Chapter 30 The Underearth
The Underearth
“Why did you choose Oz to come along?” I asked Lucien quietly as we walked through the forest. We had just finished showering and putting on fresh clothes, and it was time to meet our other companions for the field trip.
So I used the time to voice my concerns.
“Despite his hatred towards me, Oz cares about the pack, and he knows that a threat to me is a threat to the pack as a whole,” Lucien replied in a calm voice, though his face was troubled.
And this didn’t make me feel any better. “I still don’t like him,” I informed him. “He’s picking fights for no reason, acting rude and disrespectful towards you, and generally being a humongous asshole.”
Lucien let out a breath. “Oz and Mack used to be best friends,” he said.
“I believe Oz’s anger isn’t really directed at me, but rather at Mack, for betraying not just the pack’s trust, but Oz’s too.
But since Mack’s gone, he directs his fury at me.
” He smiled bitterly. “Of course, if his behavior persists after we’re done with the Syndicate, then I’m going to take serious action.
Let’s just say this is his chance to show me he is fit to remain a Beta, or a pack member in general.
But let’s talk about something more important now. ”
I knew what he wanted to talk about, so, looking straight ahead, I decided to speak first. “Once we come back, you’re transforming me into a werewolf. It is settled.”
My voice was defensive, and I was prepared for a fight—only this time, without the mind-blowing sex, which was quite unfortunate.
But when Lucien said nothing, I glanced at him and saw a gorgeous smile on his face.
It was a genuine smile, so beautiful, so breathtaking, I found myself unable to look away, entranced by the sight.
“Okay,” he said softly, glancing at me with a tender look that made me weak in the knees.
“Okay?” I repeated, eyes wide in disbelief. “You’re not going to talk bullshit about being selfish and whatnot again?”
He chuckled and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me to him. “When it comes to you, Drew, you could ask me to pull my heart out of my chest and give it to you, and I would say yes.”
I wrapped my arms around him and huddled closer. “Lucien . . .”
He kissed my forehead. “I just hope you don’t come to regret it,” he said quietly. “That’s all I’m really worried about.”
“I won’t,” I said at once, pulling back to catch his gaze. “And in the zero chance I ever do, I will never, ever blame you.”
His gaze softened, and I could see it. His love for me. It shone bright in his eyes now, when before it never had. As if he didn’t want to hide it anymore.
But I could also see the hesitation still lurking there too. He couldn’t fully trust my words yet because I was his Eteria, after all. An emotional slave whose soul belonged to him, and who was destined to love him, and only him.
That only made me more determined to go through with transforming into a werewolf. I couldn’t wait to show him—and myself, too—that what I was feeling was real. That it had to be real.
Nothing else mattered to me more than showing the man I loved that I truly loved him.
After a few minutes of walking in silence, wrapped around one another, we arrived at a clearing in the forest where Blaise, Teya, and scrunch-faced Oz were waiting.
Wordlessly, Blaise handed each of us a flask filled with a shadow mark and said, “It might look like there isn’t a lot of liquid inside, but it’s an optical illusion.
There is enough to drench you fully in the portal for it to occur safely, but make sure to not leave even the smallest part of your body dry. ”
Blaise motioned for us to uncork the flasks, and I was suddenly nervous. The first time I saw Lucien’s human form was when he stopped me from touching the shadow mark. He’d told me later that if the portal wasn’t applied right, it could cause single and even multiple dismemberments.
Lucien must’ve noticed my anxiety because he lowered his head toward me and murmured, “Don’t worry, Drew. It’s not like when you had a few drops; there is enough here to cover you whole without leaving even a pinky out.”
I swallowed hard. “All right.”
“Follow my lead,” Blaise now said as he placed the flask over his head and began pouring the liquid.
But it wasn’t really liquid, or rather, not entirely.
It poured down almost like some sort of glaze, yet when it made contact with Blaise’s skin and clothes, it turned into liquid.
The liquid spread smoothly all over his body as if it knew what to do on its own, as if the shadow mark was actually sentient in a way, and once the last drop hit his head, Blaise evaporated into thin air, leaving a small trail of fine white smoke behind.
