Page 82

By the third day, I had fallen into a rhythm.

Hunt. Track. Move. Repeat.

I fully understood how dangerous this was. I had spent two nights sleeping in makeshift shelters, curled up under thick brush, my knife always within reach. I had taken down a rabbit the night before, roasting it over a small fire that I had smothered as soon as I was done eating.

Silas would lose his mind if he knew I was out here alone. And when he found out? Shit. I shook my head just thinking about it. My ass was probably going to be really fucking sore, but I could take it. This was too important.

In hindsight, I should have been more worried about that. I should have cared. Instead, I just smirked to myself, full of my own confidence, shouldered my pack, and kept moving.

The moment I caught sight of them, I dropped into a crouch, my heart hammering with a mix of relief and triumph.

I had found them.

Ahead, just beyond the tree line, the men were gathered around a fire in a small clearing, their voices quiet and serious. They had set up camp near a rocky ridge, the kind that provided natural protection on one side, leaving only the forest side to watch. Smart.

I crept closer, keeping to the shadows, my breathing slow and controlled. A cluster of boulders provided the perfect cover, and I slipped behind them, settling in to listen and watch.

Silas was sitting near the fire, arms crossed over his broad chest, his golden eyes flickering in the glow. Rowan was next to him, sharpening a knife, apparently deep in thought. Varek was off to the side, his usual cocky smirk absent as he studied the maps spread out on the ground. The three wolves from Silas’s pack—Ryan, Caleb, and Hale—sat nearby, all of them focused, alert.

“We’re getting close,” Varek muttered, pointing to something on his map. “The cave system starts about one hundred miles south of here. If the Nyktos are nesting anywhere, it’s there.”

“You sure they’re still in the area? No one’s seen them—just the bodies they leave behind, right?” Rowan asked, his eyes moving between Silas and Varek.

Varek’s lips twitched up, but there was no humor in his expression. “You want to test the theory? Go take a midnight stroll.”

Caleb grunted. “Pass.”

Hale shifted uncomfortably. “And we’re planning to catch one of these things?”

“That’s the idea,” Varek said smoothly.

Hale muttered a curse under his breath.

Rowan exhaled slowly, his fingers tapping against his knee. “And if we can’t kill it?”

Silas’s response was bleak. “Then we don’t make it out of those caves.”

* * *

The further I traveled, the worse everything felt.

The trees grew denser, the mostly bare branches arching overhead like skeletal fingers, blocking out more and more of the sunlight. A thick mist clung low to the forest floor, curling around my boots as I moved. The silence wasn’t natural—it wasn’t the stillness of the mountains or the quiet hush of night. This was different.

This was absence.

No birds. No wind. No distant rustling of small animals in the brush.

Just nothing.

I swallowed hard, adjusting the strap on my pack. I could smell damp earth and decay, something off in the air, like the rot of a carcass that had been left too long in the sun. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. My instincts screamed at me to turn back and run.

But I wouldn’t be doing that.

I hadn’t come this far just to slink back to camp and wait for my man like some poor defenseless little girl.

I pressed forward, keeping my steps light, my breathing slow. I could just barely make out their figures in the distance, moving cautiously through the trees.

A fucking branch snapped beneath my boot.