The rain didn't fall—it crawled.
Fat droplets oozed down from a sky the color of old bruises, slipping through the skeletal branches overhead. The world had turned to wet stone and darker shadows, everything slick, treacherous and alive with the whisper of things just out of sight.
By the time the convoy found the shelter, the rain had become a steady hiss, like the earth itself was exhaling a long-held breath.
The shelter was barely more than a ruin now—an old survey station, or perhaps a forgotten checkpoint from before the collapse. Walls leaned inward like drunkards supporting each other, slabs of cracked ferrocrete strewn across the floor in careless angles. Moss had claimed much of it, a slow victory painted in green and rot.
Lucian stood still at the threshold, listening to the heavy drip of water through broken beams. The place smelled of wet dust, rust, and something fainter beneath it—old oil, perhaps, or the faintest memory of blood.
The others moved past him, eager to get out of the rain. Tavian was the first through, shaking water from his cloak like a wet dog, his leather boots squelching faintly on the uneven floor.
"Lovely," Tavian muttered. "Cozy, even."
Kaela swept the interior with sharp eyes, her hand resting casually near the hilt of her blade. "Better this than out in the open."
Garrick's men followed, louder, muttering curses, boots scraping, knocking loose stones from the foundation.
Lucian didn't like it. Not the ruin. Not the rain. Not the soft squelch of disturbed mud outside where tracks should've washed away faster.
The feeling was back again. That pressure beneath his ribs, like the world was holding its breath around him. Watching.
He shifted his grip on the metal rod at his side and adjusted his blindfold with two fingers, the damp fabric itching against his scarred skin. The strip of dirty cloth wasn't much to others but only he knew how it came to be. A reminder and a mask all at once.
Behind him, one of the mercs spat. "You can feel the ghosts breathing here."
"Only thing breathing is you," another said, trying too hard to sound amused, his laughter thin and forced.
"They won't come here," Garrick rumbled from near the entrance. "Beasts don't like dead places."
Lucian almost smiled at that. What use is the fear of dead places when the only thing you can feel is a constant hunger gnawing at your innards. He knew the feeling all too well. He had always been hungry for as long as he could remember and losing his sight only seemed to make it worse. It was the main reason why he went out to hunt even when he had not fully recovered from his accident.
—
They arranged themselves with practiced disorder—mercs clustered together, gear scattered carelessly, talking louder than necessary to push the tension back. The Vale-Rhys guards, by contrast, moved with crisp economy, their bedrolls laid in neat rows against the driest walls. Even here, half-buried under vines, the subtle embroidery of burning clouds on their shoulders marked them for who they were: dangerous men with wealthy masters.
Lucian sat apart. His place was always between—between loyalty and convenience, between beggar and blade.
Tavian drifted over, dropping beside him like someone easing into a familiar chair despite not being invited.
"You always look like that?"
Lucian tilted his head slightly. "Blind?"
Tavian snorted. "No, grim. The blindfold's a good look. Makes you seem mysterious. Dangerous. Ladies probably swoon."
Lucian allowed himself the faintest upward curl of a lip. "Yeah. The chicks really dig the starving orphan aesthetic."
Tavian gave a short laugh. It wasn't mocking. It was honest. That surprised Lucian more than it should have.
Kaela glanced back at them briefly, her sharp green gaze measuring Tavian like a smith testing the balance of a new blade. But she said nothing, merely resumed checking her weapons in quiet efficiency.
A sudden argument broke out near the rear of the shelter. One of Garrick's brutes, a tall, thick-shouldered bastard with a crooked nose, had shoved one of the Vale-Rhys guards aside to claim a drier spot under the crumbling roof.
"Hey," the guard said calmly, voice measured but dangerous, "move your feet, before I help you move them."
Crooked Nose squared his shoulders. "Who's gonna make me, uniform?"
Before anyone could escalate further, Joran was there—silent, sudden, like a blade unsheathed in the dark. His hand shot out, gripping Crooked Nose by the wrist, and twisted.
There was a wet pop as the joint partially dislocated. Not broken at least.
The merc howled in pain.
Joran's voice was soft, but sharp enough to cut meat. "Sit down. And stay down."
Crooked Nose crumpled, clutching his wrist, spitting curses between clenched teeth. But he didn't move again.
Lucian exhaled slowly. That's one mess down.
—
As the mercs settled into uneasy quiet, Tavian nudged Lucian again. "Was that… normal? For mountain expeditions?"
Lucian didn't answer right away. He could feel the way the walls leaned inward, the smell of rust seeping from old bolts, the way the rain tapped out irregular rhythms on the broken slats above.
"Normal's got nothing to do with it," he finally said. "It's just people being people. Noise, swagger, bad decisions."
"And you?"
Lucian's smile was thin. "I prefer bad decisions with quieter footsteps."
Tavian chuckled again, softer this time, but with a note of respect.
—
When night fell, the ruin seemed to close in around them like a throat tightening. The wind whispered through cracks, carrying faint echoes of their own movements back at them like voices half-remembered.
Lucian took first watch. He always did.
And that's when he found it—a symbol, faint and nearly hidden, etched into one of the moss-slick stones near the entrance. Not paint. Not chalk. Carved. Recently.
