Chapter 3: The Hunt Intensifies
The rain started as a cold mist, then became a steady, drenching curtain. It turned the forest path into a river of mud and slick pine needles. By the time they reached the coastline, the storm was whipping in off the sea, driving the rain sideways.
Blackwater Bay was a miserable slash of grey water churning against a shore of sharp, black rocks. The fishing hut sat perched on a higher spur of land, a broken silhouette against the angry sky.
Kael signaled a halt in the dripping cover of a gnarled pine grove. He pointed first to the hut, then made a circling motion with two fingers. Split up, flank it.
Draven dismounted, landing in the mud without a sound. Andre slithered down after him, his legs stiff and cold. He immediately sank to his ankle in a hidden puddle. Fantastic.
“Riven, with Kael. Clear the left perimeter, check for a boat shed or a skiff. We’ll take the right and the hut itself,” Draven ordered, his voice barely carrying over the howl of the wind. He didn’t look at Andre. “Stay behind me.Touch nothing. Say nothing unless it’s critical.”
They moved forward, hunched against the weather. The roar of the surf was a constant, pounding drone. Every sense felt blunted by the rain and wind, except for the raw cold that seeped into Andre’s bones.
The right side of the hut was a tangle of collapsed netting, rusted hooks, and salt-bleached barrels. Draven moved past it all, his focus on the ground. He stopped suddenly, crouching by a patch of muddy gravel sheltered slightly by the overhanging eaves.
Andre peered over his shoulder. The rain had washed away most details, but in the scant mud, there were impressions. Small, narrow footprints. Too close together for an adult. And beside them, a deeper, broader print, partly obscured.
“Fresh,” Draven murmured. He touched the edge of a small print. The mud was still soft, hadn’t been erased by the latest downpour. “Within the hour. Someone was here, with a child.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the rain went through Andre. He looked from the prints to the dark, gaping doorway of the hut. The wind shrieked through a broken board, making a low, moaning sound.
Draven rose and approached the door. It hung crooked on one hinge. He pushed it open with the flat of his palm. The groan of the wood was swallowed by the storm.
Inside, it was dark and smelled of decay, fish guts, and wet rot. But under that, faint and almost wiped clean by the salt air, was the ghost of a familiar scent. Fear-sweat.Milk. The unmistakable, clean smell of a very young pup.
Andre stepped in behind Draven, his eyes struggling to adjust. The single room was a graveyard of ruined fishing gear. A broken table. A stool with only three legs. In the far corner, something pale caught the dim light filtering through a cracked window pane.
It was a stuffed rabbit, its fur matted with dirt and damp, one button eye missing. It lay discarded on a pile of mildewed burlap.
Andre’s breath hitched. The air in the hut seemed to thicken, to press in on his eardrums. The roar of the surf outside faded, replaced by a high, internal ringing. He took a step toward the rabbit.
Then it hit him.
Not an image this time. A sound. A whimper, so close it felt real. Followed by a low, cruel chuckle that wasn’t in the room, but behind his eyes. Then the scent of cheap tobacco and brine, overwhelming and nauseating.
He stumbled, his shoulder knocking into a shelf. A rusted tin clattered to the floorboards with a bang that sounded like a gunshot in the confined space.
Draven was across the room in two strides. He didn’t ask. He grabbed Andre by the front of his cloak and shoved him back against the sodden wall. Rotting wood splintered under the impact. “What?” His voice was a blade.
Andre’s vision swam. The chuckle echoed in his skull. He tried to speak, but his teeth were chattering. From cold, from terror, from the visceral wrongness of the phantom sounds.
“You’re shaking like a leaf,” Draven growled, his face inches away. His emerald eyes were narrowed, searching Andre’s wildly. The fury in them was electric. “Is it that feeling again? What did you see? What did you hear?”
Andre could only shake his head, a frantic side-to-side motion. He couldn’t articulate the echo of the chuckle. It felt like giving it power.
Draven’s knee came up, sliding between Andre’s trembling thighs, pinning him more firmly to the wall. The proximity was suffocating. Heat radiated off the Alpha, a stark contrast to the damp cold everywhere else. “Tell me. Now.” His breath was hot against Andre’s throat.
The pressure, the demand, shattered the paralysis. “A sound,” Andre gasped out. “A whimper. Right here. And then… a man laughing. He smokes. Roll-your-own, cheap tobacco. He was here. He took the kid from right here.”
