All Chapters of The Alpha King's Breeder: Chapter 861 - Chapter 870

952 Chapters

Nothing but Night and Ice

Book 18SkyeThere’re only two types of people who would ever remotely consider calling Lunaria home.The wolves of the small towns and rural pack territories that dot the eternally icy, always dark frozen wasteland so far north of Crescent Falls that the sun only rises a few inches over the horizon for three months out of the year… and people like me–intellectuals. Researchers. Souls chasing the unexplainable with new scientific methods and theories even magic can’t decipher. People who haven’t been outside in weeks because the daily negative sixty-degree low is cold enough to freeze eyeballs in less than ten minutes. Crazy people. I digress.I love it here. The darkness. The stars. The endless, flat landscape of ice against the wash of the aurora, painting the sky in shades of emerald and pale pink every night… and day, in reality. It’s fall, a week before the official start of the semester, and already the sun has failed to rise for several days, barely poking above the horizon, gi

We've Met

SkyeI cock my head and laugh as Abby braces her hands on my doorframe. Her fair skin is flushed pink from the cold, which means she was likely outside, possibly in one of the “bubble labs” as we call them, where a few of the departments do their experiments on the ice. Or, more probable, in the terrifying ice labs beneath the surface, where tunnels of ancient ice go on for miles.The gray slate walls behind her gleam in the pale light in the hallway of our apartment–which isn’t much, but we have windows to the outside world, which is a privilege.The student dormitories are in the tunnels weaving beneath the university where the sun never shines even in the summer, and the lights are specially made to give students who live there a minuscule amount of synthetic sunlight to aid the copious amounts of vitamin D supplements everyone keeps in their backpacks.I landed an apartment in one of the towers two years ago. It was a miracle, an actual act of the Goddess, and no one can convince

Get Rid of Me

SkyeDr. Scarlett, also known as Alex, moves into the crowd, but that doesn’t stop me from unintentionally catching his tall, imposing figure in my peripheral vision. He’s taller than everyone here, and his hair is, in fact, so black it’s nearly blue–absorbing every fractal of light in the room like a black hole.Dr. Gerralde turns to me, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a short, sharp chuckle. “Whenever I think the physics department is full of antisocial weirdos, I am reminded that the biology department might actually be worse off than we are in that regard.”“He’s far too young to be a department head,” I rush out, but then quickly reel myself back in and clear my throat.“Not a department head–yet. Although, I know the university president has him pegged as the future dean of the biology department as long as he doesn’t go into industry. He’s a professor, and he has been for a few years now. He is leading his own lab, though.”I’m not sure why I want to know, bu

Warning!

AlexBitter coffee scents the air as Toby slides two paper cups full of ink-colored liquid across the counter. I grab one while he pours a copious amount of sugar in his cup and wait for him to finish with the carafe of cream.It’s Friday, and normally I’m in the lab, but today I needed to make myself available to sign for a supply delivery coming from Aurorium, and Toby took that as an opportunity to turn my down-time into an entire event.We used to be roommates back when I lived in the dungeon-like dormitory beneath the ice. Unlike everyone else, I loved it down there–the darkness of it all. The shuddering pipes and crackling ice against feet of concrete felt like home, but when I was offered an apartment after I graduated with my master’s and planned to pursue a PhD, I took it, mostly because Toby begged for me to take it–and to take him with me when I finally breached the surface. So I did.We don’t live together now, but for whatever reason, I’m leaning against the counter in th

Cold as Ice

AlexToby grunts with effort as we move the patch in place. It’s nothing more than a sheet of steel to frame one of the smaller tunnel entrances in the lab, creating an archway leading down into the glacial, blue-tinged darkness below.“Shit!” Toby huffs.“Just hold it in place a moment longer,” I say through gritted teeth, my gloved hands slipping over the metal while trying to get a good grip. The whirling screech of the drill echoes all around us as I drive several screws through the steel and into the ice. Sensors secured to the tunnel are supposed to catch cracks before they spread, and so far, none of the sensors are going off.“One more,” I rush out, breathless, and I send the last screw through the metal. Toby eases the pressure before letting go entirely, his hands falling to his knees in an attempt to catch his breath.Puffs of cold mist leave my mouth while I examine my work and check the sensors.“Well,” Toby remarks, chuckling. “Good thing the dean doesn’t know about this

