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"
been
16. 16.
eerie glow across the clearing.
of the monsters responsible
rough with emotion.
it's futile. Whoever did this was meticulous,
not, we risk a war that will take
many 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
It's real.
ICCS Devery
already died,
her, as much as my life revolves
led to one conclusion, like sheep to slaughter, Closing my
Deep.
Slow.
only lead to misstep. There's no more leeway
many wolves rely on me
you think?" Kellan asks, his voice so soft not even the wolves near us
to Ava. Connect with her Sister Miriam. The connection I share with my beta is tight, so no others can
knowing how much
rebels against the idea of establishing any sort of connection
time to wait around for
1. us.
keep getting jerked
again,
for guidance now more
"is everyone accounted for?"
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 answers that refuse
become so vulnerable? So exposed? The questions gnaw at me,
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