Chapter six ( the hunt begins)

CHAPTER 6 – The Hunt Begins

The arrow whistled past my ear so close I felt the wind of it tear through my hair. I threw myself to the ground, my body moving on pure instinct, muscle memory from years of survival kicking in. The stone floor of my room scraped against my palms as I rolled behind the heavy wooden bed, my heart hammering so hard I thought it would burst through my ribs.

Another arrow. Then another. They came through the window in rapid succession, embedding themselves into the walls with sharp, decisive thuds. The old elder's warning echoed in my mind like a death knell. Marcus had made his choice. He wasn't going to let me live long enough to become a real threat.

I pressed myself against the wall, breathing shallow and controlled. Seven years in a dungeon teaches you how to stay still, how to make yourself small, how to survive when everything is trying to kill you. My wolf paced inside me, agitated, demanding I shift and fight back. But I couldn't. Not yet. Not without understanding the bigger picture.

The arrows stopped coming. For a long moment, there was only silence and the sound of my own breathing.

I waited. I'd learned patience in those cells, learned that rushing forward was how people died. The window was now a gaping vulnerability, the curtains fluttering in the night breeze. Whoever had fired those arrows would have to reload, or they'd send someone to finish what they'd started.

The door burst open.

I nearly jumped, but I forced myself to remain still, watching through the gap between the bed frame and the wall. A guard stepped inside, his hand on the hilt of his sword, his eyes scanning the room. He was looking for a body, for signs of death. When he didn't find one, confusion crossed his face.

"She's gone," he called out to someone in the hallway.

"Then find her!" A voice I recognized. One of Marcus's lieutenants, a man named Gareth who had always looked at me with pure contempt.

The guard moved deeper into the room, his back to me. This was my moment. I rose silently and grabbed the heavy ceramic pitcher from the washing basin. Without hesitation, I brought it down against his skull. He dropped without a sound, blood pooling beneath his head.

I didn't feel guilty. He'd come to kill me. In this world, mercy was a luxury I couldn't afford.

I moved quickly to the door and peered out into the hallway. Empty. My bare feet made no sound against the stone floor as I slipped out into the darkness, my mind already calculating my options. I couldn't go to Kael. Not yet. Even if he wanted to protect me, his father would use him to find me. The bond between us was a beacon, and Marcus would use it without hesitation.

That left only one option, one that made my chest tighten with conflicting emotions. The cave. The forbidden place where Damon was chained. If I could get to him, if I could understand what he knew about my parents, about my blood, then maybe I'd have a weapon against Marcus. Maybe I'd have leverage.

The pack grounds were mostly quiet at this hour, the night shift guards concentrated on the outer perimeters. I moved like a ghost through the shadows, using the knowledge I'd gained from seven years of studying my captors' patterns. You learn to read a place when you're trapped in it. You learn where people move, where they pause, where their attention wavers.

The entrance to the forbidden cave was marked by standing stones, ancient markers that wolves instinctively avoided. There were no guards here, which meant Marcus trusted in the curse or the legend or whatever magic he believed kept people away. That worked in my favor.

The moment I stepped between the stones, I felt it. The pull, the same magnetic draw that had taken me down here the first time. My blood hummed with recognition, and my wolf surged forward eagerly, recognizing something kindred in the darkness ahead.

The descent was steep and treacherous in the dark, but I moved carefully, my hands trailing along the damp stone walls to guide me. The smell of the cave grew stronger as I went deeper, that mixture of rust and blood and something else, something wild and dangerous.

The chains announced my arrival before my eyes could adjust to the deeper darkness. A growl, low and trembling, echoed through the cavern. Then: "Silver wolf. You came back."

Damon's form materialized from the shadows like something pulled from a nightmare. He was shifting again, his body caught between forms, hair sprouting and receding, his face twisted in that perpetual agony of transformation. But when he saw me, when his eyes caught mine, the shifting slowed. His breathing became more controlled.

"They're trying to kill me," I said without preamble. "Marcus has ordered it."

Damon's entire body went rigid. The chains rattled violently as he surged forward, his half-formed wolf snarling with rage. "That bastard. That cowardly, pathetic bastard!"

"Tell me about my parents," I demanded, stepping closer despite every rational part of my brain screaming at me not to. "Tell me everything you know. If I'm going to die anyway, at least let me know the truth."

Damon's eyes fixed on me with an intensity that was almost unbearable. The madness that usually filled them had receded, replaced by something almost like humanity. Almost like grief.

"Your blood," he rasped. "Let me taste it. Just enough to keep myself lucid. I can't explain this while the curse has me. Please."

