Chapter 114

Chapter 114
Darren

Time … what was time? It was lost here. Ally’s father told me that it only felt like they had been there for a year or two. Instead, it had been well over a decade. This terrified me. How long was a minute here compared to the real world? How long was a day?! I had to rush. Minutes were robbing me of my mate. She needed me. I had to find her.

I ran, following the pull until I reached a strange pile of rocks. Something stopped me, and I felt Ally from those rocks.

What is it? James mindlinked me. I turned my head to look at him before I lifted my nose in the air.

I smell Ally in these rocks.

James trotted up closer and began to take whiffs of the air. I only smell rocks.

I’m certain it’s the scent of my mate. Not just her scent, but I can feel the mate pull. I trotted around the strange stones, investigating where the scent was the strongest. The other lycan warriors sat down and caught their breath from the strenuous pace I had kept them at. I could feel them all watching me with hope. In their eyes, I was their only chance of escaping. They had been almost frozen in time in this realm. A fate that I refused for myself.

I stared at the ground, feeling myself being pulled toward the earth. This didn’t make sense, but neither did this world. Neither did me somehow getting sucked into this realm. What was this place, Wonderland? The gods had a strange sense of humor, because it wasn’t funny. The pull was like the gravity chamber yanking me down. Leashing my neck like a grappling hook from beyond the grave. There was no ignoring it. I had to search downward. Into the ground.

I dug my paws into the earth, and something lit up in my chest. The scent got stronger. The earth gave way, easy at first, then compacted and wet, then dry and jagged like biting into old bones. I dug harder, feeling the compulsion crank up until my whole body shook. I didn’t care. I would dig to the core of this miserable world if I had to. James joined in, claws tearing dirt, and soon the whole line of lycans was at my side. The rocks flew up in choking clouds. It should have taken hours to clear even a foot, but time was fluid here. I felt the adrenaline spike, the mate bond going white-hot. A new pulse. A scream, from somewhere deep in the churning chaos of this place.

Darren, I NEED YOU!

Ally’s voice ripped through me. It was her … it was our connection. She was calling for me. I lost control of the digging, let instinct take over. My claws shredded down until they hit a cold stone. Not just a boulder. Something artificial. Carved. I frantically smashed through the hard surface with my claws and a fissure yawned beneath us.

I braced, snarling as the ground gave way under my paws. The others yelped and tumbled in after me, a mass of fur and teeth and panic. The air roared in my ears. I caught a flash of James’ fangs as we twisted through the dark.

We landed hard. Not on mud, or bone, but on polished marble. The air down here was dead and thick, the silence so pure it made my ears ring. I shook off the daze and rose, fur bristling.

The cavern was massive. Overhead, the rock domed into a cathedral of impossible geometry. Every line, every curve, was subtly wrong—too perfect, too sharp. But it was the structure in the center that made my hackles rise.

A golden arch, wide as a barn door, gleamed in the center of the cavern. Its frame was etched with runes that pulsed with a sickly, rhythmic light, like the heartbeat of something ancient and starved. There was a void at its center, a perfect circle of black, and I knew immediately what it wanted.

I shifted back to my human form and stepped forward, the mate bond screaming at me in agony to get to Ally. I felt her in the outline of the pocket watch. I lifted Ally’s watch up and felt it vibrate in my hands.

James stalked beside me, eyes fixed on the opening. The others fanned out in a protective wedge, teeth bared at the emptiness ahead.

I moved the watch closer to the hole. The tick was louder here, a deep, predatory rhythm that synced perfectly with the pulse in the arch.

It was too quiet. Even our breaths seemed muffled. The watch grew hotter the closer I got. I fit the watch into the hole. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, light burst through the room, not bright but dense, as if the air itself was catching fire. My vision doubled, tripled, as the arch began to vibrate. The watch pulsed in time, and I felt my heart stop. Literally stop. Then restart with a violence that dropped me to my knees.

A searing pain hit my chest, red-hot and jagged. It was the mate bond, spooling out like a chain being ripped from a wall. I screamed, voice ragged, but I didn’t pull back. If this was what it took, I’d burn to the core.

The arch split down the middle, runes blazing white, and a sound like shattering glass filled the air. The pocket watch flew back, spinning through the air. James leapt up and caught it by reflex, stumbling backwards.

Something else was coming through. I saw the outline first, then the eyes—pale and luminous, like headlights on a moonless night.

It wasn’t Ally. It wasn’t even remotely human.

The creature crawled out, wings scraping the gold as it unfolded. Not feathers. Stone. Its body was sculpted, each muscle defined. Every inch was armored in the raw, unfinished texture of quarry rock. Its fingers ended in obsidian claws. Its eyes, when they landed on me, shone with an alien intelligence.

Gargoyle. I’d read the word a hundred times in the old archives, but nothing prepared me for the reality of it. The thing was power incarnate, built for war and worship.

It shook itself, sending a cloud of stone dust into the air. Its gaze landed on me, then James, then the rest of the pack. It did not attack. Instead, it cocked its head, as if waiting for something.

The arch behind it kept pulsing, the light growing brighter, and the pain in my chest swelling to a maddening pitch. I clutched at my sternum, fighting to stay upright. Lightning began to form around me, burning my skin in a wild electrical storm.

The pocket watch was glowing in James’ hand, gears spinning with a frenzy I’d never seen. The tick had become a roar, flooding the room with its rhythm. Then, suddenly, the gargoyle moved, abrupt and smooth, closing the distance between us. I tried to shift, to call up the beast, but the pain crushed the transformation mid-stride. As it reached me, the pack attacked it, protecting me.

With brutal force, it hurled their bodies around the room, slamming them into the unforgiving walls with a bone-crunching impact. Their desperate yelps reverberated through the air as it mercilessly crushed their feeble resistance. Its thick hide was tougher than any armor known, an impenetrable fortress that bore not a single scratch.

The lightning was blinding me now, forming a white electrical blanket around me. Through it, I could barely make out James standing between me and the gargoyle. He was protecting me. Ally’s father. I couldn’t let anything happen to him. I had to bring him back to her. This damn electrical storm wasn’t going to take me out, I wasn't just a bystander in this chaos. I was the cataclysmic force. I was the storm unleashed.

With my mind focused on Ally, I rose to my feet, the lightning charring my skin as I saw the glow of the gargoyle’s eyes look past James and fixate on me. I narrowed my gaze on it as it charged through James, sending him flying through the air as it headed right for me.