Chapter 65 THE MOMENT BEFORE LOSS
Varkos
Kael’s words land somewhere outside of me. They don’t register—not immediately, not the way words are supposed to. Hell, they don’t even make any damn sense to me.
They… exist.
Air stops moving in and out of my chest like it suddenly forgot how. The entire sitting room begins to blur around me, muffled sounds of Lady Ravena calling out my name, thinning until they feel distant, warped—like I’m underwater.
A naked female body?
At the cliff?
Oh fuck!
Holy fuck!
I don’t blink.
I don’t move.
I don’t breathe.
My heart continues to beat, slow and brutal, each thud echoing through my skull like a countdown. My vision tunnels, narrowing to nothing but the image my mind has already decided to show me.
Ginnie’s body.
Cold and still—
No.
“Alpha Varkos?”Kael’s voice cuts through the haze, faint, distorted. “Are you alright?”
My fingers curl slowly at my sides, digging dip into my palms hard enough to draw blood, but the pain barely registers. Then reality slips back into me as my mind does something cruel—
“Alpha?”
Another muffled voice shatters through my thoughts. Rhun. He’s calling out my name over and over, but it doesn’t reach me.
All I can hear is the roar of blood in my ears and the hollow, suffocating silence where her presence should be. My wolf—usually loud, volatile, feral is…terrifyingly quiet.
Not raging.
Not howling.
Mourning.
And that terrifies me more than anything else.
If it’s her…
My throat burns at the thought alone. If that dead body is Ginnie’s…I will not survive this. It's a fact—a quiet, undeniable truth that settles into my bones with crushing weight.
“Varkos!”
This time, the voice is closer as it barks my name. Sharper. It doesn’t take much for reality to snap back into place like a whip cracking across my spine.
The sitting room comes into focus, Kael and Rhun standing rigid, their faces etched in serious concern. Lady Ravena is standing frozen near the doorway, her expression unreadable but composed— controlled in the way only someone used to this kind of situation can be.
“W…which cliff was the body found?” I asked, my voice low and rough, “Where is it?”
Kael hesitates. “Alpha—”
“I asked a fucking question!”
“T…the farthest end of the cliff at the Bleeding Rose border,” Rhun answers, without daring to look me in the eyes.
I nod once.
Then I turn.
“I’m going to check the body for myself alone. And none of you will follow me,” the words land heavily. More a request than a command.
“Alpha..” Kael stiffens. “It would be very dangerous for you to go alone.”
“It could be a trap,” Rhun adds quickly. “If this is connected to the kidnapping—”
“It is,” I cut in before he could finish. My voice is calm now. Too calm, “And that’s exactly why neither of you is going to follow me.”
Lady Ravena steps forward, her staff striking the floor sharply. “You will not go alone to such a dangerous place, Varkos. “That is not a request.”
I stop.
Slowly—deliberately, as I turn to face her fully now. “I am going,” I say quietly, “alone.”
“You are the Alpha of this pack!” she snaps. “Your life does not belong to you.”
“Oh…it does.” My lips curl faintly, but nothing about it resembles a smile. “It’s my fuckin life, mother.”
Kael steps forward, jaw clenched. “Alpha, please—”
“I said no one is going with me!”
A growl tears out of my chest.
Cold.
Commanding.
Final.
“No one,” I repeat, my eyes burning with rage as I scan the room, “dares to follow me.”
The Alpha command slams into them, absolute and unforgiving as Kael and Rhun drop to one knee without thinking. Lady Ravena flinches—but even she doesn’t challenge it.
Good.
I turn away.
And I walk out.
The moment my boots hit the soil beyond the villa walls, I shift into my Lycan form.
Not fully.
My bones crack and stretch as muscle surges beneath my skin, my Lycan senses sharpening until the world explodes into color, scent, and sound. Claws tear free from my fingers, my vision narrowing into predatory focus as I break into a run.
Branches whip past my face as I run, tree leaves tearing under my hands as I tear through the forest like a storm unleashed. The ground trembles beneath my weight, each stride closing the distance between me and the cliff as my body moves on instinct alone.
Every heartbeat pounds one name through my skull.
Ginnie.
Before my brain can recover from the thought, I finally approach the cliff—twisting, isolated, dangerous. One wrong step here could send even a Lycan tumbling into nothingness.
Then—
The scent hits me again.
I can smell it before I see anything.
Blood.
Human blood.
But something is wrong.
The scent is too… clean. It hits my wolf at the same moment it hits me—not out of grief this time, but warning. A sharp, cutting awareness that makes my wolf senses even sharper.
Something isn’t right.
If it were Ginnie…
The scent would be chaos.
Fear. Pain. Desperation.
But this is…nothing like it. I finally make my way to the edge of the cliff. The forest opens up, and there it is.
A female body.
Human.
Naked.
Long dark hair spilled across pale skin like ink as it lay lifeless on the ground. My entire world stops, every muscle in my body locks, my breath is rising and falling heavily as I stare at the still form on the ground.
I take one step forward.
Then another.
Every instinct screams at me not to look. Not to confirm what I refuse to admit no matter how much it hurts.
But I have to know.
I kneel slowly, my movements careful— almost like I’m approaching something sacred. My hand trembles as I reach for the body, and I swear for a split second, I’m back in the storage room, staring at Ginnie’s torn clothes soaked in blood.
If this is her…
I gather what little courage I have left and turn the body over.
“Oh God!”
“Fuck!”
It’s not her.
Relief crashes into me so violently that it nearly knocks me to the ground, followed immediately by something far darker.
This is nothing more than a decoy.
A deadly message meant for me. The realization barely finishes forming before—
Movement explodes from the shadows instantly. Seven rogues burst into view, massive and scarred, their eyes glowing with hunger and malice as they all stare right at me.
They spread out quickly, surrounding me with practiced precision. One of them drags a heavy chain behind him, its thick links forged for one purpose only—restraining an Alpha.
Another one of them lifts a bow. The arrowhead glints faintly green.
Wolfsbane.
The largest of them steps forward, towering even in half-shift, his grin sharp and ugly.“Well,” he drawls mockingly, “look at that. The great Alpha Varkos Draven walked straight into our trap.”
I straighten slowly.
My claws flex, ready for the hell that was about to be unleashed.
“And look at that? You’re all alone.” he continues, circling me like prey. “No guards. No pack. Just you and your dead little human.”
“Who sent you?” I ask quietly.
A bitter laughter tears through him, “Does it matter? All you should care about is the fact that you’re not leaving this place alive.”
My wolf bares his teeth.
I shift my stance, muscles coiling, ready.
“You should have stayed at your pretty little villa,” he sneers. “Now—”
He never finishes the sentence, because I move.
And the forest erupts into war.