Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 578

Chapter 578

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Andrei’s POV

The room was warm. The bed was soft and plush, the pillows made of feathers and velvet. Everything smelled familiar, the kind of scent that you recognize from a past life but can never put a finger on its source.

Home.

The woman was laying next to me, just as she always did. Amber hair spilling out across the pillow, slender shoulders gently rising and falling as she slept.

I could have stayed like this, just as I always did in these dreams. Content, just for a little while, to be in a place I didn’t remember with a woman who brought me comfort in ways I couldn’t comprehend.

But then she turned over.

I’d never seen her face before. In every version of this dream I could remember, she was always turned away, and I always woke before she moved. But this time, she turned over, and I saw her face clearly for the first time. 1

I woke up with a sharp gasp.

The room I’d always known stared back at me. Dark stones, a red sky outside, the distant sound of thunder and lightning that never brought any rain.

This was my home. Not with her. My bed was empty aside from myself, the pillow next to me cold and perpetually unused.

Why did I even have two pillows?

I shook my head, sitting up, and passed a hand over my face. The woman’s eyes seemed to stare at me from the darkness, but I knew it was just a dream. She was the same woman who was downstairs, below me at this very moment. 1

A prisoner. Nothing more.

She had to have gotten under my skin from all of the interrogating. Most people broke quicker than this, but not her. She’d lasted longer than I expected.

“It’s because you’re going easy on her.”

My Lord’s voice slipped into my mind like honey laced with poison. I suppressed a shudder and tossed the sheets aside, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed.

“I don’t mean to,” I replied. “I’m just…”

“Drawing it out,” he replied.

“For fun, I assure you. Nothing more.”

“And the boy?”

The mention of the boy, the one who had somehow escaped the labor camp even though no one had ever accomplished such a thing, made my spine stiffen. I stood, shaking off the feeling, and walked over to my dresser.

“He’s probably already dead,” I said out loud. “The wasteland isn’t hospitable to children.”

“Why do you seem disappointed at the thought?”

I froze with my shirt halfway on over my head, then pulled it on the rest of the way. “I’m not disappointed.”

My Lord made a noise that indicated he didn’t believe me.

I left the room.

1/3

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The castle was quiet at this hour. The guards at their posts nodded as I passed and said nothing. I went down to the kitchens, found the bottle I was looking for on the shelf where it always was, and poured some into a cup. Then I took the cup and walked down the corridor.

I didn’t decide to go to the cells. I just ended up there, somehow, like my legs had carried me of their own accord.

The guard at the corridor entrance straightened when he saw me. I waved him off and he stepped back, and I walked down to the third cell on the left.

She was on her side on the floor with her back to the bars, sleeping. She had one hand tucked under her head. Her amber hair was tangled and matted with blood, her skin dirty and covered in sweat. Her clothes were torn, and even from here, I could make out the sound of her ragged inhales, like she had liquid in her lungs.

For a long time, I just stood there and looked at her.

That strange pull I had been feeling since she came through that portal was stronger whenever I was close to her. It had to have been related. She often called me her mate, but… I never had a mate.

And yet the pull never stopped. It was what kept me from killing her during our sessions, what kept me from hurting her beyond repair like I had done to so many others.

What if she was right? 1

I shook my head and took another sip. No, she couldn’t be-

Natalia. With her head thrown back, laughing. She wore white. The moon was above her, a bright sliver in the sky. She looked

like the Moon Goddess herself. Natalia, my wife-

When I came to, I was gasping, gripping the bars. I’d dropped my glass, sending it shattering across the floor.

What the fuck was that?

I rubbed my eyes, trying to dispel the thoughts. This was absurd. She’d spent the entire last session bringing up old “memories” that definitely didn’t exist; this was just a product of that. She’d been trying to get under my skin, trying to soften me. Maybe it had started to work for some reason, but I wouldn’t let it stay that way.

I went to turn away. She hadn’t stirred from the sound of my glass shattering. That was for the best. Tomorrow, I would break her and be done with her, whether she gave me the information I needed or not.

Natalia. Natalia, holding a squirming bundle in her arms, singing a gentle lullaby. It was late, and I had to be up early. She was exhausted but she took the night shift anyway. She didn’t wake me, but I noticed her absence and found her in the nursery. Her eyelids were fluttering shut even as she sang, and then her head dropped against the back of the rocking chair, and she fell asleep. 2

I gasped, stumbling backwards. My spine hit the bars of the cell behind me, and I whirled around, stumbling again. She was still laying on the floor, sleeping. Not dead, because I could still hear her breathing.

Why did I feel… relieved that she was still alive?

Why did it terrify me that she might not stay that way for much longer? That my actions could kill her?

My hands moved before I could think. I fumbled for the keyring in my pocket and unlocked the cell, swinging the door open. She didn’t move, still laying there, facing the wall with one hand supporting her head against the stone floor.

I stepped forward. Dropped to one knee. Touched her shoulder.

Then–

She let out a guttural snarl and shot to her feet. Something cold and sharp flashed out from within her sleeve. I saw the tip of a long object swing toward my eye.

2/3

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