Page 186 of Moonlit Fate

“Meeting adjourned,” Caius declared. He turned, cloak swirling around him, leaving us with silence and the dead.

The pack moved toward the exits. The shuffle of feet against stone was all that filled the hall apart from the relentless drumming of rain outside. I stood frozen in place, eyes fixed on Kieran’s body.

“I just can’t believe it,” someone muttered as they passed by.

“Shh, do you want to end up like him?” another hissed back.

I didn’t turn to look at them. I didn’t need to. Their fear was a living thing that clung to the air and seeped into my skin. It was the same fear that kept me rooted in place, a reminder of the tightrope I now walked.

“Atticus,” Larkin said over the murmurs. He stood a few paces away, glancing around nervously. “We should talk strategies, plans for?—”

“Later,” I said flatly. I needed no reminder of the stakes, of the game we were now playing. And he needed to know I would never bow to him. In this hierarchy, he was the scum under my boot.

Larkin nodded once, sharply, and retreated into the dispersing crowd.

I waited until the last of the pack had filed out, their whispers fading with them.

This position, this power, was a blade that could cut me down or help me protect Aria. And I knew which way I’d wield it. I had to watch my back.

I turned then, stepping over the threshold that Kieran’s lifeless body had crossed just moments before. With each step, the shadows around me stirred, acknowledging the path I’d chosen.

I stepped out into the rain, letting it wash over me, wishing it could cleanse the future that lay ahead. The air was thick with a sense of wrongness that seemed to bleed from the soil itself asI moved through the woods under the cover of night. Trees that once stood as stoic guardians now twisted into grotesque shapes, their branches reaching out like crooked fingers, harsh against the moonlit sky. They were silent witnesses to the darkness that had seeped into the Crimson Fang lands, a testament to the corruption my father had sown.

Ahead, the stone loomed. It was old, older than any living wolf, marked with runes that spoke of an ancient power. That power pulsed erratically beneath my skin. My steps slowed as I drew closer, every instinct screaming caution.

I extended a hand toward the cold surface of the stone. The symbols were unfamiliar, but the energy radiating from it was clear as day. I touched the stone, and a jolt of raw magic surged up my arm. It was wild, untamed, so different from the subdued strength that had tormented Aria in her cell.

“We have to break this,” I whispered. There was a buzzing in my ears, the kind of resonance from standing too close to a live wire.

I reached out with my own magic, probing the force emanating from the stone. The shadows around me stirred, reacting to my presence. I’d always been one with the dark, but this... this was something else. My power reached out, tendrils of shadow grasping at the edges of the stone’s aura.

It snapped back, repelled by whatever ancient enchantment was at play. The recoil sent a shiver across my skin. Too strong. It was like trying to hold back the tide with my hands, futile.

“Damn it,” I cursed. There was a mystery here I needed to unravel, a riddle wrapped in darkness. Whatever this stone was, whatever purpose it served, I’d be damned if I’d let it stand in our way.

A voice caught me off guard, a whisper in the dark just as the stone’s power threw my magic back. I spun around, muscles tensed, ready for whatever came next.

“It’s impenetrable. Your magic cannot break it.”

I faced a man cloaked in shadows like an extension of the night itself. His words settled in the pit of my stomach. He was a magic wielder. Presumably the one my father had used to do all this, to put all this power into place.

“Why?” The word came out harsher than I intended. The need to know clawed at me, desperation mixing with anger. “Why are you chained to his will?”

Silence hung heavy. The forest seemed to lean in, listening for his answer, the leaves still and the air thick with anticipation.

The man hesitated, then his lips moved almost imperceptibly. He was so quiet I had to lean in to catch the words seeping out like the faintest breeze through dead leaves. “I am Jehad. He said there would be power beyond measure. Freedom from the chains of our kind. It’s all lies, isn’t it?”

I clenched my fists, anger and betrayal swirling inside me. This man’s story was a twisted mirror to my own, promises dangling just out of reach, a carrot leading us deeper into the snare.

“Don’t believe his lies,” I said in a low growl. “Whatever he’s promised you, it’s nothing but a mirage. He’s using you, just as he’s trying to use me. We’re pawns in his game for power, nothing more.”

The man stared back at me, his face half-hidden in the shadows. The silence stretched out, thick with unspoken truths and shared deceptions. I recognized the look on his face, the one that came when hope battled resignation.

“We can fight him,” I said. “Whatever hold he has over you, we can break it. You don’t have to be a tool for his tyranny.”

He looked at me, worry and fear blazing from his eyes. Then he shook his head slowly, as if the motion itself was painful.

“Your ambitions are praiseworthy but futile,” Jehad said. “Caius is undefeatable. We would both be foolish to defy him.I tried, once I realized his true motives, but I couldn’t stand against him. He coerced me, I’m just a humble warlock, and now it’s too late. It’s too late to defeat him.”

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