Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder-Chapter 1641 - 83 : An Army of Shadows

*Briella*

My heart felt like it had stopped when my eyes landed on Tian. He was pretty far away from us, on the other side of the large building we were peering into, but he was still a terrifying sight.

It was easy to tell that the temple had been abandoned at one point. This whole city seemed to be abandoned. It made me wonder what had happened to all of the city’s occupants. Had Tian done away with them to build his shadow army?

“Briella,” Kryzen hissed, squeezing my hand so hard that I idly wondered if it would bruise later. His shocked sound made my blood freeze. I followed his gaze, tearing my eyes from Tian so I could look at the crowd of people in front of the tyrant.

I nearly choked on my gasp.

The people were all dressed in dark robes. I didn’t recognize any of them, making me wonder where they had come from. They had pasty gray skin, and their hair was in complete disarray. Many of them had matted hair, the strands wild around their heads.

What caused me to gasp was that their eyes were bright red.

I nearly stumbled away from the window and probably would have if Kryzen hadn’t had such a firm hold on me.

Tian wasn’t just creating an army of possessed animal companions. He was crafting a horde of possessed people as well.

Why would he feel the need to do that? Were the animals not enough for whatever horrendous plot he was planning?

A disturbed little voice in my head told me not if he was planning on taking over the entire realm.

I swallowed hard, feeling my heart pounding beating rapidly in my chest. It was making it kind of hard to breathe.

Kryzen squeezed my hand again. When I looked up at him, I saw he wasn’t paying any mind to me. The tightening of his hand was clearly just a reflex, his intense gray eyes fixed on the scene inside the black temple.

“There’s so many of them,” Roy noted, his voice grave. His blue eyes scanned the room as if trying to get a rough estimate of just how large this dark army was.

Krzyen spoke through his teeth. “He must have been gathering them for a while,” he said flatly.

I stared at Kryzen in horror. I recognized the anger in his voice but more so the concern. How were we going to defeat them all? It looked pretty hopeless.

“Silence, my minions!”

Even through the closed window, we could clearly hear Tian’s deep bellow as he yelled. The screeching died down a bit, but it seemed like the soldiers couldn’t quite settle down completely.

Tian’s voice could easily be heard above the shrieks from the soldiers. “You should all be pleased,” he said, his voice close to a sickening purr. “Our numbers are larger than ever. The Embervale scum has no idea of our existence.”

The screeching rose in pitch, sounding closer to a cheer. The dim lights attached to the temple’s ceiling flickered in time with the horrifying noise. Tian straightened, looking pleased by the reaction of the crowd.

“As you know,” he continued, waiting for a beat for the cacophony to die down some, “we have been planning this for some time. It has been our dream to take this realm as our own. With your help, we can make that dream a reality.”

“We?” I echoed. “Who the hell is we? Is he working with someone else?”

Roy craned his neck to look over the crowd. “He could be working with someone else. I don’t see anyone else aside from the possessed soldiers at the moment.”

The soldiers raised their hands, seeming eager for what Tian was going to say next. He didn’t keep them waiting. “You must all remain vigilant,” he ordered darkly. “Continue your training. Harness your energies. The eclipse will arrive sooner than you think, and you must all be at your full strength so that we can take over this realm.”

“The eclipse,” Alyna gasped. Her eyes widened. She lowered her voice, even though there was no way we would be heard above all of the cheering. “But that’s less than a month away.”

Tian’s voice was triumphant as he continued. “When darkness falls over this world, the magic energy will be depleted significantly. It will be our time to shine—our time to rise to glory. We will use that time to strike.”

My head whirled as fear struck through me, leaving me breathless. If Tian and his army struck during an eclipse, we would be at a great disadvantage. I had never experienced an eclipse but heard that magic was significantly weaker during it.

I wondered what we were going to do.

Kryzen cursed under his breath and then started to tug on my hand. “We need to get out of here,” he hissed. “If we are discovered, it could be the end of us. We need to get this news back to the Alphas and Lunas as soon as we can.” 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

We all nodded numbly and hurried off, practically sprinting through the dark city. More than once, I glanced behind us, feeling like we were going to be seen and captured at any moment. Thankfully, it seemed like all of the shadow creatures were in the temple with the rest of them. I wondered what they were doing now. Would they be doing some dark ritual to make themselves even stronger?

We definitely couldn’t stick around to find out.

Kryzen kept a tight hold on my hand. He was talking to Roy, already talking strategy as we raced through the tunnels. I couldn’t really make out what he was saying. It felt as if their voices were getting further and further away.

My mind raced, panic filling me as I pictured the hundreds of soldiers that were in that temple. They were preparing to ambush the entire realm. Were they capable of such a feat? There were so many of them, but the realm was huge, wasn’t it?