Draven’s gaze locked on his. The fury didn’t diminish, but it sharpened, focused into a deadly point. “How long ago?”
“I don’t know. The tracks are fresh. The sound… it felt fresh too. Like an echo.” He was babbling. “The rabbit. The kid dropped the rabbit.”
Draven held him there for another second, reading the truth in his panic. Then he released him so abruptly Andre almost fell forward. Draven turned and snatched the dirty stuffed animal from the floor. He brought it to his face, inhaling deeply, his eyes closing in concentration.
He lowered it, his expression grim. “Pup scent. No more than three years old.” He tossed the rabbit to Andre. “Keep that. Don’t lose it. It’s the only physical link we have.”
Andre fumbled, catching the damp toy. It felt vile in his hands, a totem of misery.
A sharp whistle cut through the storm’s noise. Two short blasts. Kael’s signal.
Draven was out the door before the sound faded. Andre scrambled after him, stuffing the rabbit into his pack.
They found Kael and Riven at the base of the rocky spur, where a narrow, treacherous path led down to a tiny crescent of black sand beach. Riven was kneeling by a deep, scuffed groove in the sand.
“Skiff was beached here,” Riven said, his voice rough. “Dragged back into the water. Recently. The rain hasn’t filled the tracks yet.”
Draven looked out at the churning bay. Visibility was less than a hundred feet. “He’s running in this? He’s either desperate or he knows these waters like the back of his hand.”
“Local,” Kael said, stating the obvious. “A fisherman. Or was one.”
Andre stared at the groove in the sand. The phantom chuckle replayed in his mind, mingling with the real sound of the crashing waves. He hugged his arms around himself. The rabbit in his pack felt like it was burning a hole through the leather.
Draven followed his gaze out to sea, his jaw a hard line. The storm was their enemy now. It gave the kidnapper cover. It hid the ship, The Evening Star, that was surely waiting somewhere in the deeper channel.
“We can’t follow on the water,” Kael said, frustration edging his tone. “Not in this. And we don’t have a boat.”
Draven was silent for a long moment, his eyes scanning the shrouded horizon. Then he looked back at the hut, then down at the skiff marks. “He didn’t come from the sea,” Draven said slowly. “He brought the pup here, by land, to this specific hut. Then he transferred to the skiff. This place is a node. A transfer point.” He turned to Andre. “You said he used a network. Land and sea. This is a sea link. Where’s the land link? Where did he bring the pup from?”
Andre’s mind raced, pushing past the lingering dread. He thought of the tunnels, the map of Lisle’s operations he’d carried in his head for years. Blackwater Bay wasn’t on any direct route from Moonfall. It was a detour.
“There’s an old logging road,” Andre said, the memory surfacing. “It cuts north from the Hemlock route, comes out about two miles inland from here. It’s overgrown. But it’s hidden. Lisle used it for high-value… transfers. When he wanted no chance of being seen on the main track.”
Draven didn’t smile. But a flicker of something ignited in his eyes. A hunter’s gleam. “He’s still on the land portion, or just finished it. He’s moving a pup, in a storm. He’s not making good time. Kael, Riven—back to the horses. Follow that logging road north, fast as you can. Look for any sign of passage, any sheltered spot he might have holed up in to wait for a lull.”
“And you?” Riven asked.
The logging road was a tunnel of dripping green darkness. The storm’s fury was muted here, reduced to the constant patter on the canopy overhead and the gurgle of water finding new paths through the undergrowth. Fallen branches and deep, slick ruts made the going treacherous.Draven moved ahead, a silent shadow scanning the ground, the trees, the very air. Andre struggled to keep up, his mind still ringing with the phantom chuckle from the hut. The damp toy rabbit in his pack felt like a lead weight
They had gone perhaps half a mile when Andre stopped. A familiar stand of lightning-struck pines created a small, sheltered clearing off to the right of the path. He had passed this spot once before, carrying a sealed ledger for Lisle under a moonless sky. He remembered the way the dead branches clawed at the sky.
A plan, desperate and thin, formed in his mind. He needed to give them a chance.
“Wait,” Andre said, his voice sounding too loud in the wet quiet.
Draven halted, turning with fluid patience, one eyebrow arched.
“I saw a boat on our track, back here. It was pushed back in the trees,” Andre said, pointing toward the dense thicket beyond the clearing.
