All Chapters of Claimed by the Ruthless Wolf Slayer: Chapter 181 - Chapter 190

ALEXANDERThe path looped.I noticed it about an hour later when we passed the same tree Ryker had marked earlier. The three crossed lines were right there, carved into the bark exactly as he’d left them.“That’s impossible,” Ryker muttered, running his fingers over the symbol. “We’ve been walking in a straight line.”“Nothing about this place is possible,” I said, though my stomach had dropped somewhere around my knees. “We’re going in circles.”“Then we change direction.” He pointed left, toward a gap between two massive oaks. “That way. We haven’t tried that yet.”We pushed through the gap, branches scraping against our shoulders. The air grew colder, and that static feeling under my skin intensified until it felt like my bones were vibrating.The trees here were different. Their trunks were wider than three men standing shoulder to shoulder, and their roots twisted up from the ground in massive coils. More symbols were burned into the bark, some I recognized, others that made my e

ALEXANDERThe woman who wore Alina’s face tilted her head, studying me with those ancient eyes. Up close, the differences were more pronounced. Her skin had a faint luminescence, like moonlight trapped beneath the surface. When she moved, the air around her rippled. She possessed a degree of power that could feel just by being close to her. I felt it in that room when I woke up. Starting at it right now, I did’t know how I didn’t catch it earlier.“You look confused,” she said, amusement dancing in her voice. “Did you expect someone else?” Her voice was a bit throaty, not fully like Alina’s.“Where is she?” The words came out as a growl, my wolf pushing so close to the surface that my vision flickered between human and animal. “Where is Alina?”She laughed, her eyes glinting with a hint of mischief or amusement? I didn’t know which. “Still asking the wrong questions, Alpha. You should be asking who I am. What I am.” She stepped closer, her bare feet making no sound on the stone floor.

ALEXANDERThe grove Lyanna led us to looked like something from a nightmare.Trees grew so densely packed that their trunks fused together in places, creating walls of bark and wood. What little moonlight penetrated the canopy above came through in thin, silver threads that seemed to get absorbed by the darkness before reaching the ground.“There,” Lyanna said, pointing to a spot where the blackness seemed to pulse. “The moonpetals grow in the deepest shadows. They feed on the absence of light, the absence of sound and the absence of hope.”“Cheerful,” Ryker muttered, his sarcasm clear. I approached the shadow pocket carefully, every sense on high alert. As I got closer, I could see the pale flowers growing from the dark earth, their petals an iridescent white that seemed to generate its own faint glow. They were beautiful in a haunting way, like stars that had fallen and taken root in the underworld.“Don’t touch them directly,” Lyanna warned. “The moonpetal’s defense mechanism is p

ALEXANDERThe Reversed Falls were exactly as impossible as Lyanna had described.We found them in a gorge so narrow we had to turn sideways to squeeze through the rock walls. The sound of water flowing reached us first, but it wrong somehow. The rhythm was inverted, like listening to a recording played backward.When we finally emerged into the small clearing at the gorge’s end, I understood why.The waterfall flowed upward.Water rose from a pool at the base, defying gravity as it climbed the cliff face in a smooth, continuous stream. At the top, it disappeared into a crack in the rock, presumably to begin its journey back down through underground channels so it could rise again.The pool at the base was perfectly still except where the water column touched it. The surface reflected the sky above with such clarity it looked like we were standing on the edge of a hole in the world.“How is this possible?” Ryker breathed.“Very old magic,” Lyanna said. “The kind that existed before any

ALEXANDER“Which timeline are we in?” I asked, feeling something tight wrap around my chest.All seven ravens laughed, a sound like glass breaking in reverse. “You’re in all of them and none of them. You exist at the crux point where futures branch. Every choice you make spawns new possibilities, new deaths, new lives.”“The feather,” I said, trying to keep my focus. “Will you give it to us?”“We already have,” one raven said.“We never will,” said another.“We are considering it in the moment that hasn’t arrived,” said a third.The largest raven, perched on the highest outcropping, fixed multiple eyes on me. This one felt different, older, maybe, or more present in this timeline than the others. Or maybe I was starting to lose my mind. I was considering that possibility too.“Tell me, Alpha,” it said. “Why should we help you save one life when we can see a thousand futures where that life creates more death?”My blood ran cold and my throat feels even drier than the sahara. “What do