Sold as the Alpha King's Breeder-Chapter 1672 - 114 : The Healing Islands

*Kryzen*

When I woke up the next morning, I thought for a moment that I had died and gone to heaven. It was extremely peaceful. There was a golden light shining through the leaves above my head, creating little dots of warmth on my face.

Beside me lay a beautiful goddess who I still couldn’t believe I got to call my wife. She was curled up beside me on the grass, her dark hair spilling around her face in gorgeous tumbles.

We had been in the forest for a few days now, just relishing in all the magic it had to offer. The forest told us stories of the early days of the Embervale Realm when magic was even more potent and existed everywhere one turned.

We danced each night with the fairies and ate pastries and berries.

It truly was paradise. It was so magical and comfortable that we didn’t even need to sleep indoors. After bathing in one of the many pure springs in the forest, we slept on our picnic blanket, the thick soft grass beneath more than enough to give us a comfortable sleep.

I rolled over so that I was facing my slumbering wife completely. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her snugly against my chest. I pressed a light kiss to her forehead, trying to gently rouse her out of her peaceful dreamland.

A few kisses later, Briella’s bright green eyes fluttered open. She gave a soft little moan and attempted to turn back over, but I just tutted before kissing her exposed neck.

“How are you still sticking to a wake-up schedule while we are lying in an enchanted forest?” she wondered aloud, her voice thick with sleep.

I just rolled my eyes. It was true that I tended to wake up at the same time every day, but it wasn’t really by choice. It was just how my internal clock decided to operate.

I tightened my arms around Briella, dropping feather-light kisses all over her face. “If you opened your eyes, you would realize that it isn’t even early morning,” I told her between well-placed kisses. “Despite my tendency toward routine, we have been sleeping in every morning since we got here.”

Briella just muttered something unintelligible, which caused me to chuckle. We had been engaging in passionate lovemaking each night, and sometimes during the day. It wasn’t that shocking that it had made my wife, who normally was an early morning person, tend to sleep in.

I grinned with satisfaction at the fact that I was thoroughly tiring her out each night.

“We’ve been here for a few days now,” I told Briella, pulling her toward me so I had a better look at her face. “There are still so many places I want to explore with you before we must return to our kingdom.”

Briella let out a breath but looked at me with those gorgeous eyes of hers. She pouted for a moment before moving to stand up. She caught me smirking at her and raised a thin eyebrow.

“What have I done to deserve that look?” she asked, smirking slightly.

I laughed and took her hand. “Just by being yourself, love.”

The next few stops were much closer together now. There were a plethora of little towns to visit. Many of them had populations of no more than a hundred. Luckily, they were remote, and no one seemed to figure out that we were the king and queen.

That was exactly how we wanted it to be. We didn’t need any special treatment. It would have been uncomfortable if each town we visited felt the need to start a parade or a party on our behalf.

Briella seemed to be enjoying herself just as much in one of these tiny towns as she had in the Whispering Woods. Her eyes were just as bright as she greeted the townsfolk.

One particular town was set right against the ocean. The people there fished primarily for their food. A couple of kind fishermen gave Briella a glittering seashell they found while working.

“Thank you,” Briella had said with excitement. She held the seashell up to the sky, and the sun immediately reacted with it, tossing rainbows on the wooden dock below our feet.

“Everyone is so kind,” Briella said when we exited a bakery in the next small town.

I waved at the baker and his wife as the door shut. They were a kind older couple that immediately took to Briella. They thought she was adorable. I chuckled to myself, imagining the looks on their faces if we had revealed that we were the king and queen.

It was true that we were mainly on this trip to celebrate our marriage, but it was definitely beneficial for us to understand the people we were ruling. We were meant to serve and protect all of them, yet we had only visited a handful of communities at this point.

“The baker said there is a flower field not far from here, Kryzen,” Briella informed me excitedly as if I hadn’t been a part of that conversation.

“Should we go?” I asked her, knowing what her answer would be based on the way her eyes sparkled.

“Yes,” she said at once, skipping ahead of me, a bag of treats we had just bought clutched in her hand.

After munching on the fruit-filled desserts we had gotten from the nice baker couple, we walked through the flower field together. It definitely wasn’t the first flower field we had been in, but there was something even more tranquil about this one. These flowers were the color of moonlight, the soft white petals a stark contrast against their forest green leaves.

The flowers emitted a sweet smell that immediately caused me to relax. The scene reminded me a lot of the day I had proposed to Briella and decided that I needed her to stay in my life forever and wanted us to be more than just the king and queen.

I wanted her to be mine in every way possible.