Blood Everywhere

SkyeAbby clutches my arm, trembling, her breath coming in frigid puffs of white mist. The subway station is nearly frantic with bodies stuffed into heavy winter gear, everyone waiting for the evening train from Aurorium to arrive and offload anyone returning to campus after a day spent running errands in the city. We’ll board that train and head straight to the snug, ice-coated city, and it can’t come soon enough. Even under the fluorescent glow of lights that supposedly radiate like the sun, giving the students who live in the dorms below the surface a minuscule amount of their daily dose of vitamin D, it’s freezing. The grates above our heads spill out hot air, but it’s barely enough against the constant, bone-aching chill. When the train’s lights finally breach the darkness, the entire gathered crowd sighs in relief, and within minutes, shuffling and squeezing, we’re standing at the back of the train, arm in arm, watching the university platform fade into the shadows. “Goddess,

What Did You See?

SkyeAbby slouches in one of the firm, slightly worn armchairs in my office, picking fluff from the seams while I hurriedly answer several emails. She tilts her head, watching me like a hawk, her bright, nearly-white blonde hair falling over her shoulder in a platinum sheet. I glance at her, huffing a breath, and ask, “What?”“You’re freaking out.”I slowly close my laptop, sliding my hands over its outer shell. “I am not.”“You are. I can see all the arteries in your neck. You’re going to give yourself wrinkles scowling like that. You’ll be fine, Skye. Jeez, you’ve lectured before!”“Not at the graduate level.” Even the mention of it has my chest tightening to the point of pain. Abby ignores my comment and takes several seconds to swivel side to side in the chair, readjusting her position, the shiny yellow fabric of her parka crinkling with every move she makes. The sound gnaws at my nerves, and she knows it.I roll my lower lip between my teeth and let it go with a pop. “Can I ask

You're Wrong

Skye“It went fine,” I say on a breath, moving toward the back row of the empty observatory. It’s well past midnight, and if anyone is going to be awake in the odd hours of early morning, it’s Posey, whose soft, disbelieving chuckle rings through my ear. “You sound like you hated it.”I sink into a familiar chair covered with scratchy, well-worn fabric and prop my laptop on my knees. “I don’t hate lecturing. It just felt odd, I guess. My previous lectures were all at the undergraduate level… physics 101, you know? The definition of matter versus now having to explain to a room full of physicists who lean more toward experimental physics why we’ll never fully understand the physical confines of our own universe.”“You could always come home. The temple in Moonrise would move mountains to have you within their ranks.”I click a few buttons on a controller, and the ceiling erupts in a sea of distant stars. “You sound just like Mom.”“No one would blame you for being unhappy, Skye. You’v

Barging In

AlexWalls of ice reflect an icy blue, turning the scratch paper littered over my metal desk a hazy cerulean. My gloved hands steadily manage a pen after years of practice, but many of my lab assistants and postdocs still grumble about my nearly unintelligible handwriting. In my defense, I had to learn an entirely new written language in my early twenties. I shift my weight on the stool beneath me and brace my elbows on the desk. Behind me, the main area of the lab is alive with murmurs, the hum of lab equipment and heaters, and the crunch of threaded boots over the sleek floor of ice. I look back down at my notes. They’re nothing major, just personal commentary on a recent discovery in a core of ice brought up from nearly two miles below the surface–the deepest we’ve ever been able to drill without something going wrong. The chemical makeup wasn’t anything unexpected–water, of course. A few traces of the same glassy, dust-like sediment we found in another core a few feet above thi

Comfortable

Skye“You didn’t have to do this.” I cup my hands around the warm paper coffee cup and meet Alex’s eyes. “I can buy a coffee.”“I invited you to my lab and wasn’t able to follow through.”“We can reschedule. It’s not like you’re going to find the Goddess particle tomorrow and turn me obsolete.”He frowns at me, taking my little jab at face value. He’s smart. I mean, of course he is. He’s a paleomicrobiologist, for Goddess’ sake. But he’s also sharp and cunning, able to read my often confusing facial expressions like an open book. “I don’t like going against my word.”Random lines of chatter take up the space between us in the little open cafe near the library. “You had a perfectly acceptable reason.” I risk a small smile, which he inspects, but then his sharp expression falters, the lines of worry between his brows smoothing, making him look far younger than usual. I can’t help myself when I ask, “How old are you?”He inhales, wraps his hand around the coffee he hasn’t so much as sip

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