Chapter 63 A familiar scent in an unfamiliar crowd
My legs give out before I can stop them.
The chains bite into my wrists as I collapse forward, the cold stone floor slamming into my knees. The sound echoes, sharp, humiliating, but I barely hear it over the roar inside my head.
“No,” I whisper, then louder, breaking, “no, this isn’t real.”
The chamber blurs through tears. Faces smear into color and shadow. The murals on the ceiling, wolves, moons, and gods, feel like they’re watching me, judging me, bearing witness to my undoing.
“They’re lying,” I choke, my voice hoarse and desperate. “This is a lie.”
I shake my head again and again as if I can physically dislodge the truth they’re trying to force into me.
“I’m not an abomination,” I cry. “I’m not some Frankenstein creature stitched together in a lab.”
My chest burns. Every breath hurts.
“My father loved me,” I say, clinging to the words like a lifeline. “He told me every day. He protected me. He, he sang to me when I couldn’t sleep. He held my hand when I was scared. He,”
My voice breaks completely.
“He wouldn’t do this to me.”
Silence answers me.
Not kind silence.
Not sympathetic.
It’s the kind of silence that means the room has already decided what you are.
I lift my head, eyes wild, searching, anyone, for denial. For anger on my behalf. For outrage.
Some wolves won’t meet my gaze.
Some stare openly, fear flickering across their faces.
A few look… fascinated.
Like I’m not a person at all.
Just proof.
I feel something inside me crack.
Not shatter.
Crack, slow, and painful.
I feel my beast stir beneath my skin, confused and agitated, sensing my distress. It presses against my ribs, restless, but the restraints hum faintly, warning it back into submission.
I lift my head, searching.
Darius.
He’s standing rigid now, fury barely leashed, his hands clenched at his sides. His jaw is tight, his eyes locked on the Council with a violence that makes the air feel sharp.
But he doesn’t look surprised.
That realization hurts worse than the chains. He knew.
The scribe clears his throat.
“The inquiry has concluded its presentation of archived material,” he announces, voice echoing. “The Council will now determine immediate measures to address the ongoing hybrid threat.”
Hybrid threat.
I flinch.
I am the threat.
I curl inward despite the chains, my shoulders folding, breath coming in ragged gasps. My beast presses against my ribs, agitated, wounded, confused by my pain.
I don’t understand anymore.
I don’t know where the lie ends and the truth begins.
The Council members lean together, murmuring behind their elevated seats. Celeste doesn’t look at me. Cornelius does, his gaze sharp and cold, like he’s already dissecting me in his mind.
Finally, the High Seat speaks.
“Due to the scale and coordination of the hybrid attacks,” the Alpha Proctor intones, “the Council has voted to reinstate an external Cryptozoologist ”
The words barely register.
Cryptozoologist?
I frown weakly, confusion dull and heavy in my skull.
Celeste rises from her seat, her movements smooth, assured.
“Our people are afraid,” she says, her voice carrying easily. “Packs are being slaughtered. Omegas are disappearing. We require expertise beyond conventional command structures.”
She turns slightly, gesturing toward the massive doors behind the Council dais.
“Someone with… prior experience.”
A chill slides down my spine.
The air changes.
I feel it before anything else—before sound, before movement.
A scent.
So familiar it hurts.
My breath catches painfully in my throat.
No.
My heart begins to pound, each beat heavy and uneven.
The doors open.
Not violently. Not dramatically.
They open slowly, deliberately, as if whatever is about to step through deserves to be seen.
Council Blood Guard, marches in first, armored and imposing, their boots striking the floor in perfect synchronization. They form a corridor, weapons lowered but unmistakably ready.
And then. He walks in.
The world tilts. My lungs refuse to work.
I know that scent. I would know it anywhere. Metal and ozone. Leather and rain.
Something warm beneath it all.
The same scent from the alley.
From the night everything broke.
From the moment my life split cleanly in two.
My vision swims as I stare at him.
Fred.