Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Luna
The next day, we finally made it.
The jungle opened abruptly into a small clearing dominated by a single colossal ceiba tree, larger than any I’d ever seen, its massive trunk wider than a bus, roots sprawling outward like the tentacles of some ancient behemoth.
Thick vines and parasitic growth covered much of its surface, but even that couldn’t disguise its unnatural perfection.
It was too symmetrical, too imposing to be purely the work of nature.
“This is it,” I breathed. “The crypt entrance will most likely be underneath.”
Beside me, Damien surveyed the clearing, his eyes tracking the enormous buttress roots that disappeared into the earth. His posture shifted subtly, and he widened his stance as though claiming the space around us.
“Stay close,” he commanded, not looking at me. “It feels strange here.”
As if on cue, the usual cacophony of wildlife sounds diminished, creating a pocket of unnatural silence that made the hair on my neck stand up. I wasn’t about to argue with his assessment.
We approached cautiously. The afternoon sun filtered through the dense canopy high overhead, casting the clearing in a greenish twilight despite the midday hour.
“Look.” I pointed to markings carved into the trunk and root system, ancient runes partially obscured by moss and lichen. “Shifter script.”
Damien studied the symbols. “Can you read it?”
I moved closer and traced my fingers over the worn indentations. “This is old, older than any pack writing I was taught, but some symbols are consistent.”
I worked my way around the massive trunk, piecing together fragments of meaning from the weathered carvings.
“It’s a warning,” I finally said. “And…I think a test.”
Damien’s shoulders tensed, his entire body going rigid with alertness. “What kind of test?”
“The Wolf Queen’s resting place is protected by both physical and magical barriers.
The writing says something about ‘only those of worthy blood may disturb the Queen’s slumber.
’” I frowned, struggling with a particularly weathered section.
“And there’s something about night and day working together…
No, that’s not quite it. ‘The children of night and the children of moon…must join their essence to pass beyond.’”
Damien’s expression darkened. “Vampire and shifter.”
He didn’t sound surprised.
“You knew,” I said, the realization crystallizing suddenly. “You knew the crypt would require both of us to access it. That’s why you specifically hired me, not just for my tomb-raiding skills, but for my shifter bloodline.”
Damien moved with startling speed, suddenly looming over me, his height and presence overwhelming as his eyes flashed with preternatural light.
“I suspected,” he corrected. “My research indicated a blood lock requiring both lineages. But no, I didn’t just hire you for your skills and your bloodline. ”
He stepped closer, and I found myself backing against the tree trunk. He placed one hand against the bark beside my head, not touching me but effectively caging me in.
“And no, that’s not specifically why I hired you. I hired you because you’re as desperate as I am for a cure,” he said. “Because you need the Shadow Fang more than I need it. Because I need you.”
He froze as soon as he finished, as though he hadn’t meant to blurt the last part out. For several heartbeats, something raw and unguarded flashed across his face before his features settled into a controlled mask. He stepped back abruptly, giving me space again.
There was a lot to unpack in all he’d just said, but my mind kept spiraling around: Because you need the Shadow Fang more than I do. Since when had he elevated my family over his?
And surely he meant he needed me to help him find the Shadow Fang, not that he needed me. Right? From the intensity of his stare, it was hard to tell.
We both looked away at the same time, and my breaths rushed back in, so quickly that my head spun.
I turned back to the tree, channeling my confusion and rapid heartbeat into finding the entrance.
After careful examination of the root system, I identified a section where the patterns seemed deliberately arranged, too geometric to be natural growth. Moss and dirt had accumulated over centuries, disguising what might once have been obvious.
“Here,” I called to Damien, who had been investigating the opposite side of the tree. “Help me clear this.”
He was beside me in an instant, somehow moving without making a sound. Together, we removed layers of vegetation and soil from between two massive roots, revealing a recessed stone panel carved with more ancient shifter runes. In the center was a circular depression surrounded by a spiral pattern.
“It’s a lock,” I murmured, tracing the spiral. “But there’s no physical key, at least that I know of.”
Damien crouched beside me, careful not to touch the stone. “The inscription mentioned blood.”
“‘The children of night and the children of moon must join their essence,’” I quoted. “Blood would be the most direct interpretation.”
I sat back on my heels, considering the implications.
Blood magic was among the most primitive and powerful forms of supernatural binding—and potentially the most dangerous when misused.
Sharing blood with a vampire, even in this context, crossed boundaries that most shifters would consider taboo.
Doing anything with a vampire was considered taboo.
But I wasn’t a shifter anymore.
Damien’s expression turned grave. “This isn’t a decision to make lightly, Luna. Blood exchanges have consequences. Particularly between our kinds.”
“We don’t have any alternatives.” I pulled my knife from its sheath, the silver blade gleaming dully in the muted light. “Ladies first, I guess.”
Before I could cut my palm, Damien caught my wrist in an iron grip. “That blade is silver.”
“Well spotted.” I tried to pull free, but his grip remained firm, his thumb brushing over the racing pulse at my wrist.
“Silver will taint the offering,” he said, his eyes darkening. “The Wolf Queen would recognize it as an insult, a poison to her kind used to activate her sanctuary. She’d ensure we suffered for generations.”
I hadn’t considered that. “Then what do you suggest? All of my knives are silver.”
Damien produced a small obsidian blade from one of his holsters. The black stone had been worked to a wickedly sharp edge, its surface decorated with unfamiliar symbols that seemed to shift under my gaze.
“Ritual blade,” he explained at my questioning look. “Neutral to both our kinds.”
He held it reverently, like something precious rather than merely useful.
I accepted it, testing its weight in my hand. “Handy thing to be carrying around.”
“I come prepared,” he said with a nod.
“For blood sacrifices at ancient crypts? That’s either impressive foresight or a disturbing hobby.”