I blinked, staring at where Blaise had just been, before turning to Lucien. “What . . .”
Lucien shrugged and surprised me with a sexy wink. “Welcome to the world of magic, Drew Colter.”
Smiling a little, and relieved to see him joking like this—despite everything that had happened and everything that would happen soon—I took in a deep breath and mimicked everything Blaise had done.
The shadow mark felt like warm mud on my skin as it crawled all over it, and my clothes, evenly. All I had to do was leave my flask above me until the last drop. The liquid found its way to every spot without me needing to do anything; it even crawled up my raised hand, the one holding the flask.
Once the last drop landed on the tip of my nose, I felt as if I was being yanked forward forcefully, even though I didn’t move. I shut my eyes as I felt a sudden sense of nausea before the yanking feeling disappeared and my nausea retreated, leaving me breathless.
Feeling disoriented, it took me a moment to comprehend that I was no longer at the clearing in the middle of the forest of the Montrevere werewolf pack near LA. Because what I was seeing before me was far too unbelievable.
It seemed the Underearth wasn’t called an Underearth for nothing. This place, the city that sprawled down the hill the Betas, Lucien, and I were currently standing on, was literally built under the ground.
The ceiling was far too high for me to actually see, but I could see the walls were made of the very earth this place was named after.
The city itself, while I couldn’t see the end, only the few blocks ahead, looked like an ominous version of Venice, with canals between blocks and houses, bridges to get from one place to another, and boats parked near the houses as a means of transportation.
The city was mostly dark but for the lanterns hung on the walls, dimly lighting up the roads. The smell was that of mud and ocean water, and the freshly cut grass we stood on as it covered the hill.
“What do you think?” Lucien murmured now, looking at me with piercing eyes, after he appeared out of thin air just like the others and me.
I returned my gaze to the city. “It’s beautiful,” I said quietly, “but eerie.”
He nodded in agreement, it seemed, before he looked at Blaise, who stared at the city ahead. “Lead the way.”
Blaise nodded and began climbing down the hill. The other two Betas, Lucien, and I followed, and as we did, an uneasy feeling crawled into my gut, as if my instincts were trying to tell me something.
But since I had no idea what they were trying to tell me, I ignored them for now.
We walked among the bridges, passing by people who seemed human, but each had a certain feature that differentiated them from any normal human I’d ever seen.
For instance, we passed by a family of four, with one of the mothers having long pointy ears, like an elf, and the other sporting shiny dark scales over her bare arms. Their son and daughter seemed like a mishmash of the two mothers, with both scales and pointy ears, though the son also had something akin to a tattoo framing his face, which had to be some sort of a birthmark, since the boy was merely four or five years old.
Most people we passed, though, had pointy ears in different lengths. When I asked Lucien about it in a low voice, he replied, “The Underearth is considered the most Fae-centric city in the Otherborne world.”
Meaning each and every person with pointy ears had to be Fae, or of Fae heritage.
I tried not to stare at the people we passed by, so as to not seem too out of place, like a human in a zoo, but it was hard—especially when some of the passersby had horns, or sported tails and animal ears, or were covered in fur in their human form.
The deeper we went into the city, the more bustling it became.
Booths, shops, and individual traders were hanging around the streets, and people engaged with them, purchasing and selling their things.
It felt like a scene out of a fantasy movie, one of those Willow loved so much.
The only jarring difference was that the people here were dressed in modern fashion like the average human and were using phones and electronic devices to swipe credit cards.
At the end of what seemed like the main road, Blaise, who led our group, came to a stop before a shop that seemed like an apothecary from outside. He then turned to us and said, “This is the meeting point. My contact should be here soon.”
Lucien nodded and leaned against the shop’s vitrine, folding his arms, face relaxed but his eyes on full alert.
I stood next to him, fiddling with my shirt nervously and continually readjusting my glasses as I watched the crowd of people milling about, the families talking in a mix of American English and some sort of foreign tongue I didn’t recognize.
Another thing I noticed was the Spellscripts. There were many of them everywhere—carved on the building walls, the bridges’ bricks, statues, even on trash bins. Some of those Spellscripts seemed similar to those I had recorded in my notebook, but most were foreign to me.