Chapter 297 297
Damien POV
I’d have to return.
For now, I’d leave warriors behind station them overnight to reinforce the borders until I could broker some kind of agreement with Clémence.
Lucas POV
Damien was determined to get Aurélie out of here and fast.
I couldn’t blame him.
I headed into the cave with several warriors. Fabrice and I would remain overnight. With no Alpha present, Black Mist was dangerously exposed, and until Damien decided our next move, the borders had to be secured at all costs.
But something was wrong.
Earlier, something had unsettled the warriors enough that Fabrice had even come back out of the cave to investigate the noise. And now, with every step deeper inside, the sensation of being watched pressed harder against my skin.
I hadn’t realised how far Damien and Aurélie had ventured when they found Gaston. Not until we came upon his body sprawled on the cave floor.
They’d climbed down here…
But into what exactly?
And where did this cave even lead?
“We need to retrieve the body and prepare it for cremation immediately,” I told the warriors as we moved forward.
I bent down
And a sudden, icy wind skimmed across my hand.
My arm snapped back against my chest on instinct.
“What was that?” one of the warriors asked.
So it hadn’t just been me.
“I don’t know,” I said tightly, “but let’s finish this.”
I leaned down again.
A piercing scream tore through the cave high, shrill, and wrong shaking me to my core.
It froze every single one of us in place.
That wasn’t human. Not even close.
The warriors shifted into formation, swords raised. I pulled my phone from my pocket and switched on the torch, the beam cutting through the darkness as I scanned the cave.
What the hell made that sound?
Had Gaston somehow....
“Beta.”
A hand clamped onto my shoulder, dragging me back. As I stumbled away, violent shivers raced up my spine. The temperature dropped sharply, the cold biting deep.
I swung the torch toward the cave walls.
Drawings.
Animals, etched and painted across the stone.
Then
Movement.
Not the drawings themselves.
Shadows.
That was the only word for them shadows swelling along the walls, stretching, growing larger as they crept closer to Gaston’s body.
Huge, black, shadowy hands formed, rising up the stone as though reaching for something.
But… what?
They were shadows. They couldn’t touch anything.
Fear wasn’t something I succumbed to easily. Yet now I stood frozen, unsure whether it was my own body betraying me or something else preventing me from moving at all.
I held my breath as Gaston’s body began to slide backward.
Something was pulling him.
Nothing was touching him.
My gaze darted between his retreating body and the shifting shadows on the wall.
Then he was dragged downward his legs the last thing visible until he vanished completely.
Gone.
I kept the torch trained on the walls, but the shadows had disappeared. Only the animal drawings remained, silent and still.
Not trusting what I’d just witnessed, I stepped forward to where Gaston’s body had been.
There was nothing there.
Only the cave descending endlessly downward, swallowing the light.
“That scared the shit out of me, Beta…”
“Yeah. What the fuck was that?”
The warriors’ voices bled into my head through the pack link.
“Not a word,” I ordered sharply. “You’re all sworn to secrecy. I’ll inform the Alpha but no one else hears about this. If anyone asks, we cremated the body. Understood?”
“Yes, Beta,” they replied in unison, nodding.
Every instinct in my body screamed to leave. I wasn’t about to argue with it.
We exited the cave, my mind scrambling, replaying every second trying to make sense of what we’d just seen.
“Block it,” I commanded.
“Beta?” The warriors exchanged confused glances before looking back at me.
“You heard me,” I said firmly. “Seal it off. Stones. Bricks. Cement. Whatever it takes. No one goes in there again.”
Ever.