Chapter 3 - THE SHADOWS OF HALTORN
The tunnel walls began to sweat black oil.
Jorah stepped back until her spine hit the cold stone wall behind her. The air turned rancid, smelling of rotting vegetation and copper. From the darkness of the eastern corridor, a low, rhythmic clicking sound echoed—dozens of metallic claws tapping against the stone floor.
"Get behind me," Dawn ordered, his voice brooking no argument. He stepped in front of her, his massive shoulders blocking the entire width of the tunnel.
"What are they?" Jorah asked, her fingers digging into the stone behind her as she felt the familiar, terrifying pressure building up behind her ribs once more. Her wolf—the imprisoned entity she had spent her whole life believing did not exist—pounded against her chest wall, howling in fury at the presence of the approaching threat.
"Hounds of the Eclipse," Dawn replied, his fingers curling into tight fists as amber electricity began to arc across his knuckles. "Corrupted beasts bred by the pack elders to hunt down rogue bloodlines. They smell the silver in your veins."
Out of the blackness, the first hound lunged. It was a monstrosity twice the size of a normal wolf, its hide a patchwork of decaying flesh and hardened iron plates fused directly into its spine. Its eyes burned with a sickly green light.
Dawn didn't flinch. As the beast leaped toward his throat, he met it with devastating speed.
He caught the creature mid-air by its massive jaw, his bare hands snapping bone with a sickening crunch. With a roar of pure fury, he hurled the carcass aside, but three more hounds poured out of the tunnel, followed by a cloaked figure holding a staff tipped with a pulsing purple crystal.
"Storm King," a rasping voice echoed through the cavern, dripping with malicious amusement. "You should have stayed in the dirt."
Dawn’s eyes narrowed. "Saraveane."
Jorah froze. The name hit her like a physical blow. Saraveane—the Haltorn Pack’s respected healer, the woman who had pressed her cold fingers against Jorah’s temples fifteen years ago and whispered the words that locked her wolf away forever.
The cloaked figure stepped forward, lowering her hood to reveal a face lined with ancient wrinkles and eyes completely devoid of pupils, milky white and glowing with dark magic.
"You ruined everything, girl," Saraveane hissed, pointing her staff directly at Jorah. "We spent years draining your life force into the granite to keep the Storm King pacified, and you had to go and fall in love with your own executioner's grave."
"I never loved him," Jorah shouted, her voice trembling with rage as a blinding white light began to bleed from her palms, matching the silver lines on her skin. "I only needed a place to rest while you people worked me to the bone!"
Saraveane sneered. "It matters not. Whether you die here or complete the bond, the pack wins. Kill them both!"
The hounds surged forward in a synchronized pack attack.
Dawn roared, turning into a blur of raw, elemental destruction. Fire erupted from his hands, turning the leading hounds to ash before they could touch him. But more poured from the shadows, and one massive beast managed to slip past his flank, lunging directly toward Jorah with dripping fangs.
Instinct took over. Jorah didn't run. She raised her glowing hands and screamed.
A shockwave of pure, blinding white energy exploded from her palms, slamming into the hound and vaporizing it instantly. The force of the blast echoed through the cavern, sending cracks spider-webbing across the ceiling.
Saraveane staggered back, her staff flickering. "Impossible... the seal should have kept her powerless!"
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Dawn appeared beside Jorah in a fraction of a second, his arm wrapping securely around her waist to steady her as the backlash of her awakening power threatened to knock her off her feet. He looked down at her, a fierce, feral grin breaking across his scarred face.
"You see, Jorah?" he murmured over the din of battle. "You were never wolfless. They were just terrified of what you would become."
