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
16. 16.
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
sign of the monsters responsible for this
my voice rough with emotion. "There has
words leave my lips, I know it's futile. Whoever did this was meticulous,
course it's probably the vampires. But if it's not, we
streets to run crimson beneath our silver moon. A true war hasn't come to any pack in a long time. This is inconceivable, and yet
It's real.
ICCS Devery
have already died, but
as much as my life revolves around
It feels like we're all being led to one
Deep.
Slow.
only lead to misstep. There's no
on me for their
not even the wolves near us would be able to decipher
I share
nods, knowing how much
me rebels against the idea of establishing any sort of connection with those bloodsucking monsters, but we're operating too blind, and the stakes
to wait around
1. us.
can't keep getting jerked
again, I square my
guidance now
"is everyone accounted for?"
Vester at Blackwood, and they're on full alert. I have two groups out looking for our missing wolves There's no warmth or solace in the intense heat
for
this happen? How did we let ourselves become so vulnerable? So exposed? The questions gnaw at me, bringing
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