Draven’s gaze swept the area, his expression neutral. “I don’t recall seeing a boat.”
“Well, it was pushed back. So if you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn’t have seen it,” Andre said again, forcing his voice to stay level. He concentrated on the image: a small, flat-bottomed rowboat, weathered grey, half-hidden by ferns and shadow. He pushed the thought into the space between the trees, a suggestion made solid by his will alone.
Draven studied him for a long moment, the rain tracing paths through the dark strands of hair stuck to his temple. “Well. Lead the way.”
Andre’s heart hammered against his ribs. He pushed into the thicket, brushing aside wet branches, his boots sinking into the soft loam. He went straight to the spot he had fixed in his mind, the exact geometry of roots and stone he’d remembered. And there, exactly as he had envisioned it, lay the boat.
It was nestled under a shelf of rock, draped with a torn, moss-covered tarpaulin. It looked as if it had been there for seasons.
Draven came up beside him, his eyes moving from the boat to Andre’s face and back. He didn’t move to touch it. “You sure know a lot of intricacies for a man who was just in the right place at the right time.”
Andre kept his gaze on the boat. “I told you. Logistics.”
“How would you know this boat was here?” Draven’s voice was low, a velvet-covered threat. “And what did you really do for Lisle?”
The air grew tighter, colder than the rain. Andre could feel the alpha’s focus like a physical pressure.
“If you lied to me,” Draven continued, taking a single step closer, “you won’t make it back to the boat.”
Andre was petrified. He had to lie about the boat to hide his powers, but if he also lied about his role with Lisle, the king would know for sure. The truth, then, but not all of it. A shield of one horror to hide another.
“I was Lisle’s assistant,” Andre said, the words ash in his mouth.
“How did you assist him?”
Andre looked at the rotting leaves at his feet. “Well, I was… umm. He would… have sex with my mouth.”
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the drip of water from leaf to leaf. Then Draven let out a soft, dry chuckle. It held no warmth. “So. You were his whore.”
The word landed like a physical blow. It stripped the circumstance away, reducing a act of survival to a transaction. Andre was powerless to Lisle, lest he expose his secret. The memory was a poison in his veins—the locked door of Lisle’s study, the smell of expensive brandy, the crushing weight of a choice that was no choice at all.
Andre, not wanting to look weak, turned away so Draven couldn’t see the water that threatened his eyes. “I didn’t want to do it. But he was much stronger than me.”
Draven went silent. Profoundly silent. The pressure in the clearing shifted, the accusation bleeding out of it, replaced by something heavier and more complex. Andre could feel the alpha’s gaze on the back of his neck, but Draven said nothing.
Andre broke the silence by walking stiffly to the boat. He grabbed the cold, wet edge of the tarpaulin and pulled. It came away with a sodden rip, revealing the bare wooden hull underneath. The action gave his trembling hands something to do.
He heard Draven move behind him, the soft crush of foliage under his boot. Andre braced for a touch, a question, more scorn.
But Draven simply brushed past him, his shoulder briefly touching Andre’s. He examined the empty boat, running a hand along its interior. “Dry,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Recent.” He looked up, his emerald eyes now scanning the trees with renewed intensity, all trace of the previous conversation locked away behind a wall of pure purpose. “He’s close. And he’s on foot now.”
And he’s on foot now.” Draven melted into the trees without another word, becoming part of the shifting grey shadows. Andre followed as fast as he could until he hit a solid wall of brush, then crouched beneath it. The thicket was a woven tapestry of thorns and dripping leaves, a natural blind overlooking a small, hidden hollow.
Andre mirrored him, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. Beyond the bushes stood a faded green tent, its sides shuddering under the relentless rain. The pups’ whimpers mixed with brutal grunts—enough to shatter even an icy heart.
That was all the King needed. He struck with the sudden, silent force of a lightning bolt, a blur of black that tore the tent flap from its poles. Andre rushed in behind him, pulling the two partially clothed pups free from the grasp of a snarling, red-faced man. He set them aside just as a second man emerged from behind a tree, a heavy pistol aimed at the Alpha King.
Draven tore into the first attacker, but a shot rang out, piercing his back. He collapsed onto the sodden earth, a shock of stillness in the violent clearing. A rage Andre had never known erupted, a geyser of something ancient and ice-cold blazing through his veins.