His lips curled into a predatory smile that made my heart skip. “I’ve found the line between foresight and disturbing hobbies blurs considerably after your first century.”
“I’m sure.” Taking a steadying breath, I brought the blade closer to my palm but stopped. “Is this going to drive you into a blood frenzy?”
He rolled his eyes. “I have more self-control than that. I promise I won’t stick my straw in you.”
I snorted a laugh and drew the obsidian edge across my palm, just deep enough to draw blood. The cut stung less than I expected, the blade so sharp it seemed to part skin without resistance. I held my bleeding hand over the circular depression, watching as my blood dripped into the ancient stone.
Damien’s nostrils flared, and his eyes tracked the movement of my blood with a focus that was both unsettling and oddly intimate. His pupils dilated, but true to his word, he remained controlled.
“Your turn,” I said, passing him the blade.
He made his cut, his blood darker than human, almost black in the dim light. As he extended his hand next to mine, our blood mingling in the stone depression, a subtle vibration began beneath us.
The stone absorbed our combined blood like a thirsty mouth, the liquid disappearing rather than pooling. The spiral pattern began to glow with a faint blue luminescence that grew brighter as it traced inward toward the center.
Then something unexpected happened.
The moment our blood fully combined, a sudden connection formed between us—not physical, but something deeper, more intimate. For a disorienting instant, I could see through Damien’s eyes, feel the constant burn of hunger he carried, sense the weight of centuries pressing down on his consciousness.
Memories not my own flashed through my mind—glimpses of places long destroyed, faces long dead, moments of both terrible beauty and beautiful terror.
A beautiful city burning while people fled screaming.
A woman with midnight hair and laughing eyes, her fingers entwined with his.
The cold weight of a crown being placed upon his head.
Blood running like rivers. The crushing isolation of watching everyone around him age and die, over and over and over again.
From his sharp intake of breath and widened eyes, I knew he was experiencing something similar—seeing my memories, feeling my emotions, perhaps even the phantom sensation of shifting that still haunted my dreams.
Before I could process this unexpected connection, the ground beneath us shuddered. The massive roots we knelt between parted, revealing a dark, narrow passageway leading down into the earth. The blue glow from the spiral pattern intensified, illuminating rough-hewn steps descending into darkness.
The psychic connection between us snapped as suddenly as it had formed, leaving me dizzy and disoriented. I pulled back, instinctively putting distance between us as I tried to sort through the jumbled impressions left in my mind.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded, my voice unsteady.
Damien looked shaken in a way I hadn’t seen before, his usual composure cracked to reveal something vulnerable beneath. His hands trembled as he squeezed them into fists.
“Blood recognition,” he rasped out.
I pressed my uninjured hand to my temple, trying to organize the chaos of foreign memories and sensations. “Did you know that would happen?”
“No.” He shook his head, clearly still rattled. “Blood sharing between vampires can create temporary psychic connections, but nothing in my research suggested this outcome with a shifter. The intensity was…unexpected.”
I wrapped a bandage around my cut palm, using the familiar action to ground myself in the present. “Well, now we know why vampires and shifters don’t typically share blood. That was intense.”
“You saw my memories.” It wasn’t a question.
I nodded, swallowing hard. “Some of them. They were fragmented. I saw you get crowned.”
His jaw tightened as he looked away, and I decided to leave that topic alone for now.
The passageway before us exhaled a current of cool, stale air that carried some scents I knew and others I couldn’t immediately identify—mineral dust, ancient stone, something medicinal, and beneath it all, a musky odor that triggered primal recognition in some deep part of my brain.
Wolf, but not wolf. Something older, wilder.
“The Wolf Queen awaits.” I searched in my pack for my headlamp and switched it on as I settled it in place. “Ready?”
Damien nodded and moved to take the lead, positioning himself in front of me with unmistakable protectiveness.
“I’ll go first,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.
“Why go to all the trouble to repel vampires on the way here but require their blood at the crypt entrance?” I asked as we began our descent, trying to focus on the mission rather than the lingering imprints of memories that weren’t mine.
“A test of worthiness,” he replied, his voice echoing in the narrow passage. “Eliminate the weak or uncommitted and see who persists.”
“To lure them to their deaths?” I pressed.
His shoulders tensed, and when he looked back at me over his shoulder, his eyes gleamed with an inhuman light in the darkness.
“The strong survive,” he said, as if quoting something ancient. “The Wolf Queen does not suffer the presence of weakness.”
As we descended deeper into the shadow-filled passage, the stone steps became increasingly worn and uneven as they began to curve.
The blue glow from behind us faded, leaving only my headlamp to illuminate our way.
The ancient corridor twisted downward in a spiral, the air growing thicker with each step.
“Watch your footing,” I said, noting the centuries of moisture had left the stones slick with a fine layer of moss. “And don’t touch anything that looks suspicious.”
“Defined as?” Damien asked, his voice echoing in the confined space.
“Anything, really. Anything too perfectly placed, anything that looks deliberately positioned. These types of entrances are almost always—“
My warning came too late. Damien’s shoulder brushed against what appeared to be an innocuous strand of thick cobweb. There was a soft click, barely audible even in the silence. Gears turned from somewhere unseen.
I froze. “Don’t. Move.”
Damien, a few steps in front of me, stopped dead.
I held my breath, almost sucked into the belief that nothing would happen because nothing did.
Almost.
Just as the step beneath Damien’s feet gave way, I shouted, “Never mind! Move!”
His vampire reflexes saved him from plummeting into whatever waited below. He caught the edge of the intact step, his body dangling over a pitch-black void that had opened beneath him. Even with his enhanced strength, though, the crumbling edge threatened to give way under his grip.
Half a second later, it did give way.
And Damien plummeted into the darkness below.