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When I finally came to, the shadows inside the cave had come alive.

They moved, shifting with the sounds of skittering claws and guttural hisses. The air was thick with decay and the coppery tang of blood, the scent clinging to my fur, burning in my nostrils. My body ached, my side throbbing where one of the creatures had raked its claws deep into my flesh, but I ignored it.

At least Lia wasn’t here with us, captured by these terrible creatures with no apparent way out.

I could still feel the relief of her retreat, the sound of her paws pounding against the earth as she ran. The way my own roar had chased her into the trees, ordering her to leave us.

Good girl, Wildcat, I thought, gritting my teeth.Keep running.

I drew in a breath, my ribs aching, and turned my head. The cavern I found myself in was massive, its ceiling lost in the dark, the walls slick with moisture, glistening under the dim glow of phosphorescent fungi clinging to the jagged stone. The tunnel stretched deep into blackness, echoing with the chittering of the things that had dragged us inside.

“Rowan,” I growled, shifting slightly against the cold ground. My limbs were heavy, stiff with the weight of dried blood, but I forced them to move. “You still with me?”

A low, pained snarl came from somewhere to my right.

“Yeah. Fuck.” Rowan’s voice was gruff, strained, but alive.

“Varek?” I called out.

There was a moment of silence, then a cough. “Present,” Varek muttered, his usual arrogance dimmed by obvious pain. “Though I think I left half my ribs outside.”

I gritted my teeth. “Ryan?”

“Still breathing.” His voice was tight. “Can’t see shit, though.”

That made four of us.

Which meant Caleb was still missing.

And Hale—Hale was gone.

A growl built in my throat, my chest burning with rage. I tried to move again, but something yanked against my wrists. I looked down to see a thick fibrous material wrapped around my wrists and each time I jerked them away, it tightened.

I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t like it.

I turned my head, scanning the cavern as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Rowan and Varek were restrained the same way, shackled to the walls. Ryan, too, though he was still slumped forward, his skin slick with blood.

We had been dragged into the depths of the cave into the heart of whatever nightmare was waiting for us down here. As I listened to the rhythmic clicking that echoed through the cavern, the wet chittering sounds of the creatures moving just beyond the dim glow of phosphorescent fungi, I realized something that made my stomach twist: they weren’t just surviving down here.

They were thriving.

I had known they weren’t mindless, had assumed there was some level of intelligence, some degree of awareness in how they hunted. But this? This wasn’t instinct. These things had a system, a structure.

I could smell them—dozens of them, maybe hundreds, just beyond the reach of the dim glow of the cavern. They moved eerily, keeping to the shadows, watching.

Waiting.

“This is a hive,” Rowan muttered. His eyes glowed in the dim light, scanning the cave, his body coiled and ready to strike as soon as an opportunity arose.

I exhaled slowly, my jaw clenching. “And if it’s a hive…”

“Then there’s a queen… or a king,” Varek finished, his voice flat.

As if summoned by the words, a sound rumbled through the cavern. A deep, resonant vibration that wasn’t from the swarm. It seemed much bigger.Heavier.

I tensed as the creatures around us fell silent, their clicking stopping all at once, like an unseen force had ordered them to be still.

A gigantic shape moved at the far end of the cave, rising from the blackness. The others scurried away from it, clearing a path.