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| Luan, Wednesday, Tertium 24th, 1332(AG)—Aegisguard, Ascela, Greykin Valley |

Something pierced Luan's very soul, wrenching him from his slumber and forcing him to gasp for air, rousing his clanmates around him. His ears pricked up as he lifted his head, eyes locked in the direction of the unsettling force. Through the brush covering the entrance to the small cave, he saw flames and smoke rising into the distant sky, towering higher than the jagged black mountains.

His instincts wrestled inside him; while they told him to race in that direction, they also insisted that it was time to get up and keep running. Cyrus' wolves could be anywhere, and he wasn't going to risk getting caught. He'd already lost too many.

"What the hell was that?" Deimos asked, stepping over Lusine to stand beside Luan. "Some sort of explosion?"

"What if it's Cyrus?" Lusine panicked, folding her ears over her head.

Luan watched the smoke thicken and rise. His instincts continued warring, torn between seeking out the source of the tug on his soul and running to save his clanmates from danger.

But then came the breeze, and it carried with it the smell of ash, sulphur...and rotting flesh.

Cadejo.

"We have to go," he immediately ordered, looking over his shoulder and setting his amber eyes on his six remaining clanmates; their white-black fur glistened in the moonlight seeping in through the leaves and the cracks, and their eyes were full of fatigue and dismay.

"We can't move yet," Feray insisted and shifted her gaze to Judith, who lay at her paws, panting and trembling. "She needs more time to heal."

They all needed more time to heal. Despite two years of running, they still hadn't found a place to call home, a refuge where they could rest for more than a few days. If it weren't the living corpses finding them, it was the looming threat of Cyrus' wolves driving them deeper and deeper into Greykin Mountain. He feared that soon, they might not have anywhere else to run; they were lucky, in fact, that they hadn't yet stepped paw into another clan's territory.

"It's okay," Judith said weakly. "I can...I can walk."

"Like fuck you can," Mani exclaimed.

"Luan?" Lusine asked desperately, staring at him.

Deimos sighed and snarled a little, shoving Lusine out of the way. "It's all right, I'll carry her," he said and stopped beside their injured clanmate. "Shift back and climb on," he offered.

With a nod, Judith shifted into her human form, and with Feray's help, she climbed onto Deimos' back.

Luan then led the way out of the cave and onto the snowy ledge that overlooked the icy valley below. While his clanmates filed out behind him, he stared at the rising smoke in the distance. The smell of ash and rotting flesh grew thicker, forcing him to breathe through his mouth to escape the smell, but he could taste the death on his tongue.

But despite the signs of danger, he couldn't take his eyes off the mountains. He couldn't stop wondering whether he should listen to the part of him that felt as if he should be running towards the smoke rather than away from it.

"Dude, come on," Mani insisted, nudging Luan with his paw.

Luan snapped out of it and rushed past his clanmates to lead the way. He carefully followed the narrow pathway carved into the side of the towering mountain, and once they reached the top, he hurried into the trees, leaving the smoke behind him.

"What do you think it was?" Mani questioned from the back.

"It looked like it came from the same direction as that Lyca Corp. lab," Deimos said with a grunt. "Maybe somebody blew the place up—finally."

"And...killed all those things?" Judith asked, her voice ridden with pain and exhaustion.

"They'd need a whole army to deal with them," Raith said doubtfully.

"Shush!" Lusine then snapped. "They might hear us!"

"She's right," Luan finally said. "I smell them on the wind. We need to keep moving, quickly and quietly."

His clanmates fell silent. The only sound came from their paws crushing the snow as they ran; there were no insects, no birds. The forest was hauntingly lifeless. But Luan was used to it. The woods became quieter as the years passed, as more of those undead creatures turned up; it was rare to see even a fox now.

Something grasped Luan's soul again, forcing him to halt. He looked over his shoulder, staring straight past his clanmates' confused stares. The smoke was still rising, the stench of undead monsters burned the insides of his nose, and he knew that he should keep moving...but he couldn't stop gazing at that cloud.

"Luan?" his clan asked one after the other.

That smoke was coming from that lab down in Greykin Valley, wasn't it? Had someone managed to clear the horde? Had Lyca Corp. taken their facility back from the undead? Or...was it Cyrus?

"Luan, hello?" Deimos insisted.

He took his sights off the smoke and stared into Deimos' green eyes.

"What's wrong?" he questioned.

Shaking his head, Luan continued leading the way. "Nothing, it's just...nothing." He wasn't going to lead them into danger on a hunch, on a silly little feeling.

It wasn't a silly little feeling, though...was it? His instincts were telling him to go, and something...was pulling him, insisting. His brother always told him to never ignore his instincts...but should he really let them make him lead his clanmates into the hell he'd seen in that valley?

A cold breeze raced by, and the smell of burning flesh made him feel sick.

But it brought something else with it.

Trepidation.

It made Luan tense up...like he knew that danger was closing in.

And then he heard it.

The thumping of heavy paws against the snow-covered ground. And it was coming right towards them.

"Something's coming!" he panicked and picked up the pace.

His clan hurried after him, bombarding him with questions, asking him what it was or where it was coming from, but he didn't have the answers. He didn't know what was racing towards them, getting closer and closer no matter how fast they ran, no matter what direction he veered in. It was gaining on them, and he didn't want to find out what it was.

As his clanmates followed, he raced deeper into the woods, his heart racing in his chest; he tried his best to keep his composure, though—he didn't want to scare them any more than they already were.

He stared ahead, hoping for any sign of cover or a place to hide, and when his eyes located pieces of an old, ice-covered ruin, he glanced back at his panting clan. "Just up ahead," he told them. "We'll take cover."

