Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 561

Chapter 561

Natalia’s POV

My voice sounded strange to my ears. The small chamber swallowed it up; it didn’t echo, but rather fell flat and dull, like speaking into a box filled with foam.

I cleared my throat and read the first line of the spell.

Nothing happened.

I read the second. The ruby sat on the blackened stone exactly where I’d placed it, dull and still. My flashlight threw pale yellow light across the carvings on the wall, and the only sound was my own breath coming out in puffs of white, cold air.

I kept reading.

I was halfway through the second repetition when I started to feel it–a low vibration that started in the soles of my feet and moved upward, like the mountain had a heartbeat and I had somehow synced up to it. The carved symbols on the ruby began to glow, faintly at first, the color of an ember in dying ash.

My throat tightened and my mouth grew watery. My base instincts were telling me to stop. Goosebumps raised on my arms, and the hairs on the back of my neck began to stand up on end. But I swallowed down the strange feeling and kept reading.

By the third repetition, the ruby was bright enough to throw red shadows dancing across my hands. The temperature in the chamber had dropped sharply, making me shiver. The acrid scent of sulphur began burning my nostrils and the back of my throat. My eyes watered. I blinked them clear and kept my gaze on the page and kept going.

The last word of the third repetition left my mouth and the ruby flared.

The light it threw was blinding, and I flinched hard and squeezed my eyes shut, throwing an arm up in front of my face. The vibration in the ground turned violent. I heard stone crack somewhere nearby. The air pressure in the chamber changed so quickly it made my ears throb.

When I opened my eyes, there was a portal squirming in front of me.

It had opened directly in front of me, about six feet across and oval–shaped, hovering above the chamber floor. It looked nothing like what I’d imagined–I’d expected something dramatic, a window of light, something clean and purposeful.

Instead, it looked like a tear in the fabric of the space in front of me, its edges ragged and shimmering with that same red light. Through it, I could see nothing but darkness. My eyes didn’t even know where to focus, it was so dark. Like my vision couldn’t comprehend the nothingness that stood before me.

The wave of feelings came all at once, without warning or order. Andrei’s face the night he took Isaac’s body. Hope, still just an infant, crying for a father who never came home. The twins pressing their faces to the windows of our house, waiting for Andrei to walk up the driveway.

Grief. Pain. Loneliness. Anguish.

I exhaled hard through my nose, blinking.

Behind me, something moved.

I spun around.

Max was standing in the entrance of the chamber.

He was pale, wide–eyed, his pack on his back and a flashlight in his hand. He was staring at the portal. Then he looked at me.

“Max!” I rushed forward, grabbing his arms. “How?”

“I followed you,” he said.

1/3

Chapter 561

+25 Bonus

I dug my fingers into his shoulders. A chill wind was rushing through the chamber now, coming from the portal. Strangely, it swept into the chamber and then back toward the portal like a swirl. I could feel my feet struggling to keep hold on the floor. My shoes began to scrape across the stones as the wind pulled me closer.

“You have to go home!” I shouted over the noise.

Max just shook his head and looked at me. The conviction in his eyes was one I’d seen far too many times to count. That stubbornness he’d inherited from both me and his father.

I felt sick. “Max! Go! Home!”

“No! I’m coming with you!”

The portal pulsed. The wind grew stronger, bringing with it the scent of sulphur and heat. It made my eyes water, my stomach twist painfully. My shoes scraped across the stone. I tried to keep a foothold, but it was no use; the pull was too strong, like the portal had a gravity of its own, tugging me closer and closer to that impossible blackness.

“Turn back!” I shouted. “Max, please!”

He shook his head and grabbed my wrist.

And then we were falling.

I threw my arms around him and held him as tight as I could, shut my eyes, and prayed.

The portal took us.

There was no sound. Just a free fall that fell like it was going on forever and ever. I felt nothing, weightless, no pain, no noise, no heat or cold, just… emptiness as we fell into that void.

For a moment, I let my eyes crack open. The entrance to the portal was just a speck now. I saw it close above us, and then that dark void was all I could see.

Nothing happened for a long time. Max whimpered quietly, and his voice was strangely loud in the quiet space. I held him closer, pressing my lips together.

He shouldn’t have come. He shouldn’t have come…

Suddenly, it hit us like walking into a wall. Heat.

I gasped, and the gasp pulled in air that was hot and dry and tasted of ash and minerals. I coughed. So did Max. My chest constricted painfully, and for a long moment, I thought I would never be able to breathe again–that this was the end, the very same one Andrei had met, and this whole journey had been a mistake.

But then… the pain stopped.

I cracked my eyes open. First one, then the other.

We were on our feet, somehow, standing on cracked black ground that had the texture of cooled magma. The sky above us was dark red, bruised at the horizon and lightening to a kind of dull orange overhead. There was no sun that I could see. No clouds. Just that red, unmoving sky.

