•𝑺𝑻𝑶𝑳𝑬𝑵 𝑴𝑶𝑶𝑵•【√】

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜɪʀᴛʏ ɴɪɴᴇ

Emery, Emery, Emery, Emery. That’s all I can think about. A constant prayer that I foolishly believe it could become a magic spell to make her appear before me. No!

I would never wish for Emery to see me like this ever. It would break her heart and I would die seeing her hurt once more because of me. One night together. That’s all we got. If I never see her again, I will always remember her spread on that shore after the night we spent together. I will die with the memory of that soft, sated smile on her lips.

“We are going to see them again,” Henrar refuses to give up and I thank him for that.

I look around once more in despair. I have no way of knowing where exactly we are but I know we are in North. The dark cave is hidden deep but I would recognize that sharp cold anywhere in the world. Maybe northern than my borders, in the territory of the Rogue King perhaps. Though I have smelled no rogues. I am up against an enemy I do not know and that makes him the greatest threat I have ever faced.

The rattling of chains stops my wonderings. I am proud to say that Jaehyun is holding up better than I thought he would. He has been brutally beaten and tortured but he is still standing and keeps that defiant look on his eyes and that sharp tongue of his.

“Hyun?”

“Morning,” he says in a hoarse voice.

I flinch. He may not be giving up anything but that doesn’t mean that at some point he didn’t reach his pain breaking point and screamed. My hands tighten around the chains that have us secured on the cold stones of our prison. They are not silver but there is no way to be freed from them. I do not know what kind of animals or monsters these chains held, but it was something worse than a werewolf. And there are not a lot of things crawling in the night that are worse than werewolves.

“It sure is a glorious morning,” I smile at Jaehyun.

We don’t have a chance to say anything more. Heavy steps come down from where a sliver of light is coming, the opening of this cave perhaps. So close to freedom yet so far. But this time, there is something different in the air. Something that makes my skin crawl, my senses revolt and Henrar growl in the back of my mind.

First come the guards that we have come to know too well.but this time with a women who look in her late 50' but she too stay quiet.  All naked as they have just shifted. We have never seen them wear clothes and they seem perfectly fine with it. Six of them.along the women who had always seemed too much clothed standing parallel to these guard, with her face masked ;coward.  They don’t talk, not with their mouths at least. Only once they have asked Jaehyun where the Vault of Memory is and from that point on they let their fists do their work.

The Vault of Memory. Nothing precious in there. Just priceless. All the memory of our kind is kept there, from the first werewolves to this day. Our history, the names and families and deeds of each of us. No one really knows how that memory is kept and stored, but we all know it’s there. What would these thugs need of the Vault?

I have no time to ponder on that because my senses revolt and I am going crazy. I hear someone approaching but I smell nothing. Not one thing. The air is as if it’s empty. That’s unnatural. Every living thing has a smell, faint as it may seem or subtle. But whoever or whatever is coming gives off nothing.

“Danger!” Henrar screams I’m my head.

A man comes, draped in the shadows of the cave. I cannot see his face but he is a big strong man. And then he moves to the faint light that forms a circle to where I and Jaehyun are kept. No! It cannot be!