Page 95 of The Fated Hunter Wolf
“Systematic extermination with a profit margin,” he whispered. “Kill the powerful in staged ‘accidents,’ then sell the survivors to collectors who’ll pay premium prices for rare bloodlines. Sick bastards.” His voice had a rough edge that meant his wolf was pushing at his control. “How long do you think this has been going on?”
“Auctions have been going on since the dawn of time, despite the laws against it. But this new approach? Years. Maybe decades. Perhaps ever since Orion was cursed.” The scope of it made my stomach clench. How many families had mourned loved ones who were actually caged somewhere, waiting to be sold? How many territories had been carved up while survivors were sold to the highest bidder?
Through the Crux bond, another pulse of information came from Eve. The prisoners weren’t just random supernatural beings—many carried the scent markers of oracle heritage. Lost Crux wolves who’d been scattered across different territories, their abilities suppressed or exploited until they could be properly processed.
My people. The pack I’d spent my life protecting, caged and waiting to be divided among collectors who viewed their gifts as entertainment.
The Crux bond detonated in my consciousness without warning.
A torrent of sensory overload hit me with the force of a dam bursting. Every empathic ability I’d inherited through the Crux bloodline ignited simultaneously, turning my nervous system into a lightning rod for supernatural suffering.
Terror flooded through me, dozens of voices screaming in harmony through the bond. Emotions hit my hybrid nature: desperation that tasted of copper and salt, rage that burned through my veins, hopelessness from being reduced to a commodity.
“There are Crux wolves among them,” I said, silver magic beginning to crackle unconsciously around my fingers. “Where are they?” I hissed, my senses reaching out to find them but coming back empty. Too much feeling, not enough direction.
The mate bond flared as Rhys absorbed everything.
My knees buckled.
The ground rushed up to meet me. Rhys caught me before I hit the ground, his arms wrapping around my waist as my body convulsed with empathic feedback. His alarm spiked as my pulse became chaotic.
“Sable,” his voice was raw, “what’s happening?”
I couldn’t answer because the visions were coming, pouring through the Crux connection with surgical clarity.
A child’s cry echoing through stone corridors—too young to understand why his parents couldn’t reach him through a barrier of blessed silver.
Oracle wolves with their gifts suppressed by magical dampening collars, vacant with the emptiness that came from having their supernatural nature forcibly severed.
Feeding tubes and medical equipment. Either for keeping the prisoners in optimal condition or for conducting tests.
This was happening somewhere beneath our feet. I didn’t want to know.
“Sable.” Rhys’s hands framed my face as he forced me to focus on his golden eyes instead of the horrific images flooding through the bond. “Stay with me.”
Eve blazed through our connection, urgent and crystalline with oracle certainty. She’d found the source, followed the signs of her vision to their physical location. The visions sharpened, becoming geographical—specific corridors, exact distances, the precise route through underground tunnels that would lead us directly to the prisoners.
And underneath it all, I felt a presence I couldn’t immediately place, watching the proceedings with the detached interest of someone who viewed suffering as data points in a larger equation.
Someone who’d been orchestrating this operation for years while sitting in Council sessions, debating territorial boundaries and trade agreements. Someone who was about to discover the Crux wolves they’d tried to eliminate weren’t as scattered as they’d believed.
The empathic overload began to ebb, leaving me shaking in Rhys’s arms, but functional. He’d experienced fragments of what I’d seen, enough to understand the scope of what we were facing.
“What is it?” he whispered in my ear, and I mustered my energy.
The empathic storm receded, leaving me trembling in Rhys’s arms. Through the haze, his heartbeat steadied mine. We both knew what we’d seen—what we couldn’t unsee. Somewhere beneath our feet, my people were waiting in chains.
“Eve found them,” I breathed.
33
RHYS
“Where are they?” I asked, keeping my voice steady despite my wolf’s need to spill the blood of those depraved bastards.
Sable pressed her forehead against my chest, her breathing gradually evening out as the empathic overload passed. She drew strength from our connection, processing the horrific visions that had torn through her.
“Two levels down, through the old holding cells.” Her voice steadied as she spoke. “Rhys, there are children down there. Oracle children are among them, being prepared for private collectors who specialize in supernatural gifts.”