I thought about the past couple of times we had been terrorized by the shadow creatures and how ruthless and powerful they felt as we faced off against them. I knew the answer. We were going to need a large, unstoppable force of our own to even stand a chance.

And we had less than a month to gather them.

It felt as if no time at all had passed when we broke through the surface, the cool night air whipping against my face. We didn’t stop once we had burst from the mouth of the cave’s entrance. Kryzen and Roy kept pulling us along. I felt Kryzen’s need to drag me as far away from the land of shadows as possible.

I could see black starting to creep into the edges of my vision as the world tilted dangerously. “Kryzen,” I croaked weakly.

Kryzen still didn’t stop, but he looked over his shoulder at me in concern. “What’s wrong?” he asked gruffly.

I couldn’t answer. The last thing I remembered was Kryzen’s wide gray eyes as I stumbled forward, and my world went dark.

***

Darkness surrounded me along with the terrified screams of my loved ones. They cried out my name, begging me to come save them. Their faces flashed in my mind rapidly in time with my erratic heartbeat. Even though their faces were shifting quickly, I could still make them out. I saw the fear in my brothers’ green eyes and the horror in my gentle mother’s gaze.

They needed me to protect them, and I failed them.

“No!”

I gasped, my eyes opening. I was breathing heavily, my eyes focusing on the wooden ceiling above me. My hands were gripping the bedsheets hard. I had to force myself to let go of it.

“Briella,” Kryzen said soothingly. “Shh, it’s alright. It was only a nightmare. You’re safe now.”

I turned to find my mate sitting in a chair at my bedside. He retracted his hand from my shoulder. I realized that he had been shaking me to wake me up.

“A nightmare,” I repeated. I rubbed my eyes and sat up with some difficulty. I looked toward the window to find that it was still dark outside. I shivered delicately. “How long was I out?”

Kryzen moved to sit on the bed beside me, tenderly brushing some hair away from my face. “Just a few hours,” he said soothingly. “It’s still dark out, a couple of hours before dawn.”

It was almost dawn, and I had only been out for a few hours. My stomach dropped. That meant that not all of it had just been a nightmare. The memories from sneaking into the land of shadows came flooding back. I swallowed hard as tears filled my eyes. It was true. There was a huge, evil shadow army preparing to destroy everything and everyone I cared about.

“Hey,” Kryzen crooned, moving so he was leaning against the headboard of the wooden bed. He pulled me onto his lap so he could cradle me. “Shh, it’s going to be alright.”

I forced myself to relax, which wasn’t too terribly difficult as Kryzen’s warmth surrounded me, his strong arms holding me close. My eyelids fell shut as I listened to the gentle thrumming of his heart. “What are we going to do?” I asked, hearing the fear in my voice.

“We’re going to figure this out,” Kryzen said simply. “Plans are already going into motion. Roy has already contacted his father. They are sending soldiers to meet us back at the valley.”

I nodded, feeling a little bit comforted by that fact but not much. “We shouldn’t be sitting around,” I said, even though it was my fault that we were waiting. I had passed out like a wimp. “We need to leave for the valley.”

I started to move off of Kryzen’s lap, but he just tightened his arms around me. “Hey, where do you think you’re going in such a hurry?” he asked lightly.

I gave him a confused look. His tone was far too casual considering that we were going to be preparing for war. “What do you mean?” I asked rhetorically. “We need to go. We’ve already wasted so much time because of me. The eclipse is less than a month away.”

Kryzen’s hold on me didn’t loosen. He moved me so that I was again settled against his chest. “You need to rest,” he told me. “You went into shock. We’ll leave in a few hours when the sun rises.”

“Why would we wait until the sun rises?” I demanded, wriggling in his arms.

“Rest, Briella,” he commanded. He sighed when I didn’t still after another moment. “Roy and Alyna are both asleep anyway. We all need our strength.” He moved again so that he could lie down, pulling me against his chest and wrapping his limbs around me.

I probably could have broken out of his hold on a normal day, but I found that my muscles felt like jelly. Maybe it was because of all the running we had just been doing. I was sure that going into shock and having just woken up wasn’t helping matters either.

“You’re impossible,” I grumbled. I could feel the fatigue in my voice.

Kryzen just chuckled and dropped a kiss on the top of my head, relaxing with me in his hold. “Sleep, Briella,” he ordered gently.

I scowled, fighting against my heavy eyelids. “You’re not allowed to give me orders, remember?” I reminded him tersely. “I don’t take orders from anyone, especially not my mate.”

Kryzen just laughed. “That wasn’t an order,” he rumbled. “It was just another suggestion.”

I snorted, blinking hard into the darkness, suddenly unsure if my eyes were open or closed. “Liar,” I mumbled.

My eyelids won the battle.