Primalcraft: Sins of Bygone days (book 2)

Rituals in the Dark, Chapter 4

The walls seemed to breathe, closing in on Alex as he walked. The air clawed chillingly at his skin and he shuddered. Hadrien noticed, and pulled off his jacket.

"Seriously, do I look like a girl?"

Hadrien cocked an eyebrow, a smirk gracing his face as his expression gave Alex all the answers he never asked for. With a grumbled he took the jacket and put it on, hating to admit that he enjoyed the scent of the damn French wolf. His cat on the other hand was not reserved and was fully willing to roll around in the jacket and purr his life away.

"Behave," Alex snapped at the cat who, Alex was pretty sure, was giving him the middle finger. Why couldn't he have been chosen by something cute? At this point, he would have been grateful to have been chosen by a cow, or a squirrel. No cow shifters have the problem with a sassy spirit.

They soon came to the end of the hall with two paths, one right and one to the left, going in opposite directions. "Smell anything?" Alex asked.

"Dark Magic," Hadrien muttered, sniffing the air. "But no squirrel."

"Of course not," Alex replied. "That would have been too easy."

They started to walk at random. Left, left, left, right, left, left, left, right. Each turn made Alex even more sure than before. This was a maze, and mazes are often used to protect something at the end of it.

Alex noticed that Hadrien had leaned town to touch something on the wall. "Have you found some-"

He stopped, looking as Hadrien let his fingers run across five traces on the wall. Long and narrow. Claw marks covered the wall and even the floor. A shudder rushed through him as he saw how perfectly Hadrien's finger lined up with the claw marks. Human fingers, and from the long trace it looked like whoever did that had been dragged down this hall.

"Can you get a scent from them?" Alex muttered, not daring to think about those who had been forcingly dragged down these halls.

"No, they are very old. Maybe hundred of years old, but I don't think we need to," Hadrien said and got up, his face showed no emotions, eyes as cold as the stone these halls were built with. "We just follow the claw marks. I would guess that whoever was dragged here was dragged towards whatever we are searching for."

Alex nodded and followed the haunting traces of agony as they walked along. All the while he wrote each turn on his phone so that they could backtrack out of the place when they walked out. The claw marks led to a small opening in the hall, both of them had to crawl through on their fours and Alex cursed his long legs.

"Why couldn't you crawl first?" muttered Alex as he had to push away vines that pricked his skin.

"You have the light, besides..."

"Besides?" Alex asked, even though he couldn't see him, Alex could have sworn that the guy behind him was smirking.

"I like the view."

It took a while before Alex's mind registered what he had just said, and when it did, he sent a kick backward but only hit a hand as Hadrien had predicted his reaction, catching his leg with a chuckle.

"Damn dog, go and hump a bloody couch or something," Alex muttered and let out a sigh of relief when he saw an opening, praying that they were at the end of the labyrinth. He quickly crawled out and got to his feet, stretching his aching body, before he turned the light around.

The room was large, high ceilings with a balcony at the top. Alex could see a door there. At the bottom was another large door with runes carved onto it. He is really starting to feel like this was a nuisance.