Chapter 306: They're Going Down the Hole.........

Thane

The north range was the kind of nowhere land where pavement gave up quick. The road turned to dirt, the dirt turned to ruts, and soon the SUV was crawling slow enough that every branch scraped the sides. The forest was thick, not welcoming—just endless pine pressing in on all sides.

Ayla shifted in the passenger seat, her hand resting over her belly. She hadn’t complained once about coming. She knew as well as I did that we might need her to get whatever this Hermit had kept hidden. Or get what he knows out of him.

When Clarke had said river forks, I’d known this wouldn’t be simple. Wolves who lived off-grid didn’t do it by accident. They buried themselves deep, where packs couldn’t reach them, where maps gave up and it isn’t a common occurrence. We are natural pack animals.

I pulled the SUV onto the last scrap of dirt road, the branches overhead scraping the roof. The engine cut off, and silence swallowed us whole.

“Here?” Ayla asked softly.

“Far as we can drive.”

She looked at the stretch of uneven ground ahead: roots, rocks, undergrowth. Her brow furrowed.

“I’ll carry you,” I said, matter-of-fact.

Her head snapped toward me. “You’re not hauling me through the woods like a sack of grain. I’m too heavy.”

“You’re not walking through that,” I countered, internally laughing at the five-foot-tall she-wolf telling me at six feet eight inches that she’s ‘too heavy.’

“I’m pregnant, not fragile.”

“You’re both,” I said. I pushed open my door and came around to hers. “I’ll carry you. Doesn’t bother me.”

She gave me a look, part exasperation, part reluctant amusement.

I lifted her before she could argue again. She fit against me like she always did, her belly round between us, her scent a constant balm to the restless growl of my wolf.

“Thane—”

“Save your breath,” I told her, starting forward. “I’ve got you.”

Her sigh was soft against my chest. She relaxed quickly, letting me carry the weight. My wolf rumbled low, pleased.

The woods grew thicker with every step. I followed the sound of water until it split into the shape Clarke had described, two rivers diverging, cutting through stone and brush. The forks.

Something shifted in the air. Faint, but there. A curl of smoke, nearly lost to the wind.

I paused. “Smell that?”

Ayla nodded against me. “Smells like smoke.”

Not the fresh burn of a campfire. Smoke that had seeped into bark, clung to the ground. Whoever lived here knew how to hide it.

We moved deeper. My wolf picked up other signs. I had to step over a snare, hidden under brush.

“He’s close,” I muttered.

“Feels like eyes on us,” she whispered.

She was right.

The cabin was nearly invisible until we were on top of it. Moss covered the roof, bark nailed to the siding, trees planted in deliberate patterns to break up its shape. From a distance, it was just more forest. Up close, it was shelter.

I stopped at the tree line, shifting Ayla in my arms. “Barn out back,” I said, spotting the sloped roof through the branches. “Somebody built this to disappear.”

Ayla’s lips parted. “Clarke wasn’t lying.”

Before I could answer, a voice drawled from the shadows.

“Careful where you step.”

My wolf snapped to alert. I turned, shifting Ayla’s weight, ready to shield her.

A shifter emerged from the brush to our right, crossbow aimed steady. He was older, lines cut deep into his face, his beard wiry and graying. Flannel shirt, worn jeans, boots caked in mud. Not the wild-eyed mystic Clarke’s story had painted, just a wolf who looked like he’d been chopping wood for forty years.

“You come up on my land without invitation,” he said, accent thick, voice rough as gravel. “That makes you either stupid or desperate.”

“Or both,” Ayla muttered under her breath.

His eyes flicked to her, then back to me. “Alpha of Alphas, huh? Guess I’d be stupid to tell you to turn around.”

“You knew we were coming?” I asked, voice low.

He snorted. “Didn’t need to know. You’ve been trompin’ through my woods loud as a bear with a toothache. Any wolf with ears could’ve heard you.”

The crossbow didn’t waver. His eyes, though, were sharp, assessing, not afraid.

“You’re the Hermit,” I said.

“Folks call me that.” His mouth twitched like he found it funny. “Truth is, I just don’t like people. Packs, councils, neighbors......I stay outta your way, you stay outta mine. That’s the deal.”

“You’ve kept white wolf texts,” Ayla said. Her voice was steady, though I felt the tension in her body.

His eyes shifted to her again, lingering on the pale glow of her hair. “So it’s true. One still walks.”

I tightened my grip on her. “We came for the texts.”

“Figures.” He lowered the crossbow, though not by much. “Y’all lookin’ for some grand ritual, blood ‘n bones, maybe a magic key?” His grin was humorless. “Hate to disappoint. All I got’s a barn. And a tote.”

