Chapter 102
Chloe's POV
I'd lost all sense of time in the darkness.
The stone chamber had no windows, no light—only the drip, drip, drip of condensation seeping through cracks in the ceiling and hitting the floor. My eyes had long since adjusted to the bone-deep blackness. Hunger gnawed at my stomach like a beast, and my throat felt like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper.
I tilted my head back, tongue stretched out, trying to catch those drops. The cold liquid landed on my tongue, tasting of limestone and dirt.
How long had Father kept me locked in here? One day? Two? I'd lost count.
Just when I thought I'd be forgotten here until the trial began, I heard the faint click of the lock.
My head snapped up. A sliver of weak light cut through the gap in the door.
"Chloe?" A familiar voice, hushed and urgent.
"Grace?" I could barely believe my ears.
The door eased open carefully, and my best friend slipped inside, a cloth bundle in her hands.
She was the Beta's daughter. We'd grown up together, and she was the only one who'd stood by me when Father saw me as nothing but a disgrace.
"Oh my God, Chloe..." Grace's eyes immediately welled up when she saw me.
She knelt down and pulled bread and a water pouch from the bundle.
I practically lunged at her. The bread was coarse and hard, but I shoved it into my mouth, wolfing it down. The water tasted metallic, but I drained more than half the pouch in one go.
Grace watched me quietly, tears sliding down her cheeks.
"Did the Alpha actually send anyone to check Thunder Canyon?" I swallowed the last bite of bread and asked urgently. "Everything I said was true, Grace. The Devil's Vines, the corrupted beasts, that lightning wolf—"
Grace shook her head, her expression complicated.
"The Alpha didn't listen to a word you said. He thinks you made it all up to avoid the trial."
My heart sank.
"But..." Grace hesitated. "My father—he did his duty as Beta. He sent a few men to investigate the canyon's edge."
My eyes lit up. I grabbed her hand.
"And? What did they find?"
Grace's expression crushed my hope in an instant.
"Nothing, Chloe. No purple Devil's Vines, no wolf crackling with lightning. The canyon looked the same as always."
"How is that possible?" I stared at her in shock. "I saw it with my own eyes! Ivan saw it too! Those vines, those monsters—"
"I believe you." Grace gripped my hands tightly. "Chloe, I believe you're not lying. But maybe... maybe whatever danger you saw has gone into hiding. Now you need to go drag it out into the open before the trial starts."
I looked at her, at the determination and trust in her eyes, and my throat tightened.
"Grace, will you help me?"
She didn't hesitate. "Of course. You're my best friend."
With Grace's help, I escaped the stone chamber. She gave me a cloak to hide my face and led me out through a side door of the pack house.
Before we parted, she hugged me.
"Tomorrow's your eighteenth birthday. Happy early birthday, Chloe," she whispered in my ear. "I hope you awaken your wolf spirit."
I froze.
The day of the hunting trial... was my birthday. Everyone had forgotten, including me. But Grace hadn't.
"Thank you," I choked out.
At this moment, there was only one day left until the hunting trial officially began.
I pulled the cloak tight and ran through the night toward the gym in the detention zone.
The lights were still on. I pushed through the door and saw Ivan pounding a punching bag, his tank top soaked with sweat. At the sound, he turned. The moment he saw me, surprise and concern flashed in his eyes.
"Chloe? How did you—"
"No time to explain." I strode up to him. "We have to go back to Thunder Canyon. The Beta sent people to check, but they didn't find anything. Whatever's there must be hiding. We need to go drag it out ourselves."
Ivan didn't waste words. He nodded immediately. "Let's go."
We compared notes on what we each knew and confirmed our plan of action.
To get to the canyon as quickly as possible, Ivan shifted into his wolf form—Zeus, the powerful black wolf. I climbed onto his back, gripping the fur at his neck tightly.
Zeus let out a low growl, then launched forward like an arrow released from a bow, plunging into the night.
Wind roared in my ears. Tree shadows blurred past. Ivan's wolf form was faster than any carriage. In less than half an hour, we reached the edge of Thunder Canyon. Heavy storm clouds still blanketed the canyon, thunder rolling through them. I took a deep breath and patted Zeus's neck.
"Ready?"
Zeus rumbled a deep growl in response.
We charged into the thunderclouds. Lightning exploded around us, the air thick with the smell of ozone. Once we broke through the cloud layer, we arrived once more in the heart of Thunder Canyon.
But the scene before me left me stunned.
Those massive Devil's Vines from before... were gone.
"How could..." I slid off Zeus's back and looked around. The canyon appeared completely normal—even calmer than the last time we'd been here.
No purple vines. No corrupted beasts.
"Something's not right." Ivan shifted back to human form and crouched down, examining the ground closely. "Chloe, look at this."
I walked over. He was pointing at a faint groove in the earth.
It was a drag mark left by vines—deliberately covered up, but still visible if you knew what to look for.
We kept searching and found several spots scorched by lightning strikes, also covered with dirt and rubble, but the smell of burnt flesh hadn't completely faded.
"They were definitely here," I said through gritted teeth. "But someone cleaned up the evidence."
Ivan stood, his nose twitching as he sniffed the air.
"I smell something... faint, but evil. Follow me."
He shifted back into wolf form and moved in the direction of the scent. I followed, my heart pounding faster. Zeus led me through a field of jagged rocks and finally stopped at the base of a cliff.
There was a cave.
The entrance wasn't large, but a dark purple glow emanated from within. The air reeked of sickly-sweet decay. Zeus and I exchanged a glance, both seeing the wariness in each other's eyes.
"Should we go in?" I whispered.
Ivan shifted back, his expression grave.
"If we don't figure out what's inside, those warriors going into the trial tomorrow are walking into a death trap."
I nodded and gripped the dagger at my waist.
We stepped carefully into the cave. The purple glow grew stronger, illuminating eerie vine patterns on the walls.
The patterns seemed alive, writhing slowly in the shifting light.
The air grew colder. I could hear my own ragged breathing and the hammering of my heart.
The cave sloped downward, deeper and deeper. After about ten minutes, the passage suddenly opened up.
I gasped.
This was a massive underground chamber. The ceiling soared dozens of meters high, and the walls were covered in Devil's Vines, glowing with purple luminescence like countless malevolent eyes watching us from the dark.
In the center of the space stood a huge stone platform, carved with runes I couldn't understand.
And on that platform, bound by countless silver chains and purple vines, was a wolf made entirely of pure lightning.
It had no physical flesh. Its entire body was woven from silver-blue arcs of electricity, like a phantom of lightning condensed from a thunderstorm. With every breath, electrical currents crackled and sparked across its surface. But those chains seemed to possess some special power, binding its limbs and torso tightly, preventing the lightning from breaking free. Even worse were the purple Devil's Vines—they coiled around the lightning wolf's body like parasites, their tips piercing into the electric glow, greedily draining its energy. Every time the vines siphoned power, the wolf's radiance dimmed a little more.
That wolf... was the same lightning wolf we'd seen before.
"My God..." Ivan murmured.
The wolf's outline flickered in the purple light, as if it might dissipate at any moment. But as we drew closer, its head—formed of crackling electricity—lifted slightly, and it slowly opened its eyes.
They were eyes made of the purest lightning, no pupils, only searing white light—yet filled with pain, rage, and... despair.
It looked at us. A low whimper rumbled from its throat, echoing like thunder through the cavern. A warning, or a plea for help.
"It's trapped," I said, my voice shaking. "Those vines... they're draining its power. Is it... an elemental spirit?"