I Drugged the Snake Beast Alpha… And the System Screamed I Chose the Wrong Mate Chapter 09
One night, Rowan and I were settling in for bed when the ground trembled beneath us.
Rowan went rigid, his expression shifting.
“Feral beast stampede. It’s close.”
We stepped outside. The settlement was already awake, people gathered in scattered clusters.
The elder’s voice cut through the night. “Feral beast stampede. Everyone get to high ground, now!”
The settlement scrambled up the mountainside. Below us, a living wall poured out of the Whispering Woods, birds wheeling overhead in panicked clouds, beasts surging through the trees.
Everything in their path was flattened. Dust rose behind them in a choking wave.
The ember lion cub squirmed in Chloe’s arms, letting out small, uneasy growls. She stroked its back, trying to calm it.
[This whole stampede is happening because of that cub. The mother ember lion is tearing the forest apart looking for her baby.]
[Every time this trope comes up, I lose it. The cub was fine at home and the ML just TOOK it. Kidnapping, but make it romantic.]
[The ML is genuinely a terrible person. I’m saying it.]
[Does the author HAVE to use these brain-dead “I did something insane to impress my girl” plots? We get it. He’s devoted. Can he also have a brain cell?]
I scanned the stampede, and there it was: at the very back, an enormous ember lion, blazing red,
wreathed in flame.
“Chloe, this whole stampede is because of that cub. You need to give it back to its mother.”
Chloe stared at me, confused.
“What are you talking about? What does Cinder have to do with any of this?”
“Did they not tell you where this cub came from?”
Chloe turned to Silas and Julian. Neither of them would meet her eyes.
“They told me they found him in the forest during a hunt.”
I rolled my eyes.
“They stole this cub out of an ember lion’s den. The mother is the one driving this stampede. She’s looking for her baby.”
“Is that true?” Chloe’s voice sharpened. “You took Cinder from his mother?”
Silas shifted on his feet.
“He was the only cub in the den, left all alone. I brought him back because I thought you’d like
him.”
Julian cut in. “We didn’t know the mother was still around.”
I sighed, keeping my tone light.
“Rowan nearly died saving the two of you from that ember lion last time.”
“And now the whole settlement’s been driven up a mountain. All because of one stolen cub.”
All eyes in the crowd shifted to the cub in Chloe’s arms.
Right then, from deep inside the stampede, the mother ember lion let out a wail, raw, desperate,
deafening.
The cub in Chloe’s arms answered with a cry of its own.
Chloe ran her hand over the cub’s fur, her fingers lingering. She closed her eyes.
“I’m giving him back to his mother. Which one of you is coming with me to fix this?”
Silas set his jaw. “I’ll go.”
Julian stepped forward. “I’m coming too.”
The three of them headed down the mountainside and disappeared into the stampede.
Before long, the stampede thinned. Then it stopped.
But Chloe, Silas, and Julian didn’t come back.