“Can we just stay on this trip for the rest of our lives?” Briella asked suddenly, sighing in contentment as she inhaled the sweet floral scent swirling around us.

I chuckled and dropped a kiss to the top of her head, thinking that if we didn’t have an entire kingdom to take care of, I would have been more than content to just continue this way with Briella forever.

We hopped on the train, getting ready for a much longer ride to the Enchanted Isles, said to be a cluster of magical islands that were rejuvenating. It was the perfect destination for people to relax and engage in spiritual healing.

It was our last stop on our journey before we headed back to the kingdom. We planned to spend a few days at the islands since we were told there were many islands to explore, each one unique in its own way.

When we got off the train, Briella gasped in amazement.

The Enchanted Isles were even more breathtaking than we could have imagined. The captivating landscapes ranged from lush forests to towering mountains cloaked in perpetual twilight. Vivid colorful rays shone down on the entire archipelago. A mysterious mist surrounded many of the short mountain peaks.

It was a remote area. Even though it was along the train tracks, it didn’t appear to be populated.

Briella and I wandered through the island closest to us. It didn’t take long for us to find a collection of hot springs along the colorful cliffsides.

There was no one around, and we were surrounded by walls and trees, so it wasn’t long before we were naked and lowering ourselves into the deliciously warm water.

As soon as our bodies hit the water, I felt the supernatural properties. The water started to vibrate around me, creating a relaxing effect on my sore muscles.

Briella sighed and leaned against me. “This is incredible,” she said, lifting her arms out of the water so that she could rest them outside of the healing pool. “It’s like the hot water is infused with some magic relaxers.”

I chuckled. “It probably is,” I said needlessly, my tone teasing.

We spent a while in the hot springs, barely speaking, just listening to the sounds of gently rushing water and the breeze echoing against the rocky walls. I stroked Briella’s soft skin beneath the water, marveling at how soft she was despite her neverending strength.

She shivered lightly at my touch, giving me a soft grin when our gazes met. She tilted her chin up, and I obliged, pressing my mouth over hers and kissing her deeply.

I felt so much in that kiss. There was obviously love but desperation as well. We needed to be connected this way. As I explored her mouth even further, I felt her make a helpless sound in the back of her throat.

We were both breathless as we pulled away. Briellas bright green eyes had darkened, looking far away as she gazed up at me.

“Would you like to go to one of the waterfalls?” she asked. She gestured vaguely off in the distance through the trees. “They’re supposed to bring you closer to your loved ones and help you see things that are hidden and unclear.”

I stroked the side of her hip beneath the water thoughtfully. “That sounds like a great idea,” I told her.

We wandered through the trees together, following the sound of the waterfall’s great waters. It wasn’t as loud as the falls in other parts of the realm. It didn’t become deafening as we got closer. The water was still rushing, but it was much gentler.

Briella took my hand and led me up to the shimmering waterfall. We stood beneath it, allowing it to cascade over our bodies. It looked as if the force would knock us over, but it was like a gentle shower once we stepped beneath it.

I gasped when a vision filled my head, one of a battlefield, our palace dark and dim in the distance. Frightening figures stood over the bodies of our loved ones. Blood spilled over our precious land.

We had failed as leaders. I sucked in a sharp breath.

Briella’s hand tightened over mine. That was when I realized I wasn’t seeing the future. I was seeing our greatest fear. All we wanted was to take care of the Embervale and be the leaders they needed.

Failure wasn’t an option.

The first frightening image melted away, and in its place was a new one. We were on that same battlefield, but this time, we were victorious. The largest difference between the two was that Briella and I were standing together, our fingers interlaced. We each held mighty weapons, me with my bright shield and Briella with her Embervale dagger, but it was larger and glittering with power.

Just as quickly as it had appeared, the vision vanished. I was again standing beneath the waterfall with Briella beside me.

We stepped out from under the gushing water, both wide-eyed as we stared at one another.

“Did you see that?” Briella asked, wiping some water out of her eyes as she peered up at me.

“You mean that we are doing exactly what we’re supposed to?” I asked, knowing from her eyes that we had seen the exact same thing. “Yes.”

She launched herself at me, wrapping her arms around me and pressing her face into my chest. I hugged her back, stroking my hand up and down her back soothingly.

“It’s alright,” I murmured to her as she shook against me, a sure sign that she was crying. “We’re doing well, Briella. We are doing everything we can to make our kingdom strong.”

Briella pulled away. Her eyes were wet with tears, but there was a wide smile on her face. “As long as we’re together,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, bending down to kiss her again.