Chapter 108 Unwarranted Discoveries
1204words
"Where are you taking us? I swear to the Moon Goddess, I'll rip your throat—your damn throat out—if you don't tell me now," Sophia demanded, her claws extending from her fingertips in fury.
Sophia was hell-intimidating when she wanted to be, which made me laugh because Alpha Christian would soon have his hands full with this little mate of his. I could just picture the struggle he would have trying to contain this loud spitfire that I considered my sister.
The enforcer swallowed hard, his gulp audible to my wolf hearing. His brows rose and furrowed together. "I was told to keep you two safe and away from the danger at the pack border. That's all," he said quietly, his gaze wide and glued to Sophia, who was ready to pin him by the throat at any given moment.
Her body relaxed back into the seat, a long sigh leaving her chest. "Just great. This is all just so fantastic. We're caged here like damsels in distress. We should have just stayed in Midnight Moon. Now I'm stuck worrying about C-Chris— I mean Jaxon— and I can't do anything about it," she spat.
"Um, I need to pee before we go... do you mind?" I asked the shifter. Sophia picked up on the glint of excitement trailing in my eyes, cleared her throat, and quickly responded, "Ah, yeah, me too. We'll be right back. Please don't be a pig and give us some space, or else I'll tell my brother," she shot out.
Her request must have left the enforcer speechless because his mind was visibly still reeling, searching for some excuse not to leave us alone.
I pressed my lips together, then reached for the handle of the car door, letting us both outside the vehicle. "Five minutes," the enforcer called out behind us as we entered the nearby tree line.
"RUN," I whispered, careful not to make a sound audible enough for the enforcers left behind to hear.
Sophia nodded, slipping off her black stilettos and took off without glancing back. In reality, we had less than a few minutes before someone would come looking for us. She was right, though—what if Jaxon needed me? What if the attack was larger than they had anticipated? Was I supposed to sit back with my feet up and just hope they'd come back in one piece?
I followed closely behind Sophia. While I technically hadn't had any real shifter training, I knew my strength lay in my endurance. I could run through this entire forest multiple times before I felt my legs begin to burn. According to Luna Fraya's writings articulated just for me, it was a common trait among red wolves. Their downfall? Well, that varied on a case-by-case basis. No one trait had yet been pinpointed and identified among all red wolves. I wondered what mine would be. At first, I'd assumed it was my weakness, but seeing that I had been slowly growing out of a shell that had always been wrapped too tight around me, I started to believe I was wrong.
"Jaxon is going to kill us," I whimpered as I continued to follow Sophia into a dark hole made of jagged rocks. My hands gripped the stone as I tried to steady my body over the mess of logs at the entrance. Whatever this was, someone had gone to steep measures to keep it hidden.
"Relax, Luna," Sophia said sarcastically. "The men must have gone frantic by now. It won't be long until they start searching, and we'll manage to knock them off our tracks. Then we'll shift and make our way back to where we came from and go find Jaxon and Alpha Christian. No use being a shifter if we can't fight for our pack, after all."
It was as if Sophia had flipped a switch, deciding to take matters into her own hands. Seeing as she was born from an Alpha bloodline, there was no question she was much stronger than any regular wolf. A simple fight with a rogue wouldn't pose much threat to her.
As we wandered deeper inside the cave-like structure, my eyes darted from the torches that had been hung along the walls every few meters or so. Massive boulders hung from the ceiling, giving the cave a cold presence. As we approached what seemed to be the center, at least eight different pathways formed, all diverging in various directions.
"Seriously, Sophia, what the fuck? We need to go back," I muttered, trying to keep my voice low and calm enough for her not to pick up on the fear now pushing forward in my chest. Something about this place wasn't sitting right; my gut now twisted and sprung.
Sophia turned her head, looking down a long pathway to the left side of the abandoned cave. Realizing I would soon have to drag her out of here, I pulled her hand. "Sophia. Now," I said in my most commanding voice.
"Fine, this whole place is giving me the heebie-jeebies anyway. Who builds something like this? It's like a bomb shelter in the middle of the forest," she replied, pulling her hand out of mine and stepping down the long, dim hallway.
I growled. I would have been in less danger if I had just gone with Jaxon and the rest of the pack. Sophia was right, though; something was eerily wrong about our surroundings. It felt like a thousand little spiders were crawling up my skin—that's how uneasy this place made me feel.
If I had decided to run out of this place like my wolf urged me to, I would be alone—leaving Sophia at the mercy of whatever lay in this pit. I couldn't back out now. It was my idea to make a run for it when the enforcers weren't looking. I had to stifle my fear and hope that Sophia meant what she said about this place, making her uncomfortable too.
My fingers ran along the long hallway, grazing the engraving of lines on the stone wall. I stopped and cocked my head—it looked like it was a tally of some sort. Whoever made this place was surely keeping count of something.
My body abruptly jolted when I heard Sophia swallow a gasp, her hand placed firmly over her mouth.
I stepped closer to her. The familiar stench of rotting bodies, like the one in the dungeon of Midnight Moon, lurked in the air, making me hold back the bile building at the back of my throat. Refusing to stay in this godforsaken cave for a second longer, I pulled on Sophia's arm. "I'm leaving with or without you," I scolded, my patience running dangerously thin now. Both Jaxon and Alpha Christian would have an absolute fit when they found out where we ran off to. The whole idea was stupid. I should have just stayed in the vehicle and waited for them to come back.
Sophia hesitated, frozen in place. I looked over her shoulder to see what had her so shocked and in trance. I couldn't keep the bile down any longer, emptying my stomach beside the countless limp bodies that lay in a row.
