13. Chapter 13 - Matt #2
Then something moved in the passage below. The sound was faint at first. A scrape against stone. Then came another, heavier scrape, as though something were dragging itself through the dark. Every weapon came up.
The humor vanished from Theron’s face. Matt shifted beside him, knife sliding into his hand before he registered reaching for it. A low breath drifted from the open passage, slow and wet, carrying the unmistakable awareness of something listening in the dark.
Vale stepped forward. “Positions.”
The Valker team moved instantly, spreading into a defensive arc around the newly opened doorway. Matt stayed beside Theron because every part of him rejected the idea of standing anywhere else.
Baptiste glanced at Theron. “Is it him?”
Theron did not answer at first. The light from the passage reflected across his face, making him look carved from shadow and old grief. “No,” he said finally. “But it belongs to him.”
Matt’s grip tightened around the knife. “That distinction is doing absolutely nothing for my anxiety.”
A shape appeared at the base of the stairs. At first Matt thought it was a wolf crawling on all fours. Then it unfolded.
The creature crawled upward on limbs too long for its body, its spine bowed sharply beneath stretched gray skin.
Patches of fur clung to it in uneven mats, and bone pressed visibly beneath the surface as though the body had been reshaped badly and left unfinished.
Its eyes glowed the same pale gold as the First King’s.
But there was something worse than its appearance. The corruption had changed him just enough to turn Matt’s stomach.
The creature stopped halfway up the stairs and opened its mouth. When it spoke, the voice was neither smooth nor whole. The words scraped through broken anatomy as though language itself hurt. “Returned.”
The Valker agents held their fire, but only barely.
Matt searched Theron’s face for some sign that he didn’t understand what he’d just heard. “Please tell me that thing is not talking to you.”
Theron’s face had gone utterly still.
The creature dragged one hand up another step. Its claws scraped lines into the stone. “Returned…” it rasped. “Blood remembers.”
Theron moved before anyone could stop him. Matt caught his arm this time and did not let go. “Do not,” Matt said.
Theron did not look at him. “It was one of mine.”
The words hit harder than Matt expected.
His gaze returned to the creature on the stairs, and the horror of it shifted without lessening. It only deepened.
One of mine. A wolf. A person. Someone who had belonged to Theron before the mountain reduced them to this broken thing crawling out of the dark.
Matt’s grip loosened, but he did not let go completely. “What does that mean?” he asked.
Theron’s throat worked once. “It means the mountain kept more than memory.”
The creature’s head tilted, and for a moment its gaze drifted away from Theron. It settled on Matt.
The hyena slammed against the inside of his skin so violently Matt nearly staggered.
The creature inhaled. Its nostrils flared, and recognition spread across what remained of its face. Its lips peeled back from too many teeth. “Anchor.”
The word struck the chamber like a gunshot. Matt forgot how to breathe.
Every wolf in the chamber went still. One by one, their heads turned toward Matt.
Theron went still in a way that frightened Matt more than any movement could have.
The creature smiled, if the expression could be called that, and crawled one more step into the light.
“King sees,” it rasped. “King knows.”
The mountain trembled beneath them.
The crack of distant stone rolled through the chamber, and somewhere far below, something answered with a roar so deep it seemed to pass through Matt’s bones before reaching his ears.
The creature lunged, and the chamber erupted into motion.
Gunfire thundered through the chamber as the Valker agents opened fire.
The creature moved far too fast for something built that badly, throwing itself sideways across the stairs and slamming into one of the pillars hard enough to fracture stone.
Bullets tore through its shoulder and chest, but it barely slowed.
Matt ducked as a chunk of rock shattered near his head.
Theron intercepted the creature before it reached the defensive line. He was not fully shifted, but neither was he entirely human anymore. His body moved with violent speed as one hand closed around the creature’s throat and drove it backward into the wall hard enough to rattle the chamber.
The creature shrieked, a sound threaded with rage, grief, and something far too human to hear comfortably.
Matt started toward them.
Vale stepped into his path, one forearm across his chest.
“Don’t.”
“Theron.”
“Do not get between them.”