Draven lay paralyzed, his gaze flickering from the terrified pups clinging to each other to Andre—now glowing with a harsh, electric blue light, tendrils of raw energy swirling around his clenched fists. Andre didn’t think; he simply willed the shooter into the air, twisting until the man’s bones disfigured with sickening cracks, then snapped his neck with a silent mental command.
The body fell. Draven blinked, stunned, as Andre approached and touched the seeping wound. Draven felt the bullet and a burning strand of wolfsbane drawn from his body and began to cough violently. Andre shook his head, confused by his own hands, just as Kael and Riven crashed through the brush.
Draven told them the attackers had fired and missed, his voice a ragged but firm command. Then he looked to Andre, who now cradled the two shivering pups against his chest, a profound concern etched on his pale face.
Draven pushed himself up to his elbows, his breathing shallow but steady. "Are they hurt?" he asked, his voice strained.
"Just cold. Terrified," Andre murmured, his own hands trembling as he brushed mud from a little girl's cheek.
Riven was already dragging the bodies into the thicket, his movements efficient and grim. Kael knelt, checking the Alpha's wound with careful fingers. "Clean through. The bleeding’s slowing. How are you upright?"
"Adrenaline. And he got the wolfsbane out," Draven said, his eyes never leaving Andre’s face. "Get a fire going. They're freezing."
Andre remembered only embers of what happened after the shot rang out. A surge of cold fury. A crackling sound. Then nothing. His powers had never acted on their own like that, never so violently that they burned the memory from his mind. He focused on the pups' shivering, a tangible reality to cling to.
Kael had a small, smokeless fire blazing in minutes under the shelter of a rocky overhang. Riven produced wool blankets from his pack. They gently cleaned the pups' faces and hands with canteen water, the little boy silently clutching Andre’s sleeve the entire time.
"Got anything to eat?" the little girl whispered, her voice hoarse.
Riven, without a word, pulled two skewers of grilled squirrel from his kit. The pups ate with quiet intensity, their eyes darting between the warriors.
Draven watched them, his expression unreadable. "Take them," he said to Kael, his voice low but firm. "Ride hard for Moonfall. Get them to Elara immediately."
Andre helped lift the girl up to Kael. The boy refused to let go of his hand. "You're coming too," the child mumbled around a mouthful of meat.
"Soon," Andre lied, gently prying the small fingers loose. "Go with him. He’s faster."
He mounted his horse first, every muscle aching. Draven pulled himself up behind him with a stifled grunt, his weight settling heavily against Andre's back.
"You're sure you can ride?" Andre asked, feeling the warmth of the Alpha's blood seeping through both their cloaks.
"Move," was Draven's only reply, his arms reaching around to take the reins.
The horse moved, Draven’s grip firm on the reins, his body a tight, pained cage around Andre. They rode in silence for a long time, the forest swallowing the sounds of Kael and Riven’s departure. The rain finally stopped, leaving behind a dripping, hollow quiet.
Draven’s breathing grew shallower. Every jolt of the horse made him tense. Eventually, he pulled the stallion to a stop beside a frozen creek, its water black under the gnarled roots of an ancient willow. “Here.”
He dismounted stiffly, nearly buckling before catching himself on the saddle. Andre slid down, eyeing him. “We should keep moving. That wound…”
“It’s sealed. The muscle is knitting,” Draven interrupted, his voice thin. He fumbled with the stallion’s saddlebag, pulling out a clean-ish shirt. “But you and I are not moving another inch until you tell me exactly what that was back there.” He tossed the shirt at Andre. “That blue light. The man… he didn’t just fall. You did that.”
Andre caught the shirt, the fabric rough in his hands. A cold dread, deeper than the forest chill, settled in his gut. The rabbit in his pack, the phantom sounds, the boat he’d conjured—it was all a trail of crumbs leading here. “You told Kael they missed.”
“I lied.For the moment. Now I require the truth.” Draven leaned against the willow’s trunk, his face pale but his emerald eyes blazing with a frightening clarity. He didn’t look like a wounded man. He looked like a king. “What are you? Not a wolf. Something else. Something Lisle kept close for more than your mouth, I think.”
The crude reference to his confession in the clearing was a deliberate prod, stripping any pretense away. Andre looked at the frozen creek, the truth a suffocating weight in his chest. Draven had seen it. There was no logistical explanation, no sad story that would cover it.