Page 96 of The Fated Hunter Wolf
Children. They were trafficking them for entertainment.
My protective instincts exploded beyond anything I’d ever experienced. We had to save those shifters. No question there. And we had to expose the rot that had been hidden beneath layers of political theater and false documentation. We were dealing with evidence of a conspiracy that reached into the highest levels of supernatural government. One that had beenusing Council sessions as a cover for operations that made the vampire courts look merciful by comparison.
She pulled back. Whatever messed-up shit she’d seen through that empathic connection was all the reason we needed.
“Time to go,” she said.
I smiled, my fangs ready to elongate as my wolf growled his desire to protect. “Let’s rattle some cages.”
My wolf took stock of threats as we went. We’d survived too many ambushes to take anything for granted. Strange scents layered the air. Silver threading lined the walls, creating a network of dampening fields that would make this place invisible to most enhanced senses.
Clever bastards. Build your trafficking ring under the noses of every southern pack leader, then ward it so it’s completely undetectable.
Behind me, Sable moved silently. I felt her tracking exits, guard positions, the precise layout of corridors that branched off in multiple directions. At the end of a long passageway, partially invisible, were Eve and Astrid, waiting.
Eve and Astrid flanked us. The young Crux wolf held a glamour so precise that eyes slid right past us. My own hand looked like the wall behind it.
The kid was good. Scary good.
“Left here,” Eve whispered, her oracle abilities guiding us through the maze of underground passages. “The main holding area is through those doors.”
The doors in question were massive things that belonged in a medieval castle, not as part of a modern trafficking operation. Heavy wood bound with iron, carved with symbols that made my wolf’s hackles rise. Protection wards, containment spells. Old magic. Old cruelty.
Sable recoiled from whatever lay beyond those doors.
“How many?” I asked. I was already shifting my weight into a combat stance.
“Dozens,” she whispered. “Prisoners—and guards. Low-level vampires among them.”
Vampires in a confined space with silver-lined walls and innocent prisoners caught in the crossfire. This was going to get messy fast.
I caught Sable’s eye, and I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was:Time to fuck some shit up.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Like the man said”—her muscles rippled as she took on a new stance I recognized as an enforcer position—“let’s rattle some cages.”
Eve opened the door in silence, just enough so we could slip through. With some luck, the spell from Astrid would be enough for us to get in unnoticed. As long as no one picked that particular second to leave, since they’d have walked straight into us.
Inside was a chamber that belonged in the deepest circles of hell.
The space was enormous—a natural cavern that had been carved and expanded to hold hundreds of beings. We could blend in, since there were multiple entrances opening and closing as other prisoners were brought in. Silver bars gleamed under harsh fluorescent light, casting everything in a sickly pallor. Cages lined the walls in neat, organized rows.
And they weren’t empty.
My wolf froze, and for a second I couldn’t process what I was seeing. Dozens of shifters and other supernatural beings too. The smell of their terror made me want to shut down completely. Kids huddled in the corners of cages that were barely big enough for dogs, let alone shifter children. Adult wolves and other supespaced in tight circles, their pack bonds severed and their minds clearly hanging on however they could.
“Holy fucking Goddess,” I breathed.
Through the bond, Sable’s rage turned ice-cold and I immediately knew she’d seen this kind of thing before. Her vampire side was already cataloguing the setup while her wolf wanted blood.
Guards wandered between cages like this was just another Tuesday. Dwarves and vampires in tactical gear that was obviously designed for one thing—dropping supernatural beings fast and keeping them down. They had silver restraints that would burn through shifter skin, tranq guns loaded with a cocktail of who-knew-what, and what looked like cattle prods that had been souped-up with magical feedback strong enough to flatten an alpha. Crossbows and a few good old guns hung off of their belts.
Fuck me. I’d thought we were up against some back-alley amateurs. This was a military operation.
“Processing center,” one of the guards called out in accented English. “Batch seventeen ready for transport to auction facility.”
Batch seventeen. They were numbering people.
