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 erased from the
16. 16.
glow across the clearing. My wolves move like shadows, their movements precise and focused as they
no trail, no sign of the monsters responsible for this atrocity. It's as if they never
with emotion. "There has to be something
know it's futile. Whoever did this
the vampires. But if it's not, we risk a war that will take too
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 is inconceivable, and
It's real.
ICCS Devery
have already died,
as much as my life revolves around her, Ava alone can't possibly
to one conclusion, like sheep to slaughter, Closing
Deep.
Slow.
There's no more leeway
rely on me
voice so soft not even the wolves near us
with her Sister Miriam. The connection I share with my beta is tight, so
knowing how much
rebels against the idea of establishing any sort of connection with those bloodsucking monsters,
a time to wait around for the scraps any
1. us.
keep getting
again, I square my
wolves. They're looking to me for guidance now
"is everyone accounted for?"
still missing." Ryder reports, ever the responsible delta as he strides toward me. "I've already updated Vester at Blackwood, and they're on full alert. I have two groups out looking for our missing
for answers that refuse to
so vulnerable? So exposed? The questions
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