Page 100 of The Fated Hunter Wolf
I looked at Rhys. “I can’t go anywhere without her.”
“I know.”
“If you leave me now to go back to Logan—” I wasn’t sure if I could do it on my own, if I’d be able to stand the distance from Rhys. Every available option seemed terrible.
“I’m not going anywhere.” He pressed his forehead to mine, our breathing syncing. “Astrid is family now. So are those Crux wolves. So are the pack members who’ve been sold while their families mourned them as dead. We do this together, or we don’t do it at all. But we don’t abandon pack.”
We don’t abandon pack.
“We’re taking the main passage back toward mansion level,” Eve said. She started ushering the prisoners out. “You follow tunnels beyond the chamber. I think you’d best go down as far as they lead. If the Shadow Moon Goddess is on our side, Astrid is still on the premises somewhere.” She walked to me and grabbed my arm. I felt her pain and desire to come with us. “If I don’t hear from you through the bond in fifteen minutes, I’m telling Logan.”
I nodded. Eve understood the stakes as clearly as I did.
“Stay together,” she warned, and took the hands of two young oracle wolves. “And be careful. Something about this whole operation feels orchestrated.”
Orchestrated. That was the word. Something had drawn us together only to tear us apart.
“Left here,” I whispered as we exited the far side of the chamber, tracking what I hoped was the faint trail of Astrid’sdistinctive scent. It was hard to tell if that was what it was, but I had to believe that after our years together I was able to pick her scent out of even the darkest magic.
I was her Mama Sabe.
We descended a steep ramp, the passageways growing older, carved from bedrock but inlaid with silver that bounced off my own magic.
“This isn’t part of the original trafficking setup,” I said, running my fingers along symbols carved into the stone. Runes my vampire blood recognized—power structures that predated most supernatural governments. “This is older. Much older.”
Rhys’s wolf bristled as we passed chambers that reeked of old suffering. Holding cells that had caged supernatural beings for decades, maybe centuries. Medical facilities designed for procedures that made vampire courts look merciful by comparison.
“Older, huh? Any idea when the European vamps came through?” he asked.
“This has the hallmarks of European vampire nobility.” My stomach clenched as the familiar scents grew stronger. “The kind that view other supernatural beings as resources to be managed rather than equals to be respected.”
“You know that view isn’t unique to the Euro vamps.”
I wished he were wrong.
We reached another junction where the passageways branched in four directions. Astrid’s scent trail led left, down passages that emanated a scent that was at once like my own and utterly foreign. I’d spent so long trying to pretend I wasn’t what I was that even the smell of my ancestors reeked in my nostrils.
We rounded a final corner and emerged into a vast chamber that belonged in my worst nightmares.
The chamber stretched in all directions, carved from living rock, still lined with silver. It was a simple space with no lighting.My wolf recoiled, allowing my vampire nature to rise. As that part of me came up to the surface, my vision adapted.
I saw Astrid.
She hung unconscious, chained to stone by silver manacles that glowed with malevolent energy—suppressing her gifts while amplifying her pain.
“Rhys.” I stepped back despite my instinct to run and save her. “It’s a trap.”
Symbols carved into the platform made my vampire nature recoil in recognition. Elegant lines flowed into the stylized representation of a mountain peak crowned with stars. A crest branded into my mother’s skin, the one I’d spent decades trying to forget.
I stared at Astrid’s unconscious form, noting how carefully she’d been positioned—close enough to save, far enough away to require full commitment.
“No shit. Which motherfucker set it?” said Rhys.
I was about to respond when footsteps echoed from a tunnel entrance we couldn’t see—measured, unhurried, accompanied by the soft rustle of fabric and the faint clink of jewelry that spoke of wealth collected over centuries.
“I know you’re there, my dear,” a voice said from the shadows. Cultured. Patient. Utterly without mercy. “I’ve been waiting such a long time for this.”
The vampire stepped into the chamber’s dim light. Tall, elegant, with refined features suited to a Renaissance painting, not an underground torture chamber.