Jagged rock formations broke the landscape in every direction, rising up in sharp angles like crooked fangs reaching toward the sky. They were enormous, dwarfing all of the mountains I’d ever seen before, and completely bare–no snow, no vegetation, no sound of wind or water. Everything was perfectly still, like a snapshot caught perpetually in time.

And most of all, everything was so, so hot.

Slowly, I took a step back, still holding onto my son’s arm. I turned slowly, as did Max. Neither of us spoke, too stunned to say anything, as we took in the environment. We were in some kind of enormous basin, perhaps something that had once been an ocean. The mountains, if one could call them that, surrounded us on all sides.

2/3

Chapter 561

+25 Bonus

And then, far in the distance, I could see something small and black against the horizon; I squinted, focusing on it, and realized that it was not a natural formation, but a castle made of dark stone, built into the side of the mountain range. It must have been enormous, because I could see it from here. And it looked formidable. Not a castle, but a fortress with large, yawning iron gates and tall spires.

Max tugged on my hand, pulling me from my reverie.

“Mom,” he said, his voice low and ragged, “where are we?”

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Chapter 561

Natalia’s POV

My voice sounded strange to my ears. The small chamber swallowed it up; it didn’t echo, but rather fell flat and dull, like speaking into a box filled with foam.

I cleared my throat and read the first line of the spell.

Nothing happened.

I read the second. The ruby sat on the blackened stone exactly where I’d placed it, dull and still. My flashlight threw pale yellow light across the carvings on the wall, and the only sound was my own breath coming out in puffs of white, cold air.

I kept reading.

I was halfway through the second repetition when I started to feel it–a low vibration that started in the soles of my feet and moved upward, like the mountain had a heartbeat and I had somehow synced up to it. The carved symbols on the ruby began to glow, faintly at first, the color of an ember in dying ash.

My throat tightened and my mouth grew watery. My base instincts were telling me to stop. Goosebumps raised on my arms, and the hairs on the back of my neck began to stand up on end. But I swallowed down the strange feeling and kept reading.

By the third repetition, the ruby was bright enough to throw red shadows dancing across my hands. The temperature in the chamber had dropped sharply, making me shiver. The acrid scent of sulphur began burning my nostrils and the back of my throat. My eyes watered. I blinked them clear and kept my gaze on the page and kept going.

The last word of the third repetition left my mouth and the ruby flared.

The light it threw was blinding, and I flinched hard and squeezed my eyes shut, throwing an arm up in front of my face. The vibration in the ground turned violent. I heard stone crack somewhere nearby. The air pressure in the chamber changed so quickly it made my ears throb.

When I opened my eyes, there was a portal squirming in front of me.

It had opened directly in front of me, about six feet across and oval–shaped, hovering above the chamber floor. It looked nothing like what I’d imagined–I’d expected something dramatic, a window of light, something clean and purposeful.

Instead, it looked like a tear in the fabric of the space in front of me, its edges ragged and shimmering with that same red light. Through it, I could see nothing but darkness. My eyes didn’t even know where to focus, it was so dark. Like my vision couldn’t comprehend the nothingness that stood before me.

The wave of feelings came all at once, without warning or order. Andrei’s face the night he took Isaac’s body. Hope, still just an infant, crying for a father who never came home. The twins pressing their faces to the windows of our house, waiting for Andrei to walk up the driveway.

Grief. Pain. Loneliness. Anguish.

I exhaled hard through my nose, blinking.

Behind me, something moved.

I spun around.

Max was standing in the entrance of the chamber.

He was pale, wide–eyed, his pack on his back and a flashlight in his hand. He was staring at the portal. Then he looked at me.

“Max!” I rushed forward, grabbing his arms. “How?”

“I followed you,” he said.

1/3

Chapter 561

+25 Bonus

I dug my fingers into his shoulders. A chill wind was rushing through the chamber now, coming from the portal. Strangely, it swept into the chamber and then back toward the portal like a swirl. I could feel my feet struggling to keep hold on the floor. My shoes began to scrape across the stones as the wind pulled me closer.

“You have to go home!” I shouted over the noise.

Max just shook his head and looked at me. The conviction in his eyes was one I’d seen far too many times to count. That stubbornness he’d inherited from both me and his father.

I felt sick. “Max! Go! Home!”

“No! I’m coming with you!”

The portal pulsed. The wind grew stronger, bringing with it the scent of sulphur and heat. It made my eyes water, my stomach twist painfully. My shoes scraped across the stone. I tried to keep a foothold, but it was no use; the pull was too strong, like the portal had a gravity of its own, tugging me closer and closer to that impossible blackness.

“Turn back!” I shouted. “Max, please!”

He shook his head and grabbed my wrist.

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