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Todos os capítulos de Claimed by the Ruthless Wolf Slayer: Capítulo 181 - Capítulo 190

256 Capítulos

181

ALEXANDER The forest had teeth now. I could feel them closing in. We’d been walking for what felt like hours, though time had started to blur at the edges. The fog refused to lift, and the trees, I could swear they were watching us. Their branches bent at angles that didn’t make sense, twisting toward us like gnarled fingers reaching down from above. Ryker and I stayed close, his hand never straying far from the blade at his hip. His breathing had gone shallow, and I could smell the tension rolling off him in waves. “We should mark our path,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “Something to track where we’ve been.” I nodded, though I had a sinking feeling it wouldn’t matter. This place didn’t follow normal rules. The ground felt wrong beneath my boots, too soft in some places, too hard in others. Like the earth itself was shifting while we walked. Still, when Ryker pulled out his knife and carved a quick symbol into the nearest tree, I didn’t stop him. Three lines crossed at

182

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

183

ALEXANDERWe pressed on through the black forest. The red lights overhead pulsed faster now, like a heartbeat picking up speed. The air grew thick, almost liquid, making each breath an effort.More symbols appeared on the trees, glowing faintly. These ones I recognized, some were containment marks, binding circles, wards meant to keep something trapped. Or keep something out.“We’re getting close,” I said, though I didn’t know how I knew. I just felt it in my bones, in the way the static under my skin had become almost unbearable.Ryker opened his mouth to respond when the ground beneath us gave way.We fell hard, landing in what looked like a dried-up riverbed. The impact knocked the wind out of me, and for a moment I just lay there, staring up at the void above.When I finally sat up, I realized the red lights had followed us down. They hovered just overhead, pulsing in that same steady rhythm.“You okay?” I asked Ryker.He groaned, pushing himself to his feet. “Define okay.”I almo

184

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.

185

ALEXANDER“Then tell me how,” I urged impatiently. My heart thumping in my chest at the thought of finally finding Alina. Holding her close to me. Loving her. Protecting her. “Tell me what I need to do.”“First, you need to understand what’s really happening.” Lyanna walked to the altar in the center of the room, placing her palm flat on the stone. “Alina isn’t just being held prisoner. She’s being kept in stasis, suspended between moments. To her, almost no time has passed since she was taken. But to break the spell keeping her there, we need specific components.”She waved her hand and the air above the altar shimmered. Air moved around us as images started to form, from a flower blooming under the moonlight to a stream bright blue water flowing backward. Somewhere in the mix, I noticed a black bird with eyes like stars flying. Its wings flapping with purpose.What the hell was all this?“Moonpetal herb, gathered at the peak of its bloom. Water from the Reversed Falls, where the cur

186

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

187

ALEXANDER“One down,” Lyanna said softly. “Two to go.”I wanted to rest, to gather myself, but I could feel time slipping away. The moon was already starting its descent toward the horizon.I moved to the second flower.This time, the vision hit me before I even touched the petal.I was in the abandoned building, the one Lyanna said held Alina. But I was too late. The door stood open, and inside I could see bodies. Ryker. Ayda. Others from the pack who’d come to help.And Alina, lying in the center of the room, her eyes open and empty.“You were too slow,” a voice said behind me. I turned and saw myself, eyes hollow and covered in blood. “You wasted time on these foolish errands while she died alone. You failed her, again. You failed everyone.”My wolf howled inside me, a sound of pure grief. I wanted to believe it was just a vision, just a fear, but it felt so real. The weight of failure pressed down on me until I could barely stand.“You’re not worthy of being Alpha,” my doppelgange

188

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

189

ALEXANDERI pulled my hand from the water and found it cupped full of liquid. It sat in my palm, perfectly still, not dripping or flowing. It had weight but also seemed weightless, existing in some state between liquid and solid.“Quickly,” Lyanna said, holding out a crystal vial. “Before it decides to return to the pool.”I poured the water into the vial, watching as it flowed upward, filling the container from top to bottom. Lyanna stopped it immediately.“It’s done,” she said.I stared at my hand, trying to remember what I’d given up. But there was nothing there. Just a vague sense that something was missing, like a word on the tip of my tongue that I couldn’t quite grasp.“Alexander?” Ryker asked, watching me carefully with furrowed brows. “You alright?”“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I don’t remember what I gave up. Is that normal?”“Completely,” Lyanna assured me. “That’s how it works. The memory is gone, so you can’t remember losing it. But others who shared that moment will

190

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

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