Tangled in Moonlight: Unshifted (Ava and Lucas)

Chapter 182 Lucas: Ghoulish Discovery

LUCAS

Who the fuck steals burning bodies of the dead?

The motive is completely unfathomable.

Angry flames lick at the night sky, smoldering remnants of what should have been a sacred night, with souls returned to the embrace of the Moon Goddess.

Instead, there are eighteen disturbed mounds, with no bodies to be found.

Nude after my shift, my bare feet sink into the sodden earth as I move closer, mud squelching between my toes.

"Alpha." Kellan's voice cuts through the haze of my thoughts. He holds out a bundle of clothes, emergency spares we keep on hand for situations like this.

Grabbing only a pair of jeans, I pull them on with a vicious yank, fury boiling just beneath my skin. The breeze, cool and oblivious to the undercurrents of the night, is almost soothing against my heated skin.

Around me, my wolves move through the clearing, noses to the ground as they try to parse out any lingering scents. But there's nothing. The air is too clean, too pure. It's as if someone took a giant eraser and wiped away all traces of those who were here before us.

"I don't understand," I mutter, more to myself than anyone else. "How can there be no scent? It's like the area's been sanitized."

Kellan frowns, his brow furrowed in concentration. "It's not just the scents of the attackers that are missing. I can't even catch a whiff of Ava."

It's true. Even her scent has been erased from the very air around us.

I turn in a slow circle, taking in the scene with growing frustration. The disturbed heaps continue to burn, casting an eerie glow across the clearing.

My wolves move like shadows, their movements precise and focused as they search for any clue, any hint of who could have done this.

But there's nothing. No scent, no trail, no sign of the monsters responsible for this atrocity. It's as if they never existed.

with emotion. "There has to be

as the words leave my lips, I know it's futile. Whoever did this was meticulous,

the vampires. But if it's not, we risk a war that will take too many

moon. A true war

It's real.

many have already died, but for

love her, as much as my life revolves around her, Ava alone can't possibly be

being led to one conclusion, like

eyes,

Deep.

Slow.

There's no more leeway for mistakes

rely on me

you think?" Kellan asks, his voice so soft not even the wolves near us would be able to decipher his

with her Sister Miriam. The connection I share with my beta is tight, so no others can

how much

of establishing any sort of connection with those bloodsucking monsters, but we're operating too blind, and the stakes

wait around for the scraps

can't keep getting

I square my shoulders as I turn back to face my wolves. They're looking to me for guidance now more than ever before. And

"Is everyone accounted for?"

Blackwood, and they're on full alert. I have two

whoever took the bodies," Kellan growls, slamming his fist into his hand. "They're playing with us. Toying with

warmth or solace in the intense heat radiating from the funeral mounds, made of hay and dried wood,

for

How did we let ourselves become so vulnerable?

pyres. Make sure the ground stays wet. We don't need a forest fire on top of

acknowledgement before loping away, presumably