I raised my hand and drew my nail across my palm, opening a thin line. Blood welled up, crimson and bright, and I held it toward him.

He didn't grab. He moved with surprising gentleness, his scarred and twisted hand supporting my wrist as he brought my bleeding palm to his lips. The moment my blood touched him, I felt the change ripple through him like a shock wave. His body convulsed, but it was different this time. Not painful. Transformative.

When he pulled away, his eyes were clear. Fully human. Clear amber eyes that held such depth of sadness and remorse that I almost couldn't bear to look at them.

"Your parents were not pack members when they died," he began, his voice steady and measured. "They were something more. Your mother came from an old bloodline, one that predates the packs as we know them. Her blood was rare, Lyra. Healing blood. The kind that could break curses, reveal truth, undo dark magic."

My heart was hammering in my chest. "How do you know this?"

"Because Marcus told me," Damon said, his jaw clenching. "He told me the night he asked me to kill them. He said your mother's blood was dangerous, that it threatened the legitimacy of his rule. He said your father was planning to expose a secret that would destroy everything the Maxmus line had built."

"What secret?" I whispered.

Damon closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were wet with tears. "That Marcus is not the true heir. That he murdered his own father, your grandfather's alpha, to claim the position. Your mother discovered it. She was going to tell the council."

The world seemed to tilt beneath me. My grandfather's alpha was dead. Marcus had killed him. The entire hierarchy of the Litha Pack was built on murder.

"Why would my father help keep that secret?" I asked, my voice shaking.

"He wasn't going to," Damon said quietly. "That's why they both had to die. Marcus came to me, told me it was necessary for the pack's survival, and I... I was ambitious then, young and stupid and desperate to prove myself. I wanted to be alpha. Marcus promised me power if I did it. So I went to your home, and I killed them. I killed them in cold blood while you were sleeping in the next room."

I felt like I couldn't breathe. The cave seemed to spin around me, the walls closing in.

"I've been cursed ever since," Damon continued, his voice hollow. "Not by magic, not really. By guilt. By the weight of what I did. Marcus was the one who sealed the curse, who locked me away down here, because he knew eventually I'd grow a conscience. And he was right. Every day I've been here, I've hated myself more and more."

"Why should I believe you?" I demanded, even though part of me already did.

"Because I've had nothing but time to learn how to lie, and I'm choosing not to," he said simply. "Because your blood makes me human again, and a human being can't tell you anything but the truth. And because in my heart, I've always known I deserved worse than this cave."

A sound from above made us both freeze. Footsteps. Multiple sets, moving with purpose. They'd found me. They'd tracked me to the cave.

Damon's entire body tensed. "You have to go. There's another way out, a tunnel that leads to the old territories, beyond Marcus's reach. Go. Now."

"Come with me," I said.

"I can't," he replied, and there was such finality in his voice that I knew he meant it. "These chains are warded with magic older than both of us. I can't break them, and Marcus won't. But you can leave. You have to leave."

"I'm not leaving you here!" I said fiercely.

The footsteps grew louder. Kael's voice echoed from somewhere above. "Lyra! Where are you?"

My heart lurched at the sound of him.

"Go," Damon urged, pointing to a narrow opening in the far wall of the cave. "That tunnel. It goes east toward the old Glom territories. Marcus's power doesn't reach there. You'll be safe."

"Lyra!" Kael's voice again, closer now.

I hesitated, torn between staying and running. But Damon was right. If I stayed, they'd capture me. If I was captured, I'd never get the chance to uncover the full truth. Marcus would make sure of that.

I moved toward the tunnel, then turned back one last time.

"I'll come back for you," I promised.

"No, you won't," Damon said, and there was a strange kind of peace in his eyes. "But I forgive you for wanting to."

I crawled into the tunnel, my body scraping against stone, my hands bleeding, my heart breaking. Behind me, I heard Kael burst into the main cavern, heard him shout Damon's name with confusion and anger.

The tunnel twisted deeper underground, and the sounds of the cave faded. I was alone in the darkness again, but this time, I was running toward something. Toward answers. Toward the truth that could burn down everything Marcus had built.

And toward a reckoning that would require me to choose between two mates, two pasts, and two versions of myself that could never coexist.

The tunnel opened into starlight. I emerged on the other side of the mountain range, in territory I'd never seen before, with nothing but the clothes on my back and the blood in my veins that held the power to change everything.

Marcus would hunt me now. Not because I was weak, but because I was dangerous. Because I knew his secret. Because my blood could undo his lies.

But so would Kael. And I wasn't sure which man frightened me more.