Chapter Sixteen
Lucas
We stepped through the passage. Immediately, the air gripped me by the throat. It pressed against me. Against us.
I could hear Kael’s uneven breathing. He could probably hear mine. He was struggling. I could feel that as well. Something was twisting around him, draining the strength from him. The power… it wasn’t normal. Nothing was normal here.
I let the beast loose. I had to. There was nothing else to do. The hunger was now ripping at my insides, pulling and snapping like wild dogs. I could feel it all. My body, my mind, my very soul was tearing at the seams. The power surged. I felt it.
But Kael… he was different here. He wasn’t handling it. Not like me. I could hear it even stronger now in the way he was breathing, in the strain of his voice when he spoke.
“Can you feel it?” he asked. He was clawing at the air as if it were choking him. “It’s draining me. I feel it stripping me of my power.”
I gritted my teeth. “I know.”
The fog swirled in front of us, thick and slow, like something alive, something waiting. I could taste it, the cold, the dampness, the wrongness. This place... this damn place. It was feeding on us, sucking the strength right out of our bones. And we were still moving forward, still following that damn scent.
Then I saw them. Figures in the mist. Moving like shadows. I could feel them before I saw them. I could taste their scent on the air, thick and sour. The rage in me burned brighter.
They weren’t ready. They didn’t know what was coming for them.
Kael stopped. “We’re close. I can feel it.”
“Don’t care,” I snapped. “Get ready. They’ll be on us soon.”
My fists clenched. The beast inside of me was raw, it wanted to tear through everything in its path. The fog thickened, clinging to my skin like sticky cobwebs. But I wasn’t stopping. Not for anything. Not now. Not when she had Annika.
The figures were closer now. I could smell them. Hear them. They were closing in.
“Let’s do this,” I growled, the words barely human, barely mine.
The shifters came and the fog shifted with them. The first one lunged, but I was faster. My hands found his throat. I crushed it. Bones snapped like dry twigs, his body dropping before he even knew he was dead.
Another came from the side. I turned, slammed my elbow into his face, and felt the cartilage give way. He howled, but I was already on him, dragging him down, ripping through flesh. Blood sprayed hot across my skin.
The beast inside me roared in satisfaction.
More came. Their eyes glowed in the mist, low growls vibrating in their chests. I let them come.
One clawed at my side, but I barely felt it. Pain was nothing. I grabbed him by the shoulder, and slammed him into the rock wall. He hit hard, but I didn’t let go. I lifted him, and threw him into another shifter charging at me. They collapsed in a tangled mess, and I was on them before they could scramble up.
Rip. Tear. End them.
Somewhere to my left, Kael fought, his blade flashing through the haze. He was fast, his blade precise. He didn’t waste movement. He was cutting, dodging, cutting again. A shifter got too close, and his fist crashed into its skull, sending it sprawling. Another leapt at his back, but he turned just in time, driving his blade up, deep into its chest.
“Keep moving!” Kael called out to me. “We can’t get stuck here!”
He was right. There were too many. They just kept coming. If we stayed, we’d be swallowed whole.
But my beast wanted this fight. Wanted to rip them apart, wanted to feel every bone snap, every scream cut short.
Another shifter charged. I ducked low, driving my claws into his gut and pulling. He fell in pieces.
More. More. I could keep going forever.
Then, I felt Kael’s hand on my shoulder, yanking me back. “Lucas, enough!”
I snarled, turning on him. My breath came in ragged gasps. My vision was red. My muscles vibrated with the hunger for more. But Kael’s grip was firm.
“They’ll keep coming,” he said. “We have to go.”
I looked past him. The fog shifted, revealing more shapes in the distance, more glowing eyes. He was right. If we stayed, we’d drown in bodies. I exhaled sharply, forcing the beast back just enough to move.
“Fine.” My voice was a growl.
We started to run. The fog was thick, still twisting and making everything around us shift and blur. Then, through all that mist, we saw it. Jagged stone against the night. Kael pointed at it.
“There! That’s where we need to go!”
I didn’t question him. I didn’t slow down. Although the beast in me wanted blood, it also wanted Annika. My son. I couldn’t lose them. Not to the Shadow Bride. Not to these damn shifters.
Snarls echoed through the mist. More of them were closing in.
