Reborn for Revenge: Find her Fated Alpha-Chapter 42: A mark

Darkness engulfed her.

It wrapped around her like a blanket, stuffing, suffocating, and never-ending.

She stood there barefoot, unsure of what she was doing at the end of this strange forest in the first place.

The last thing she remembered was falling unconscious and Fabian lifting her to take her inside. Wait. She had bits of recollection when she was being fed, too. The images were vague, but they were there.

However, none of them followed, standing at the edge of this forest. Her nightgown fluttered along with the wind, exposing her feet to the cold of the night.

The scent of wet soil and water wafted through her nostrils. Of course, it had rained earlier.

She contemplated her thoughts when she suddenly heard a faint hymn.

It appeared rising from between those woods before her.

It wasn’t just a hymn. It sounded more like a chant.

Amelia walked towards the woods, following the chanting sound.

It was probably the stupidest move in the darkness, and she knew it, but it seemed her body had grown a mind of its own.

She was following the chanting even before it registered in her mind. Like a strange summoning from an ancient witch who was calling upon her.

Amelia tried to get a hold of the trees nearby to stop her body from moving, but her body was like a puppet to the strange chanting and no matter how much she stopped herself, she kept moving further into the forest.

And then she saw it.

A ring of hooded people stood in the middle of a clearing. They stood around a bonfire, as if they were performing some kind of ritual that was sacred and something no one should see.

As she stood there, their chants grew louder and almost hypnotic.

Her body didn’t stop in the distance. Amelia’s breath hitched when her body started stepping closer to those people, her heart well aware of the danger she was putting herself into.

She shook her head, biting her lips to stop herself, but she couldn’t. The rhythmic changing pulled her.

And then she stopped at some distance.

This was something dangerous. She felt the chill in her bones.

Gulping, she was about to give another try to run away from the place when the voices suddenly started lowering, growing into hushed whispers.

One of the hooded figures turned their heads towards her, and Amelia’s heart drummed against her chest.

They grew silent because they saw her. And they didn’t accept her. That was the first thought that came to her mind.

Their faces were hidden in the shadows of their hoods, and for once, she was not curious to know who they were. She just wanted to run away.

However, her destiny had other plans.

The figure that turned to her suddenly started moving towards her.

No. No. No. Amelia chanted in her head, her body forbidding her to move.

Her voice caught in her throat.

Run. Something whispered in her ears, but she couldn’t move her limbs even with a desperate plea.

The figure stopped before her before they extended their gloved hands. Amelia flinched when they held her hand.

It was warm and firm. She couldn’t see their faces, but she could strangely feel their smile, which sent another wave of chill down her spine.

"You don’t remember," the figure said. It wasn’t the voice of a male or female; it sounded ethereal, undetectable, and ageless.

"Your time is coming. This time it will be different—nothing like before. The cycle shall break. The destiny should be fulfilled. What you owe, you must pay," the voice said.

Amelia opened her mouth to speak, to ask them what they were talking about, but no word came out of her mouth.

The voice suddenly turned strangely mournful and sad.

"You must remember, Amelia. Or we will be lost again. Everything shall fall into place to fulfill the destiny that failed in your last life. The reason you would be reborn every time," the voice said.

Reborn every time? What did it mean?

Amelia parted her lips to speak again, and this time she could.

"What do you–" She started, but before she could complete her sentence, she felt a piercing pain in her hand, like she was struck by lightning.

Amelia fell to her knees, unable to bear the pain.

"What the–" Amelia groaned, and then she suddenly started falling into a more bottomless abyss, making her scream.

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Amelia gasped loudly as she woke up with a jerk, sitting on her bed. Her breathing was ragged and unsettled, and her heart was full of fear of the unknown.

She looked around, visibly relaxed that she was back in the room.

It was just a dream. She told herself, feeling a weird coolness on her knees.

Amelia lifted the duvet to look at her knees.

They must be healing slowly.

She expected to see red, raw skin, but to her surprise, all she saw was clear skin. If one looked at it, they wouldn’t even say she had been kneeling for five hours in the rain on hard stone.

It was apparent someone applied ointment to them when she was unconscious.

’It must be the physician who came to treat me,’ Amelia told herself, and was about to put the duvet back on her knees when she saw it.

A weird, glowing, jagged mark under her wrist.

It glowed blue, like struck by lightning, and her pupils dilated.

It was the same place where that figure had held her hand. Did that mean the thing she saw wasn’t just a dream?

What the hell was going on? Amelia wondered when she felt the prickling pain in her wrist again, and tears filled her eyes.

"Mom," the word left Amelia’s mouth before she could even realise, and a sharp memory from her past infiltrated her head.

She remembered getting into a fight with Hannah when she was six years old over a stuffed doll that Amelia really liked.

When tugging the doll, her hand slipped, and because of the impact, Hannah stumbled back and hit her head on the side of the wall.

At that time, her father had arrived from work, and as soon as he saw his precious daughter crying, he lashed out at Amelia.

He slapped Amelia hard across the face, making her head hit the side of the table.

She had instinctively cried and called for her mom.

It was as if her father had been possessed when he heard her calling her mom, and the next thing she knew, her father took out his belt and lashed out at her.

Amelia’s eyes brimmed with tears. From that day onwards, no matter how much she was in pain, she never called out for her mom like other kids who instinctively call for their mother.

Amelia looked at the mark on her wrist and pressed her lips into a thin line.

"Are you a part of my twisted destiny, too?" She asked no one in particular.

King Cyrus wasn’t lying beside her. The man probably didn’t want to share the same bed as hers because he thought she was filthy and did some dirty business with Alpha Killian.

His accusations hurt more than the punishment. Amelia knew there was a long way to get his trust, but... she expected him to believe her at least once.

Amelia threw the duvet off her body and tightened the rope of the nightdress

around her.

She exited the bedroom and walked downstairs, wanting to explore the garden.

It was past three in the morning. Everyone must be asleep.

With this thought, she kept walking until she arrived at the garden. She looked at the woods in the distance, and her mind took her to the woods she had seen in her dream.

Amelia realised that just like her dream, she was standing barefoot.

If she followed the trail, would it take her to that circle where those hooded figures had been performing that weird ritual? She thought and was about to take a step when she heard the sound of metal clinking.

Rather than following her thoughts and entering the unknown at night, Amelia turned in the direction from which she heard the sound.

It was coming from the palace’s backyard.

As Amelia walked to the corner of the palace, the sound got louder, and she stood there, watching.

It was him.

King Cyrus Valentino was practicing, training, and working harder as he sparred with no one.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt, just khaki pants, and the way his muscles flexed with each movement, his protruding biceps bulging with every strike, it almost seemed like he was fighting against an invisible force.

The determination in his eyes as he sparred with the air, like nature, made Amelia gulp.

This was what it took to be a real King.

It felt illegal watching him like this, and she definitely didn’t want to disturb his session with her presence.

Amelia gave up on exploring further and was about to turn around to leave when she felt a swoosh of wind beside her, and her eyes went wide.

A cold hand pressed her hard against the wall, his blue eyes piercing as he looked at her with narrowed brows, like she was a menace he didn’t want dirtying his palace.

"What are you doing here?" His voice was cold, and Amelia gulped.