Chapter 231: Messenger

Rhydor’s POV

I walked down the cold stone corridor leading deep into the underground dungeon.

The torches mounted along the walls flickered wildly as I passed, casting long, dancing shadows against the damp rock.

The air down here was thick, heavy, and smelled faintly of rot and wet earth.

I felt their presence before I even reached the iron door. Silas was down here, along with Axel.

But mixed in with their familiar energy was something else entirely. Something twisted, wrong, and suffocatingly powerful that made the wolf inside me scratch at my chest in warning.

I stepped into the dim dungeon room.

A man was tied tightly to a heavy wooden chair in the center of the floor.

His head was bowed low toward his chest, his hands firmly bound behind his back with thick rope.

His clothes were torn to shreds and coated in a dark layer of wet mud, looking as if he had been dragged through miles of rough wilderness before being brought here.

Silas and Axel stood on either side of the chair, their hands resting near their weapons.

Two armed pack warriors were stationed near the door, their faces pale. Every single eye in the room turned toward me the second my boots clicked against the stone floor.

I stopped a few feet away, staring down at the prisoner.

There was something unnatural about the way he sat, an eerie stillness that didn’t belong to an ordinary rogue wolf.

"What happened to him?" I asked, my voice flat as I kept my eyes locked on the prisoner.

Silas stepped forward slightly, keeping his tone careful and low.

"We found him out near the eastern tree line. He was... he was eating his own partner. Another wolf from the pack."

I scowled, my brow furrowing at the words.

I took two steps closer to the chair.

The tied-up man slowly lifted his head.

His lips were stained black, as if he had swallowed ink. But it was his eyes that made my pulse spike.

They were not brown, gray, or amber like a normal werewolf. They were a vivid, gleaming gold, practically glowing in the dim torchlight.

It felt like something ancient and monstrous was staring out at me through a stolen set of eyes.

A wide smile spread across his face, revealing a row of pitch-black teeth.

"Here you are," the man said, his voice carrying a double layer of echoes that vibrated off the stone walls.

"I have been searching everywhere for you."

"Who are you?" I asked, my tone dropping into a cold, dangerous register.

The man tilted his head back, casually surveying the damp walls of the dungeon.

He let out a long, relaxed exhale, completely unbothered by the ropes biting into his arms or the armed guards surrounding him.

"I am someone you should be bowing down to right now," he said smoothly.

I took another heavy step forward, letting my Alpha aura burst outward into the room.

The air instantly turned heavy enough to crush a lesser wolf. The two guards by the door shifted uncomfortably, gasping for breath, while Silas tensed up and braced his boots against the floor.

"What nonsense are you talking about?" I growled out.

"You have something that belongs to me," the puppet said, his golden eyes locking onto mine with chilling calm.

"I am going to give you a small window of time to go retrieve it. Then you will hand it over to me."

I stared into his lifeless, glowing eyes. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that the man tied to that chair was not the one speaking to me.

The raw, terrifying power radiating off his skin was too old, too vast for any mortal body to contain.

"What belongs to you?" I asked, keeping my fury strictly controlled. "What could I possibly have that is yours?"

The man tilted his head to the side, giving me a mocking look.

"Are you really going to stand there and act like you do not know?" he asked, letting out a short, dry laugh that lacked any real humor.

"One thing you should know about me is that I am a very patient individual. But when I finally decide to move... the outcome is never pleasant for anyone involved."

"So I am choosing to be nice to you right now. Hand over the body."

The blood in my veins ran instantly cold.

"What body?" I demanded sharply.

The man smiled again, his black teeth glistening under the light of the torches.

"Oh, you know exactly which body I am talking about," he whispered softly. "Your fated mate’s corpse."

My fists clenched so hard my knuckles popped. My jaw locked tight, and my Alpha aura pulsed violently out from my skin, causing small cracks to spiderweb across the stone floor beneath my boots.

The two warriors stumbled backward in terror, and Silas immediately laid a hand on the hilt of his sword.

I forced myself to stand ground, swallowing down the rage threatening to tear my mind apart.

"Why do you want her?" I asked, my voice low and deadly. "Why do you want her body? And who the hell are you?"

"I am honestly shocked that you still have not figured out who I am," the man said mockingly. "And as for why I want her body, that is absolutely none of your business."

He leaned back against the wooden chair, resting his head comfortably against the frame.

"Besides, she is dead," he continued smoothly. "Which means you should simply let her rest in peace. I happen to have a very special place reserved for her to do just that. So hand over her body... or face the terrifying consequences of what will happen to your entire pack."

"I am ready for whatever nonsense you bring," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper that echoed with pure death.

"And that body... you will never lay a single finger on it."

The man smirked, his golden eyes flashing bright.

"Very well then. But you should start expecting whatever happened to your little brother... to happen to her body very soon."

The moment the words left his black lips, my mind went completely blank.

I did not think. I did not pause.

I moved with blinding speed. My hand shot out to the side, ripping the iron-tipped spear straight out of the guard’s grip before he could even register my movement.

In a single fluid motion, I spun and threw it with all the strength in my chest.

The spear whistled through the damp air, slicing clean through the space between us.

THWACK!

The heavy iron point drove straight through the man’s throat, shattering the wooden chair behind him and pinning his neck firmly to the solid stone wall.

His golden eyes widened in shock, his black-stained mouth dropping open into a silent gasp.

A moment later, the golden light in his pupils extinguished completely, leaving behind dull, lifeless gray eyes. His head slumped forward against the shaft of the weapon.

"Why did you just do that?" Silas yelled, taking a frantic step forward with his hands raised in shock.

"You could clearly see that man was being controlled as a puppet! Now you have just slaughtered an innocent wolf!"

I stared at the lifeless body pinned to the stone, my chest rising and falling with heavy, furious breaths.

"Whatever took control of him already destroyed him from the inside out," I said, my voice icy cold.

"His mind was gone. His soul was already ripped away. That man was dead the very second he was turned into a messenger vessel. Keeping him breathing in this cell would have yielded nothing."

Silas opened his mouth to argue, but the sheer coldness in my eyes made him freeze.

He slowly closed his jaw, looking back at the dead man on the wall.

I turned my back on the body and faced Silas directly, my voice carrying the unyielding weight of an Alpha’s command.

"Prepare all of our warriors," I ordered, my eyes flashing dark. "Get everyone ready for battle."

Silence settled over the dungeon, heavy.

*****

Silas’s POV

A day later...

I stood silently behind the broad trunk of an ancient oak tree, letting the deep shadows of the forest wrap around my shoulders like a dark cloak.

A small, humble cottage sat in the clearing just fifty yards in front of me. The family was outside enjoying the cool afternoon air, unaware of the shadow lurking near their treeline.

Two older brothers were kicking around a sewn leather ball, their loud laughter echoing across the grass.

Their mother was standing near a wooden clothesline, methodically hanging up damp linen to dry in the breeze.

Nearby, their father sat quietly on a hand-carved wooden chair, a faint smile on his face as he watched his children play.

Then my eyes shifted to the young girl sitting on the low stone step near the front porch.