Every instinct screamed at him to push past her. His muscles tensed, but years of training held. Barely.
“Look at him,” Matt said, unable to tear his eyes away.
“I am,” Vale replied.
Theron had the creature pinned against the stone, but his face had changed. Not physically, not in the obvious way, but something ancient and predatory had surfaced behind his eyes. Theron’s wolf was no longer something contained beneath the surface. It was looking out through him.
Matt felt it from across the chamber like standing too close to a roaring fire.
The creature clawed at Theron’s arm, tearing through fabric and skin. Theron did not flinch. “Who were you?” Theron demanded.
The creature writhed, choking on a broken laugh. “Forgotten.”
Theron’s grip tightened. “Who were you?”
The creature’s eyes flickered. For one second, the gold dimmed. Something else looked out. Someone else. The chamber seemed to still around that fragile shift. Even the agents holding the defensive line went motionless.
The creature’s mouth trembled. “Aric,” it whispered.
Theron’s face changed.
Matt watched the name land. It cut through centuries. The feral rage faltered beneath sudden, devastating recognition.
“Aric,” Theron said, and the sound of that name in his voice hurt to hear.
The creature’s eyes filled with panic. “Kill me.”
No one moved.
Aric swallowed hard, trembling against Theron’s grip. “Please…” His voice cracked. “Before there’s nothing left of me.”
Theron’s hand trembled around Aric’s throat.
Matt understood then with sick clarity that Aric had mattered to Theron. Not as a legend. Not as some distant casualty buried by time. Aric had stood beside him.
Maybe he’d failed him. Maybe he’d mourned him. Or maybe he’d never known there was anything left to mourn. The mountain rumbled again. The gold returned to Aric’s eyes. His body convulsed.
“Theron,” Matt said.
Theron looked over his shoulder.
Matt did not know what his face revealed, but he poured something steadier than either command or pity into his voice.
“Come back to me.”
Matt saw the exact moment his voice reached Theron beneath the rage.
Theron’s breathing changed. The wildness in his eyes did not vanish, but it shifted, turning away from the edge just enough for him to choose.
Aric screamed as the gold light flared beneath his skin. “Do it,” he begged, voice breaking through the monster. “Please.”
Theron closed his eyes before he moved.
The motion was swift. Merciful.
In the terrible silence that followed, the sound of Aric’s neck breaking was almost impossibly small.
Aric went limp in Theron’s hands.
No one spoke.
Theron lowered him carefully to the stone as though the broken body weighed nothing and everything at once. His hand remained at Aric’s throat for a moment longer, fingers resting where a pulse would never beat again.
Matt stepped toward him. This time Vale did not stop him.
Theron stayed kneeling beside the body, head bowed, one hand braced against the floor. Blood ran down his forearm where Aric’s claws had torn him open, dripping steadily onto the stone.
Matt crouched beside him, stopping just short of reaching out. He waited until Theron gave the smallest sign that he could bear being touched.
For several seconds, there was nothing but the echo of distant water and the heavy breathing of armed operatives trying to process what they had witnessed.
Then Theron spoke, his voice so quiet Matt almost missed it. “He was my second.”
Theron did not look up. “Before the mountain took him.”
Matt reached out and laid one hand carefully over Theron’s bloodied wrist. Theron let him, and Matt kept his hand there.
Baptiste approached, his weapon lowered. His expression had lost all its earlier sharpness. “There may be more.”
Theron’s jaw tightened.
Matt turned toward the open passage, where pale blue light continued pulsing down the stairs. From somewhere below came another sound. Not a roar this time. A voice. Many voices. Whispering from the dark. Theron rose, and Matt stood with him.
Grief still carved deep lines across Theron’s face, raw enough to hurt just looking at him, but beneath it something colder had settled. Not despair. Resolve.
Theron looked into the passage. “The First King isn’t waiting for us.”
Deep below, the whispers multiplied until they sounded less like echoes and more like voices answering one another.
Matt swallowed. “Then what is he doing?”
Theron’s bloodied fingers closed around Matt’s hand.
“He’s opening the tombs.”