Chapter 202 Vampire Luna

Chapter 202 Vampire Luna

We hurried down the dusty dirt path, our boots moving in rapid sync as we made our way toward the central square. The moment we crossed into the main plaza, an absolute chaos of frantic pack members swarmed all around us. People were running helter-skelter in every imaginable direction—some were blindly rushing forward toward the center, others were panicking and attempting to push their way back out, and hundreds more were trapped in the middle, shouting over one another. The deafening roar of overlapping screams, terrified questions, and harsh orders created an overwhelming wall of noise pollution that seemed to grow louder with every passing second.

"Keep close to me!" I shouted over the deafening commotion, reaching out to grab Ava's hand tightly.

Ava nodded frantically, her brown eyes wide with fear as the surging mass of bodies threatened to tear us apart. Together, we put our shoulders down and began forcing our way through the dense sea of panicked people. The physical pressure of the crowd was almost unbearable—heavy bodies slammed into our sides, elbows dug into my ribs, and the sheer force of the pushing felt like a painful wall of iron pressing against us from every angle. Passing through even a few feet of the tightly packed plaza was pure, agonizing work because there were simply too many people squeezed into the narrow space.

Despite the crushing force, we gritted our teeth and kept shoving forward until we managed to reach a spot near the upper perimeter of the crowd. From where we stood, we could at least get a clear view of the center area. Even though we were still too far back to easily see every tiny detail on the high elevated wooden stage, if we tilted our chins up and stood on our tiptoes, we could catch a decent glimpse of the raised platform. With the way the frantic crowd was shoving and locking arms up ahead, pushing all the way to the very front row would have been completely impossible without starting a full-blown riot.

I tightened my grip on Ava's trembling hand, lacing my fingers firmly through hers. I refused to let go of her for even a single second, knowing that if she got swept away by the surging tide of people, I would lose her completely in the chaos.

I cleared my raspy throat and turned my head toward a tall, middle-aged pack warrior standing right beside me. He was craning his neck over the crowd, his face pale with stress.

"Hello," I called out loudly over the roar of the crowd, tapping his heavy leather shoulder guard to get his attention. "Do you have any idea why everyone has been summoned out here so suddenly?"

The warrior glanced down at me, his forehead scrunched into a tight, stressed frown as he wiped a bead of sweat from his temple with the back of his hand. "Well... actually, I don't really know the full details myself," he grunted, leaning down slightly so his voice could carry over the noise. "But I did hear a rumor spreading among the guards that Alpha Damon is looking for someone. Word is he is hunting down a specific individual, and that's the exact reason why he placed the entire territory under a complete, mandatory lockdown this morning."

He shrugged his broad shoulders, turning his gaze back toward the empty stage in the distance. "But nevertheless, we're all going to find out the truth very soon anyway. That's the whole reason why every last one of us was dragged out here to the square today."

The second those words left his mouth, my heart gave a sudden, violent leap against my ribs, pounding so hard I could feel the sharp pulse throbbing in my throat. Cold panic seized my chest, squeezing the air straight out of my lungs.

Damon is looking for someone...

The frantic thought echoed wildly through my mind like a alarm bell. What if he had called this sudden, terrifying lockdown specifically because he noticed I had been completely missing from the estate for three whole days? What if he had realized I snuck past the borders and had ordered every single warrior in the garrison to search the entire pack territory to hunt me down?

A cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck as my mind raced through every horrible possibility. If he demanded to know where I had been hiding for the past seventy-two hours, where on earth was I going to tell him I had gone? I didn't have a single solid excuse prepared. I had to think fast—I needed to construct a flawless, unbreakable lie right this second before I was dragged up onto that stage to face his wrath.

Wait... My blood ran ice-cold as an even darker, far more terrifying thought struck my brain like a bolt of lightning.

What if this massive emergency assembly wasn't about my three-day absence at all? What if Damon had somehow uncovered the terrible, lethal truth about what I truly was? What if he had already discovered my hybrid bloodline... what if he knew I was a monster, a vampire, and had called the entire pack together just to publicly execute me in front of thousands of screaming onlookers?

My jaw clenched so hard my back teeth ached, tears of sheer frustration pricking at the corners of my eyes beneath the heavy makeup. I was so utterly exhausted. I was sick and tired of living in constant, agonizing fear... tired of my heart violently hammering against my chest every time a guard looked at me sideways, terrified that my secret would be exposed.

If I somehow survive whatever happens today, I swore bitterly to myself, staring blindly into the crowd, I swear I will go to him and confess everything with my own mouth. I'll tell him the truth directly so he can just end my life once and for all... so I can finally have some damn peace.

Before I could spiral any further into my dark thoughts, the deafening noise of the roaring crowd suddenly dropped into a dead, suffocating silence.

The heavy atmosphere in the square turned heavy with unbearable tension as a tall, commanding figure stepped smoothly out from the shadows of the wooden canopy and onto the center of the high st

age.

It was Damon.