Page 41 of The Wolf's Appetite
The Therabus’s carcass lay on the slab, its stink filling every inch of the chamber. We’d brought it to the outskirts of the estate’s property to a building used to treat in-field medical emergencies and as a training facility.
No fucking way I was bringing this fucking thing to the manor and anywhere near the females.
The witches worked quickly performing an autopsy not only manually but with their magic, as well.
They stripped its hide, sliced into its stomach, and probed its internal organs and bones and sinew and marrow.
One elder murmured an incantation, her palms glowing white as magic pulsed through her. Her expressionwas focused, her eyes closed as her brows were drawn down in confusion or maybe worry.
“This isn’t just a rogue Therabus,” she said grimly. “Dark magic swirls within it. There is something… more, but I can’t dig deep enough to figure out what it is. The darkness of it cloaks its true intent.”
The elder opened her eyes and stepped back as the oracle shuffled forward, her blind eyes milky, her skin stretched thin over sharp bones. She placed both hands on the flayed chest, the room silent as she searched for answers.
It seemed like an eternity of the room holding its breath before she exhaled and stepped back.
When she spoke, her voice was low and absolute. “It carries the stench of the Leandrean.”
Every being in the room stiffened as that truth rang through all of us.
“Keepers of the portals, guards of the dimensions,” the oracle said slowly, softly, “they were tasked–as a punishment–to hold the keys to other worlds but never having the ability to pass through them,” she said while she kept her focus on the carcass. “Because the seal was broken the moment the portal ripped open, thrusting creatures from our world into the next, it created a fissure, a tear.”
I thought about what she was referring to, the timejump that had thrust Sebastian into another world where he’d found his mate. But we thought when they’d been transported back to our world, things had healed and the dimensions sealed once more. We’d been wrong.
“It was never fully sealed,” she continued as if reading all our minds. “The breach bled the binding magic dry. The worlds were exposed to each other for too long. The Leandrean used that to their advantage, bleeding their dark magic into the seams and creating scar tissue at the gates. Now, they can cross freely using the Therabus as their weapons to cause chaos?—”
“To cause a distraction,” I finished. The oracle hummed her approval.
“Can we seal it again?” I asked, staring at the torn apart body of the Therabus.
The oracle witch shook her head. “I am not aware of a way we can. Not as before, that is. The old magic requires the willing blood of the Keyholders themselves. The Leandrean will never submit. All we can do is slow the gates—ward every threshold, strengthen every binding—and hunt them down one by one before they release more.”
One elder said, “We will search the scrolls and ancient texts. We will figure out a way to fix this.”
Another witch, younger but with power radiating off him in waves, stepped forward. “I can see throughtime. Not all moments and the depth of which I can see is limited, but maybe it’s enough to gather more information? It may take navigating the corridors of the Therabus’s mind through its memories, but I can follow it backward. Perhaps even glimpse the Leandrean who commanded it.”
The murmur of agreement rang through the room.
Everyone made room for the witch, and the Time Bender placed his hand over the Therabus’s head, inhaling deeply, and slipping into a trance. The room pulsed as his pupils bled into black. We all held our breath when he spoke. “I see a cavern. Everything is dark, the edges blurring, so it’s hard to make anything out clearly enough to describe it.” He took another breath and exhaled, closing his eyes and chanting slowly to himself.
“They are white-haired giants with six fingers and black claws.”
Leandrean, everyone seemed to murmur in unison.
“The air reeks of old blood, sulfur, and dark magic,” his voice dropped to a whisper. “They talk in a language broken and slithering like a snake. Doors opening. Wounds not healing.” He shook his head, his breathing coming in hard pants now. “And they are not done.” He gasped and stumbled back, clutching his hand to his chest as if in pain. His eyes were so wide I saw more white than color. He scanned theroom frantically, chanting, “Something isn’t right. This is wrong.” And then his arms flung out to his sides and outward, his head tossed back as all color drained from his eyes and turned opaque. “They are already here.”
A hardthump-thump-thumpresonated in the room a second before blackness oozed from the Therabus’s wounds creating a river and pouring over the edge of the table to puddle on the floor.
The open wound of the chest peeled back, curling outward as steam and black ooze bubbled outward. The surrounding air cracked and sparked as if a live wire hit a pool of water. We all had our weapons drawn, but everything moved so quickly, time and the situation turning upside down, that no one knew what the fuck to do.
The witches had their hands out, white light shooting out of their palms as they chanted their magic. But whatever the grotesque horror happening on the slab wasn’t stopping.
But the magic in the room was no longer theirs to control—because it was rising frominsidethe beast and pouring outward.
The witches gasped and shrieked, “Back. Move back. It’s here. It’s here.”
We all took several steps back with males securing the entry points of the room. Weapons were drawn and pointed at the Therabus, but it was clear the creaturewas dead. Whatever was happening wasn’t the Therabus… it was something else.
The corpse convulsed violently, ribs cracking outward, the sound wet. The black blood seeped from its mouth thickened, coiling into tendrils that slithered upward. It was like the room had turned upside down and liquids defied gravity and coated the ceiling.
