My Fated Mate Can Have Her-Chapter 202: Underground City II

Violet

I paused, stunned. "Underground?"

He didn’t seem to even be listening to me, he was already mumbling.

"I didn’t sense them before. Even now. What could be causing..."

I frowned. "You’re not making any sense."

Rowan immediately shook his head. "I’m sorry." He paused, still staring at the map. "There are wolves right underneath us, but I don’t even sense them."

The wind picked up, rustling the sparse grass around us. I shivered, even though I wasn’t cold.

Now that he mentioned it...

That wasn’t the only issue here. My sensory abilities weren’t just limited to sensing wolves or nearby living things or threats, but also the environment. And at the moment, on this very ground we were standing on, I could not sense anything underneath my feet.

Almost as if the very rocky ground itself was repelling any force to even know what type of soil or minerals were hidden within the rock.

Whatever it was, it was also likely blocking Rowan from sensing the wolves.

The ground was acting like a barrier.

"I have heard of some stories," he started, his voice lower now. "Old ones. About packs that withdrew from the territories. Happened centuries ago though. Then rogue wolves and outcasts mostly rejecting the system entirely and vanishing to occupy inhabited or undiscovered areas... not the neutral zones." He started folding the maps slowly, lost in thought, "They might have been myths or have elements of truth to them, but I had never considered some could be underground."

My pulse quickened.

"You said centuries. That means they’ve been hidden for a long time," I whispered, closely watching Rowan. "Long enough that even the—other Supreme Alphas don’t know about them?"

Rowan was still crouched low, holding the folded maps in his grip as he appeared to be thinking.

"I would like to see this civilisation." He finally looked up at me. "I hope you don’t mind."

I faltered. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about this place, especially as to why I couldn’t sense what was underneath out feet.

"If they’ve hidden this long, I don’t think they would take kindly to being discovered." I shifted.

His brows rose. "That’s true." He stood up. "We should just—"

"We can still go," I quickly added. "It might be possible I could learn something about Lycans. Maybe a few of them could possibly be in hiding there too."

My eyes widened just as I finished speaking. Rowan looked surprised too.

I hadn’t thought of that detail until this very moment, and it was ridiculous how I was just realising after stating it.

"That is... a fair point," he answered. He then straightened, moving to the floating bags to put the maps back in.

He turned to me. "I promise, we will be careful. It’s a bustling city down there so blending in should not be much of an issue."

We stared at each other and without another word, he started walking towards the cluster of boulders near a set of trees and bushes. After a moment’s hesitation, I followed him.

The gap in the rocks was barely visible until we were right on in front of it.

It looked like a natural fissure, a crack in the stone that might have been caused by an earthquake or centuries of erosion. The opening was narrow, barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through, and it sloped downward into darkness.

Rowan crouched beside it, peering inside.

"This is it," he said quietly. "They went in through here."

I knelt beside him, trying to sense what he was talking about. I extended my syzygy carefully, reaching down into the fissure, searching for any sign of life.

I could feel a bit more here, but what I was sensing felt distorted.

"There is something strange with the rock or the stone," I told him. "Living things aside, I can sense layout of places. The stone is doing something... preventing me from doing that."

"That’s strange." He frowned, placing his hand on the stone and looking closer.

"How deep is it?" I asked him.

"Honestly, a bit deep. It’s tight at first but loosens up the lower we go." He smiled gently. "It’ll be fine."

[ - ]

The fissure was a tight fit. Rowan had gone ahead of me and it was pure struggle having the bags drag along the walls as we went through the small gap. At many points, I was worried he would get stuck due to how big he was, but he managed to slip through.

The stone walls also scraped against my shoulders as we went and for a few claustrophobic seconds, I wondered if we had made a terrible mistake. But then the walls fell away, and I stumbled forward into slightly open space.

It was pitch black, darker than any space I had ever been in due to the lack of light, but I relied on my other senses.

The walls still closed in around us but there was more breathing space.

"Rowan?" I could tell where he was but I still called out to him. My voice echoed strangely off the walls.

"I’m here."

I flinched as his hand consumed mine. My heart hammered in my chest.

"You don’t need to—"

"Be careful, the floor here is slopy."

He started pulling me and I followed, wondering why he was holding my hand in the first place.

The lower we descended, the cooler it became, and the air smelled mostly of earth.

I reached out with my syzygy, trying to map the space around me, but the stone continued to resist. All I could sense were vague impressions, blurred edges that refused to sharpen.

I hated this.

The sloped ground was too smooth in so many places and each time I nearly lost my footing, his grip on my hand tightened, steadying me.

We went on for what felt like forever through twisting paths and turns until the ground vanished beneath us completely.

I didn’t even have time to scream.

My stomach lurching as gravity seized me.

Arms wrapped around me.

Rowan pulled me against his chest, twisting his body in midair so that when we hit the ground, he took the impact.

We landed hard.