Chapter 464:

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I swallowed and looked at Nero. “I don’t know why. But I have a feeling things are about to go very wrong.”

Alpha Manuel POV

“Do not look at the cage.”

I kept walking as I spoke, my voice low enough that only Mitch could hear me. For once, he listened without asking why.

His footsteps followed closely behind mine as we moved through the narrow stone passage beneath the Chimera’s den. The corridor was dim, lit by small iron bowls of burning oil fixed to the walls. Their flames trembled whenever the wind found its way through the cracks in the stone, throwing long shadows across the floor. I kept my eyes ahead. I had learned quickly that looking too interested was dangerous.

The Chimera soldiers watched everyone who entered their halls. They watched the way a wolf walked, the questions he asked, the things that frightened him and, more importantly, the things that did not. I had been here for days after successfully discovering their den, days of pretending I wanted what they wanted, days of listening and learning. And every day, I found another reason why these creatures had to be destroyed.

Mitch hurried to catch up. “Alpha.”

𝗨𝗉d𝖺𝗍𝗲ѕ e𝘃e𝗿y we𝗲k 𝘰𝗻 gа𝘭𝘯𝗼𝘷el𝘀.𝖼o𝗆

I glanced at him.

“There are fewer guards today. Six.”

“And yesterday?”

“Nine.”

I slowed slightly. “Are you certain?”

He nodded. “Nine yesterday. Six today.”

Mitch always remembered things like that: doors, footsteps, numbers, the arrangement of objects in a room, small changes that most wolves would never notice. That was precisely why I had brought him. “Did you notice anything else?”

He looked over his shoulder. “The eastern passage is closed,” he continued quietly. “They moved three of the guards from there too.”

My eyes narrowed. The Chimera had changed something. The question was why. “Keep watching,” I told him.

He nodded.

We continued on. The smell reached us before the tent came into view: blood, burnt herbs, and iron, with something sour beneath it all that I had never been able to identify. Mitch’s steps slowed. We were approaching the tent I had warned him not to look at.

A low growl came from behind the stone walls. Mitch looked toward me, and I shook my head once. Keep walking.

We passed the tent, and the growl grew louder. Then came the sound of chains dragging across stone. I clenched my jaw. I had seen what was inside, once, and that had been enough.

The creature had once been a wolf. I knew that much. It still had the shape of one beneath everything the Chimera had done to it, but its body had been stretched and twisted until it was almost unrecognizable. Its shoulders were enormous. Its claws had grown into curved black talons. Thick fur covered parts of its body, while other places were scarred from whatever treatment had been forced into its flesh.

But the worst part had been its eyes. It remembered.

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