Ayla blinked. “A tote?”

“Plastic kind. Big one. Keeps out the mice.” He jerked his chin toward the outbuilding behind him. “Ain’t glamorous, but it does the job.”

I studied him. Plain, blunt, practical. Nothing mystical. Nothing insane.

Ayla looked up at me, wide-eyed.

“Barn and a tote,” she whispered.

My wolf rumbled low. Whatever else this man was hiding, he wasn’t a liar.

I followed.

The “Hermit” led us around the side of the cabin like it was no big deal to have the Alpha of Alphas and a white wolf on his doorstep. He didn’t rush. Didn’t bow. Just walked steadily.

The barn came into view. Nothing about it screamed ancient history.

Ayla frowned in my arms. “This is where you keep them?”

He didn’t look back. “You expecting a temple? Stone carved with wolves howlin’ at the moon? That’s fairy-tale nonsense. Books don’t care where they sit, long as they’re dry.”

He pulled open the barn door. The hinges groaned. Inside, dust motes caught the thin light seeping through cracks. Old tools lined one wall, buckets another. And right in the middle, stacked on top of each other, were two massive blue plastic totes.

Ayla blinked. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.” The Hermit walked over, popped the lid, and flipped a book open. Yellowed pages, hand-bound, the kind of script only wolves bothered keeping. “Safe, sealed, no rats chewin’ on ‘em.” He dropped it back into the tote and shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

Ayla stared like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. “I thought....”

“Hate to disappoint, sweetheart, but I’m practical. You want mystics, go dig up a seer. You want history, you got it right here in plastic.”

I tightened my hold on her, eyes fixed on the books. “These are all of them?”

“Far as I know.” He leaned back against the tote, crossing his arms. “I made sure they didn’t disappear. Not ‘cause I like anybody, but ‘cause erasin’ history’s the fastest way to repeat it.”

I studied him. “You seem normal for someone called a Hermit.”

He barked out a short laugh. “I am normal. I don’t like anybody. You two seem nice. I still don’t like you. You can go back to your cities, I’ll be here fixin’ fences and fishin’ my river in quiet privacy.”

Something caught my ear. A low sound, almost like a groan. My wolf pressed forward, uneasy.

I turned my head toward the far side of the barn. Beyond it, the ground dipped, brush thick.

“What’s out there?” I asked.

The Hermit’s gaze flicked to me, then away. “Nothin’ you need to worry about.”

The sound came again, longer this time. A broken snarl. Another voice, desperate, begging.

Ayla stiffened in my arms. “That’s wolves.”

The Hermit’s jaw flexed. “Yeah. Wolves that deserve it. Every one of ‘em down there’s trash....rapers, murderers, ones I took in when they were starvin’ and they tried slitttin’ my throat in my sleep. I don’t kill ‘em outright. I put ‘em in the hole.”

“The hole,” I repeated.

He hooked a thumb toward the dip. “Stone walls. Iron grates. Too deep to dig out. They stay there till they rot. I toss scraps when I got ‘em. Sometimes I piss on ‘em for good measure. They deserve worse.”

Ayla’s face went pale. “That’s...”

“Monstrous?” he cut in, voice even. “Maybe. But monsters deserve monsters. Packs don’t wanna deal with ‘em? They bring ‘em to me. Saves ‘em the guilt of an execution. Wolves that brag about what they’ve done....what they like doin’....they belong down there. And I keep ‘em where they can’t touch nobody else.”

I listened to the snarls rise and fall. Heard the rustle of bodies fighting in the dirt.

“What do they do down there?” I asked, though I already knew.

“New ones get broken in quick,” the Hermit said flatly. “Raped repeatedly, torn, till they stop fightin’. Dead ones get eaten. Circle of filth. You want mercy, you’re lookin’ in the wrong place. You want punishment that sticks, that’s where you put ‘em.”

Ayla pressed closer against me, her stomach shifting between us. “Ew.”

“It’s justice,” he said, eyes steady. “Not the pretty kind you Lunas like. The kind that makes sure they never hurt another soul.”

My wolf rumbled, low and satisfied.

The Hermit tilted his head. “I don’t ask for payment. But if you wanna make use of the hole… bring somethin’ worth throwin’ down there. And if you want ‘em to stay good ‘n motivated? Toss water every week. Somethin’ clean. They’ll beg for it. They’ll do whatever you want for the next taste.”

His words were calm, practical, like he was explaining how to trap rabbits.

Ayla turned her face into my chest, sickened. But I saw the truth in it. A pit of wolves already damned, already guilty. A fate worse than death for shifters like Nikolai, like Eric.