Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 568

Chapter 568

Natalia’s POV

I jerked awake with a gasp.

The red sky was the same as it always was. Max was curled on his side a few feet away, still asleep, his chest rising and falling slowly. Nothing had moved. Nothing had changed.

I pressed my hand flat against the ground and steadied my breathing.

The vision was already breaking apart at the edges the way dreams do, but the core of it remained lodged in my mind. Andrei in front of that dark castle. Blood on his hands. Max on the ground. Dead.

I decided to push it down. It was just a dream.

I’d fallen asleep on my shift, which was a stupid, dangerous thing to do, and I was lucky nothing had found us in the night. My mouth was so dry it hurt to swallow, and my head ached with the throb of dehydration. The dream had been a product of that exhaustion and thirst, nothing more.

Andrei would never kill Max. No matter what happened, I knew that much about him.

I crouched beside Max and put my hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him. He woke quickly, blinking his eyes.

“Time to go,” I said.

He sat up, rubbed his face, and reached for his pack without a fuss, but I could see the way his lips were cracked and his eyes were glassy from dehydration. We had nearly finished the water already, and there was not much left.

I handed him the last bit.

“Drink.”

“But Mom, what about you?”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry about me. Just drink.”

Max hesitated, then polished off the last of the water. With that, we got moving.

The terrain remained the same. Stretches of hard, uneven ground, then the occasional spike of rock protruding from the ground. The castle was still visible on the horizon, maybe closer than before, although it was hard to gauge with how flat and dull everything was.

I kept us moving toward the castle. It was the only landmark we had and therefore the only direction that made sense, even knowing what I’d seen in the vision.

I thought about that, on and off, as we walked.

Eventually, after what felt like hours and hours of trudging across the unforgiving landscape, we spotted columns of smoke up ahead. It was rising from beneath a short ridgeline. We approached carefully, keeping low at the edge of the ridge, and peered

over.

Below us, in a wide flat depression in the rock, was a cluster of buildings. There were figures moving between them. I could sense multiple wolves, albeit weak and exhausted like our own.

“Werewolves?” Max asked, looking at me.

I nodded slowly, observing the village. I didn’t see anything too concerning, although we still needed to be cautious. But where there was a settlement, there would be water. Right now, that was the top priority, so we’d just have to take the risk.

Thankfully, our disheveled states came in handy. I grabbed a knit hat from my pack and shoved it onto Max’s head, pulling it all

Chapter 548

+30 Bonus

the way down to his eyebrows, then pulled out my scarf and wrapped it around my hair.

I didn’t think it was necessary to hide our identities, but it felt like something we should do.

Carefully, we picked our way down a series of switchbacks along the ridge until we came to the village. The air smelled like sweat and refuse, but I could smell food, too. Max’s mouth was watering when I looked at him.

“Stay close to me,” I murmured, taking his hand. I didn’t need to tell him twice.

We slipped in through an open space in the wall, keeping our heads down. No one looked at us; they were all staring at their feet, moving around with shuffling footsteps. In the distance, I could hear what sounded like tools hitting rock, and saws cutting through wood. There was a low murmur of conversation, but for the most part, it was pretty quiet.