182
182
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.
י
"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 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 offackers that are missing. I can't even catch a whiff of Ava"
has been erased
16. 16.
burn, casting an eerie glow across the clearing. My
No scent, no trail, no sign of the monsters responsible for this atrocity.
I order, my voice rough with
it's futile. Whoever did this was meticulous, leaving no trace of their presence
course it's probably the vampires. But if it's not, we risk a war that will
wolves are already clamoring, screaming for the streets to run crimson beneath our silver moon. A true war hasn't come to any pack in a long time. This
It's real.
ICCS Devery
many have already
her, as much as my life revolves around her,
being led to one
Deep.
Slow.
misstep. There's no more leeway for mistakes and
many wolves rely on me for their safety,
not even the wolves near us would be able to decipher
to talk to Ava. Connect with her Sister Miriam. The connection I share with my beta is tight, so no
much this decision galls
connection with those bloodsucking
to wait around
1. us.
can't keep getting jerked
eyes again, I square
my wolves. They're looking to me for guidance now more than ever before. And
"is everyone accounted for?"
two groups out looking for our missing wolves There's no warmth or solace in the intense heat radiating from the funeral mounds, made of hay and dried
for
let ourselves become so vulnerable? So exposed? The questions gnaw at me, bringing no answers,
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