Page 62 of The Alpha's Fated Destiny

My mate just scoffs at my words. "At least I'm not holding it up to the sun. Are you trying to roast it?”

We glare at each other, both equally annoyed and tired.

“I'm hungry,” I declare. "And I want to take a bath. We've not stopped for two days. Whole days”

“We did stop,” Alex reminds me. "And I told you to bathe in the river, but you said the water was too cold."

"It was freezing!"

"Nobody was telling you to go for a swim! Just step in, step put. Bam! You're clean."

“Are you trying to piss me off?” I stare at my mate.

He smirks at me. "I’m so scared.”

Smiling at him, I put my hand on his shoulder, sending a light volt of electricity through the contact.

Yelping, he jumps out of my reach, glaring at me.

"You should be scared,” I tell him, my eyes narrowed into slits.

Alex scowls. "You’re a monster when you're hungry.”

I groan, sitting down on the ground. "Fine. We stopped for a bath but we didn't eat and it's been two days, Alex."

“Let’s just get through this area see if we can find a human village somewhere. There should be plenty once we cross the two layers of the border. At least, the map says there should be.” He holds out his hand to me, helping me up. "Come on."

As the hours pass, we realize that the stone is indeed not working. The Central Alliance is a mountainous area. It's border, to be more specific, is extremely dangerous to navigate. That is one of the reasons why nobody has ever tried to infiltrate this area. They don’t even have to bother with placing guards around their borders. The sheer, jagged cliffs and long drops are terrifying enough all by themselves. Where the dangerous, rocky terrain stops, the famous poisonous forest begins. It almost seems that nature itself is guarding the white wolves.

A couple of hours pass and we finally comprehend that even we're not equipped to deal with the dangers along this border. We've barely made any progress and right now, it's either cross the current hurdle or die.

“How are we going to get past all of this?” I breathe as we walk slowly along the edge of the mountain. The sharp ledge next to us reveals a drop of what looks like a hundred feet.. “This is terrifying. We’ve been walking for an hour along this ledge. Shouldn't we have made more progress than this?"

“Keep walking and don’t look down,” Alex instructs. "The rock is still growing hot. This might actually be the way."

At this point, I don’t know if he’s trying to reassure me or himself.

I don't know how long it takes us to get to the other side of the mountain, but the sky is dark, and when we place our feet on flat land, I slump to the ground, my legs trembling.

“If I didn’t have a phobia of heights, I’m sure I’d have one now," I gasp.

Alex is faring no better. However, he sits down gracefully beside me, taking out the map from his pocket. “According to this, we should be near some human villages once we cross the forest. But we have another problem."

I'm lying flat on the ground now. "What problem?"

"Food," he replies, grimly. "This land is barren. Not even mountain goats reside here. And the forest we're about to enter is extremely poisonous."

My heart sinks. “If it’s a barren land, then that means no food. But surely we can hunt in the forest?”

Alex shakes his head and points to the few lines written alongside the map that Brian gave us. “The creatures that reside in the poisonous forest are not normal. Their blood is tainted by the water they drink, and the plants they eat. You can’t eat these creatures.”

“Why didn’t we just bring some meat with us?” My stomach is gurgling with hunger.

Alex gives me an apologetic look. “I believed that the stone would be working, and that we would be able to cross the entire border within a day like Brian told us. I should have taken precautions.”

I throw my arm over my eyes, willing my hunger to die down. “You are doing this for my mother. We wasted time at that village. You were just trying to move us along. And besides, we had to dump all our belongings outside the border. We could hardly carry them over the mountains. Even if we had brought some meat with us, we would have had to leave it.”

Alex touches my leg, and I glance at him.

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