A figure lunged at me from the side. I dodged, barely, feeling claws rake against my arm. My rage flared. I grabbed the bastard, and slammed him into the ground so hard the earth cracked beneath him. His breath left his body in a choked gasp, but I didn’t give him time to recover. I stomped down, hard, crushing his ribs, his lungs. He gurgled and went still.
Kael was still beside me, fighting his own battle. His blade flashed, cutting through another shifter who barely had time to react before his body hit the ground in two halves. Another came at him from behind, but he spun, slicing clean through the attacker’s throat.
We kept moving, the ruins growing closer.
Another set of shifters came from the left. I didn’t stop. I barreled through them, tearing through the bloody chaos. One caught my shoulder with his teeth. I ripped him off, snapped his neck, and threw him aside.
“Lucas! Keep going!” Kael shouted.
I didn’t need to be told twice. The ruins were just ahead. I could see an entrance. It was dark and gaping.
Safe? No.
But probably safer than out here.
We ran harder, pushing through the last of them, cutting down anything in our way. And then, I felt stone beneath my feet. We were inside the ruins.
I turned, panting. The shifters stopped at the threshold. They growled but didn’t follow.
“Are they afraid?” I asked incredulously.
Kael frowned. “I don’t think so.” He paused for a moment. “I think they know that she is waiting for us inside and she doesn’t need their help. She has her own power.”
I took only one step deeper inside, when a claw dragged him back out into the fog. I turned around only to hear him grunting and twisting, but the shifter bastard had him in a chokehold, dragging him out of the ruins.
“Kael!” I shouted, ready to help, but as I did so, Kael’s blade flashed, cutting into the shifter’s side.
I tensed, watching as another tackled him from behind. He staggered, caught between them, but he didn’t fall. He continued to fight.
“Go, Lucas!” he shouted, slamming an elbow into one attacker’s face. “You can’t waste time!”
I bared my teeth, rage clawing at my chest. I wanted to tear through them, rip them apart until there was nothing left but blood and bone.
“I’m not leaving you!” I growled, already moving toward him.
He slammed his knee into a shifter’s gut, spun, and drove his blade deep into the other’s throat. They gurgled, but another shape was already circling him.
“You have to,” he panted. “You know it.”
I hesitated. My hands curled into fists. The beast inside me snarled to fight, to stay, to make sure Kael wasn’t overwhelmed.
But he met my gaze with reassurance. “I’ll be fine,” he swore. “I’ll come after you.”
My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. Another figure loomed behind him.
Damn it.
Kael shoved one of the shifters off him and turned toward me. “Go!”
I turned and ran, but not because I wanted to, not because I couldn’t fight. But because I had to.
Annika. My son.
That was all that mattered.
The stone corridors swallowed me whole. Darkness pressed in on me from all sides. Something ancient curled in the shadows, watching me. I could feel evil all around me.
Once again I found myself in a mess of endless corridors, towering archways and dead ends. Stone walls stretched high, jagged and broken with age, but there was no clear path I could follow. There was no logic.
I knew what this was. The Shadow Bride wanted me lost. She wanted me wandering, wasting time. Every second I spent trapped in this cursed maze was a second closer to her victory.
I forced myself to stop and breathe in. It was more difficult than I thought it would be. I shut my eyes, trying to filter out the scent of blood and stone and that damn rot clinging to every corner of these ruins. I reached deeper into myself, past the metallic tang of the shifters I had already cut down.
Still nothing.
“Damn it!” I shouted, and my voice came back to me in waves, repeating several times.
I tried again. Harder. More focused. I knew that everything depended on me now.
I swallowed heavily, trying to remember Annika and Aiden. I could see them with the eye of my mind. I could hear their laughter. I could feel the softness of Annika’s touch on my face.
Finally, there… faint, just a whisper of her.
I exhaled sharply, as I snapped my eyes open. I moved.
The maze twisted, tried to trick me, but I ignored the turns that felt wrong, the paths that pulled at my senses in ways they shouldn’t. I followed only her.
The scent wavered, as if it was being pulled away from me, scattered by unseen hands.
The Shadow Bride is trying to keep me from Annika.
It wouldn’t work.
Stone corridors stretched ahead, shifting but leading nowhere. I growled low, resisting the urge to slam my fists into the walls. The scent returned, even stronger now.
I started to run. I didn’t care what tricks were waiting for me. I didn’t care if the walls closed in, if the floor crumbled beneath me, or if the Shadow Bride herself emerged from the darkness with her cruel smile and her lies.
I would find my family. And I would tear apart anyone who stood in my way.