaced by pure, shimmering gold. I could feel it without touching it. I could hear without–

“It was made with the broken piece of the Cryptex, wasn’t it?” I said, meeting Lock’s eyes.

He nodded.

I turned to Jared. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jared was eyeing Lock with marked skepticism. “I didn’t know.”

“Wouldn’t you have been able to feel it?”

“There was a binding spell on it,” Lock said, his voice reminiscent of a blanket of ice fog.

I shivered, holding his gaze.

“Mila broke the spell.”

“You went to the witches?” Jared hissed.

Lock slowly turned to his head to face Jared. He didn’t bother to nod.

“Did you tell them about Jared’s curse!?” I pressed my open palms against the table, my breath hitching in my throat.

If they knew... if they could help us... we wouldn’t need to go to Myrel. We could go straight to them.

“This is ancient power, not magic.” Lock’s voice sent another ripple of ice down my spine. “They can’t help you.”

“What exactly did you ask them to do?” I hissed, growing angry.

Lock didn’t care about Jared’s curse, but I did. I wanted to talk to them myself.

“I told them about you, girl,” he sneered, half of his face shadowed by his hood.

I swallowed hard, steeling my expression. Lock just smirked, shaking his head.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because your presence in our realm is upsetting things–powerful things.”

“Knock off the riddles, Lock. What did you find out?” It was Abe who spoke, his voice slicing through the thick air between our group.

Lock’s gaze settled on mine. “The territories of the west are rising against the King. They are claiming Jared’s wife is the true... Dark Luna.”

Lock lingered on the word wife, which sent a chill up my spine. I hadn’t thought about that little issue in a while–the idea that Aeris and his minions were set to show up at our doorstep expecting me and Jared to be a full-on married couple with plans to overthrow the King.

“Dark Luna?” Abe asked, not a single shred of sarcasm in his voice.

Jared shifted his weight, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked blankly down at the table. I shifted my gaze from man to man, my body tensing.

“What’s happening?” I begged, unease ripping my stomach to shreds. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Draven’s artifact, what you call his Cryptex, is one of three artifacts made with the powers of the Dark Gods, those that came before the Kings who’ve ruled in modern history,” Abe said with no emotion, fingering the corner of a map. “A Dark Witch was in possession of it until–”

“Until my father took it,” Jared said, swallowing hard. “How?” He turned to Lock, giving him an expectant look. “What’s the full story?”

“I only know what the Maidens of the Moon Goddess told me when I asked them to hide the locket, which they obviously refused to do,” Lock waved his hand toward the locket, shaking his head. “They wanted nothing to do with it. They want nothing to do with Hestia.”

“Who is–” I tried to say, but the conversation continued.

“Your father,” Lock sneered, “summoned Hestia, making her desperate promises of power if she helped him overthrow King Sebastian. Even she couldn’t open it, and he was running out of time–”

“The broken piece–” I gasped.

Lock met my eyes again, nodding.

“He broke it open, unleashing the power within it with no way to contain it. Hestia bore witness to that moment, seeing the kind of power it possessed. But the power... it leached into someone else, not the intended.”

An icy chill settled over the room. Jared paled.

“My mother,” he whispered, his eyes flicking up to meet Lock’s. “She was pregnant with me at the time–”

“You were likely the only reason she survived, from what the Maidens told me. You, unborn yet a Dark King by birthright, were able to stifle those powers and draw them out of her after your birth. She wouldn’t have long to live afterward. She died when you were young–”

“Three,” Jared growled.

I laid a trembling hand on his arm.

“That power would have torn her apart. She would have died from the strain–”

Jared turned around and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. I sucked in my breath, turning to Lock and Abe.

“Is Hestia the one who left Jared the Cryptex?”

Abe shook his head, his eyes meeting mine.

“No. She doesn’t want him to put it back together. She wants the curse... which is just... I don’t even know how to explain it,” Abe stammered, running his hands over his face.

“Hestia and Justin made a deal,” Lock began. “If Justin failed, she’d own him.”

“How?”

“By taking his wolf on his twenty-fifth birthday,” Lock said.

The realization struck me like a dagger to the heart.

“Why would Jared–”

“When Justin failed to harness the powers of Draven, Hestia took his wolf. He was weakened, falling prey to his own father. His son, Alexander, was hidden away. His mate ran... and Hestia let her, because Hestia knew that Justin’s mate was with child. Maybe before they even knew about Jared’s existence. That child... Jared... she wants him, Eliza. She knew Justin would fail and without his wolf, he would have just been a shadow, an entity of Lycaon’s power–”

“And she would have been his puppeteer,” I whispered.

“She’s the only person in this realm who can control the powers of the Dark Kings. She can bend that power to her will.”

“So can I,” I whispered, and this time I looked at Abe. He was staring right at me, his face drawn in utter devastation. “What do I need to do?”

“Mend the Cryptex and find a way to lock that power away before it’s too late,” Lock said. “It must be mended.”

“And the, uh, the Maidens? How do they play into this?” I asked quickly, gathering up the Cryptex and locket. I didn’t have time. We needed to go, we needed to go to Myrel–

“They’re the only ones who can protect you from what’s coming, Eliza. They’re the only ones who can protect you from Jared if Hestia’s curse isn’t broken... if the Cryptex isn’t mended.”

Lock’s voice drifted through the space between us, settling in my bones.

“And if we can’t break the curse?” I whispered. “What will happen to him? Will he die?”

“No,” Abe said. “But the alternative is worse, and I will kill him myself before I let that happen.”

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