"What...are we...taking...cover from?" Mani breathed.

Luan didn't know what to say. "I just...know something's coming."

He quickly led the way through the massive hole in the side of a standing brick wall and took cover amongst the rubble, watching as his fellow wolves did the same. And then he stared...peering through the gaps in the cracked, decrepit structure.

"Luan?" Lusine whispered shakily. "What—"

A twisted, distorted snarl snatched any other sound away, forcing a heavy, suffocating silence down on them.

The footsteps kept thumping, slowing as they grew closer.

And then...a voice.

"He was right...there!" it growled, a strange concoction of desperation and frustration lingering on its words. "Right...there!"

A pained yelp abruptly cut through the air, making Luan and his clanmates flinch.

The mangled, rotten corpse of a cadejo fell from above, landing mere feet away from the ruin that the clan hid inside.

And then Luan saw it.

It. That...thing.

A massive, towering beast. The features of a wolf but its body was shaped almost like a human. Antlers protruded from its head, scraps of rotting flesh wrapped around them like vines. And its eyes...so red, so full of hate and hunger. It stood taller than any creature Luan had seen, and that smell; it was worse than any cadejo he'd ever smelled.

He lay there...as frozen as the snow, watching the antlered wolf slowly prowl towards the dead cadejo. He glanced at his clanmates, and they, too, were as still as the night.

"Why?" the thing snarled, reaching its massive hand-like paw towards the corpse. "Why?!" It tore the corpse in half and tossed each piece into the woods, and with a deafening roar, the beast lifted its head and let its rage pour into the treetops.

The sound sent a shiver of terror spiralling through Luan's body. He dared not make a sound or a noise; whatever that thing was, his instincts swore that he, even with his clan, couldn't take it.

It wasn't alone.

A faint, whispering voice cut through the silence when the monster went quiet.

"Master..." it called. "We're...here, Master."

Luan stiffly turned his head, and when he saw the three prowlers cautiously approaching the antlered wolf, his heart started racing so fast that it felt like it was going to burst.

He'd heard their voices before...but not like this. Not so clearly. The whispers became words, and each one scraped at his eardrums.

"We can...try again...Master," one prowler suggested as the three of them warily circled the monster.

"They can't...protect him...forever," another murmured.

The monster roared and snatched the prowler by its throat. "We can't...try again!" it yelled into the creature's face. "I need it...now! I must...must feed! Must...find!"

"But the healer...is gone," the third prowler said.

Horror struck Luan's frozen body. Healer? Everything that Sadavir told him that night came flooding back in. He told him that Cyrus was convinced that a white wolf who could heal others would solve everything, and he couldn't help but ask himself...were those creatures talking about him?

No...why would they be? They were cadejo; they weren't Cyrus' wolves...were they? He'd heard rumours of a wolf controlling the undead, and he wouldn't be surprised if that wolf was Cyrus.

The antlered wolf dropped the prowler, which crawled away and cowered behind a tree. "I need...the vessel," it growled, slowly lifting its head to stare at the moon. "I don't...have long in this body. I must...be healed!"

All three prowlers bowed.

"We will find the vessel."

"The healer."

"Master can trust us."

With a frustrated snarl, the beast swung around. "Find him," it ordered firmly. "Search...the entire forest. The entirety of Greykin. Find him!"

The prowlers took off into the woods, kicking the snow up beneath their rotten paws.

But the antlered wolf remained, looming like a spectre. It stood there, breathing deeply, rasping with every breath.

Luan stared at the monster...and the longer he did, the heavier its intense aura began to feel. The same feeling that awoke him not long ago tugged at his being, digging its claws in, weighing down heavier and heavier. The sheer power oozing from that creature was beginning to drown him where he hid.

He was afraid—of course he fucking was. But he wouldn't show it, nor would he let his clanmates see it. They needed him to remain strong, and he knew better than to let fear ensnare him. He wasn't going to lose anyone else.

So he waited. With his clanmates, he lay silently and still, waiting as the moon climbed higher, watching as the antlered wolf slowly paced the area around it.

Another freezing wind raced towards them, forcing the monster's atrocious smell into the ruin.

But then the monster froze.

It pricked its ears, sniffing the air.

A maniacal grin of sharp, rotting teeth stretched across its face.

Luan's racing heart filled with dread. It couldn't have caught their scent—they were upwind from it.

To his relief, though, the creature didn't turn to face the ruin. It stared in the direction of the smoke, snarling with every exhale. And then it abruptly turned right, stomping into the forest, slowly departing.

Luan didn't relax, not even after the sound of the creature's footfall faded, too far for his wolf senses to reach.

"What...the fuck...was that?" Deimos breathed shakily as Judith whimpered into his fur.

Lusine sniffled, crying beside Luan. "I-I wanna go home."

But Luan didn't want to move. He didn't want to run into that thing...or those prowlers. However, lying there wouldn't help, either. They may have gotten lucky this time, but he wasn't taking any chances. They had to keep moving.

He slowly rose from the ground, his legs trembling, his heart still racing. "Come on," he whispered as sternly as he could, stepping out of the ruin. "We gotta move."

His clan cautiously followed as he went in the opposite direction to the antlered wolf. He kept his eyes peeled and his senses on high alert, scouring every inch of darkness before him. If that thing was looking for him...then his life and his promise to keep his remaining clanmates safe just got a whole lot more dangerous. But he wasn't deterred, nor would he let fear conquer him. His clanmates were relying on him; he had a duty to them, and he'd not let them down.

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