Mated to A Rival Alpha-Chapter 271: Was This The Last Goodbye? [1]

[RANIA]

For sixteen birthdays, Kim Rania had been the apple of Incayon’s eyes. She had been their love and life; she had been the girl they loved and wanted their children to be.

For those years, she had grown up to be a good person, one that was worth noticing, but something had happened on the night of her birthday, something that had changed the trajectory of her life for the past eight years.

Now with her twenty-fifth birthday barely a day away, and the misfits being so excited about it, Kim Rania couldn’t help but wonder if this birthday would be the same as the past eight.

She had suffered through those.

She had endured so much pain, she had faced a world that she was never going to be able to snap out of.

For eight years, Kim Rania had been living as a girl who was hated and despised. Granted, the past three months had changed a lot, but even then, that didn’t make the young alpha confident when it came to her birthday.

Her fears were as raw as the past eight times and she was scared. Looking at her friends, she wondered if they could feel her worry too.

’What do you mean by that?’ her friends had asked her the previous day when she tried to explain that he had to take Kaia as a mate.

She had tried to make it make sense, but even in her mind, Rania knew that she didn’t believe it. So she gave them a version that seemed pleasant to the ears A version of life that she wasn’t even sure of.

But maybe, just maybe, she would be able to get through this, right?

"I’ll be back. I have to go see how the prisoners are doing," Rania said as she watched them prepare for her birthday like it was some grand event.

She could feel the fear surfacing.

She could feel the winds of horror once again blowing her direction and she could feel the world coming at her gain.

Her friends knew what she was feeling, but they refused to let her know they knew, so they smiled at her encouraging her to go on like their hearts were not against the idea of her meeting with Jihoon.

They knew that the meeting could go wrong in so many ways, but they chose to trust her. Besides, it’s not like Jihoon would do anything to her, right?

"Take your time, we will be here waiting for you," Chang Wook said like he hadn’t been the one so against Rania and Jihoon seeing each other in these critical times.

Then again, they couldn’t really be against her all the time, or she would rebel and with her state of mind at the moment, that would be too great a risk even for them.

Walking away from her friends, Rania could feel their worried eyes on her. She knew they had every reason to worry but she loved that they had decided to respect her choices.

There were just some things that she had to work out with Jihoon. She hadn’t seen him since the time the man had been brought to the Incayon prisons, and had made sure not to go towards the dungeons no matter how much she wanted to.

In the three months, she and her wolf had become one, probably because of the intense triage Rania had been doing and her world had shown up to make sure that she didn’t hurt herself so badly.

It had been a long battle and eventually, Rania couldn’t help but agree that being separate from her wolf was somewhat dangerous.

All this time she had been fighting as her humans and her wolf would heal her. And even then, she had managed to be that cruel and a winner. So what of now when she was finally one with her wolf?

Oh, the world wasn’t ready.

’Deep breaths, Rani,’ Dalrae said to her sister in the mind link.

She had wanted to go with her, but she knew that this was something that Rania had to do on her own. She couldn’t always be there to help Rania handle her shit. The least she could do at the moment was to encourage her.

’What if I can’t do it, Lim Lim? What if I’m too weak?’ Rania asked her sister as she made her way down the stairs to the dungeon.

The temperatures had started changing, a reminder that the Incayo dungeons were just as lethal as the dungeons in the people’s palace in Obren. It was hectic being here and Rnai was just glad that he had her best friend to see her through it.

’You can do it, Rani. I believe in you. Think of the times you kicked my ass in training. It wasn’t so hard, right? And we are both strong. Use that as motivation,’ Dalrae said and Rania let out a chicken, one that echoed through the lonely dungeon walls.

Of course, only Dalrae could think that her ass getting kicked by her sister was a good motivation for her.

’Please don’t close the links. In case I need a reminder of why I am here,’ Ramia said and Dalrae was quick to agree.

The sisters would follow each other to the deepest and darkest pits of hell if they had it. They were only together in their lives and right now, Rania was leaning in on that. It didn’t matter that she was scared of what she would find.

Three months of surviving on one meal a week was something that was cruel, but then Kim Rania had wanted to remind them that they were her prisoners and not people who had come here to spend time.

The dungeons weren’t a resort that they could get back to. It just didn’t work that way anyway.

’I won’t leave, not even if you ask me to. I will always be there for you, Rani. Always,’ Dalrae said before she went mute, as if to tell Rania that she would be doing her duties and would be available if Rania needed her.

Staring at the long dark hallway that had the worst of Incayon prisoners, Rania wondered if this was a good idea. She wasn’t worried about imprisoning Jihoon, no. The man had been the cause of her pain in more than one way.

She was just world that she couldn’t be able to keep her composure, But then she thought back to her friends, and how crazy they had been. She then thought back to her missing Odelia and her very dead Oshita.

She had to be brave, if not for herself but for her fallen friends. If Oshita had been here, he would have known what to say to Rania. He would have found a way to make the situation lighter but he wasn’t here and that was the worst of stabs to Rania.

She missed him so much, it hurt.

’One more step, Rani,’ the werewolf alpha said to herself as she reached the dungeon door that had the prisoners she was looking for.

It wasn’t going to be easy, that much she knew but honestly, when she reached the dungeon and saw them there, she couldn’t help but feel like she was easily the most terrible of the goddess’s creatures.

’Shit,’ Rania said to herself as she took in the sight before her.