It was angular, sharp, the kind of marking that didn't belong to scavengers or hunters.
Lucian's breath slowed. He reached out, letting his fingertips trace the grooves, feeling the intent behind the stroke.
It wasn't decoration.
It was a warning.
Or a claim.
As thunder growled again overhead, Lucian gently adjusted his blindfold and stood up straight, listening—not just with ears, but with every nerve stretched tight.
Something was here.
"Ashfangs!!" A voice cried out suddenly in the dark of night.
.....
They came like a flood of shadows with teeth.
The first ashfang burst from the left flank just as Lucian predicted, paws slamming against loose stone, claws scraping sparks as it leapt, jaws gaping wide enough to bite down on a man's thigh and tear it free.
But Kaela was already moving. Her short blade flashed upward with brutal precision, slicing through exposed tendon with a wet snap. The beast shrieked—not a dog's yelp, but something deeper, harsher, wrong—and crumpled sideways, legs thrashing wildly on reflex.
Before it hit the ground, three more burst forward from behind it. The lead one—a hulking brute with patches of fur burned away, scars running like old rope across its flank—barreled toward Tavian with murderous focus.
"Down!" Lucian barked, lunging forward.
Tavian dropped instinctively, and Lucian swung his metal rod in a flat arc, connecting with the beast's snout. The impact cracked like splintering wood, and the brute's head twisted sideways—but it didn't fall.
Lucian snarled under his breath and brought the staff down again, this time right across the joint of the creature's front paw. That did it. Bone cracked. The thing screamed and fell sideways.
More were coming.
"BACK! FALL BACK!" Kaela shouted. "Tight formation! NOW!"
The mercs fired wildly into the advancing mass of shapes. Gunshots cracked, the muzzle flashes illuminating snarling muzzles, jagged teeth, foam-flecked mouths. Each time they fired, more beasts came, undeterred by the noise, driven by that terrible hunger.
Garrick Thorne, mad bastard that he was, didn't draw a blade or gun. Instead, he grabbed the nearest ashfang by the scruff as it leapt for him, lifting the snarling creature bodily into the air and slamming it against a wall with a crunch of bones and masonry.
"Come on then!" he bellowed. "COME ON!"
Blood splattered Garrick's beard, but he didn't falter.
The private guards of House Vale-Rhys moved with surgical grace by contrast, forming a compact defensive arc around Tavian and Joran. Blades moved with economy—no wasted motion. One sliced through a charging ashfang's spine in a clean, almost graceful arc.
But for every one that fell, two more took its place.
Lucian spun his rod into both hands now, moving by feel. The edge of his blindfold was damp with sweat and blood, and his expression was grim calm. His ears picked out every growl, every misstep of claw on slick stone, every breath of the wolves around them.
An ashfang lunged for him from the right. He sidestepped, twisting mid-turn, his metal rod jabbing upward into the beast's exposed ribs before snapping outward in a sharp pivot to break its jaw on the recoil.
It thrashed wildly—but Lucian was already gone, ghosting sideways with silent steps.
Kaela fought like something born for war—tight, coiled movements, both blades flashing in blurs of steel and scarlet. But even she was breathing harder now.
"We're getting swarmed!" she growled between clenched teeth.
"They always swarm," Lucian snapped. "That's the point!"
Rain pelted down harder now, sluicing grime and blood in rivulets across the broken stones beneath their boots. Thunder cracked overhead again, followed by the low, shaking growl of another ashfang, this one deeper, bigger.
Then they saw it.
At the far edge of the ruin's entry arch stood the alpha.
It was larger by nearly a head than the others, its fur patchy with long streaks of old burns, one eye milky-white, the other sharp and murderous. Its jaws dripped pinkish foam. A rusted piece of what might have been an ancient collar hung broken around its throat, a remnant of some long-dead civilization.
Lucian's stomach sank. "That's not just a pack. That's a driven pack."
Driven by desperation. By starvation. Or by something worse pushing them forward.
"Fall back to the vehicles!" Joran finally barked, sharp and decisive. "Go! NOW!"
The mercs broke first, panicked shouts echoing in the ruin's hollow ribs as they stumbled toward the narrow pathway back to the trail where the armored vehicles waited.
Kaela grabbed Tavian by the collar, practically dragging him into motion.
Garrick stayed standing in place, swinging a broken ashfang corpse like a club into another beast that lunged for him.
"Thorne!" Kaela shouted. "MOVE!"
"I AM moving!" Garrick roared, finally tossing the broken carcass aside and stomping toward the escape route with muddy, defiant strides. His left sleeve was torn open now, blood matting the hair of his forearm.
Lucian kept pace, but his mind wasn't on retreat—it was racing ahead.
The alpha didn't follow them right away. It watched.
Calculating.
That's what chilled him more than the claws and teeth. The intelligence.
"They're letting us run," Lucian muttered under his breath. "They're herding us."
Kaela must've heard, because her jaw clenched visibly, her knuckles white on the hilts of her blades.
Mud sucked at their boots as they broke from the ruins into the open trail, the armored convoy's lights slicing through sheets of rain like pale, artificial suns. One of the forward guards waved them in frantically.
More howls rose behind them, echoing off the stone like laughter from the throat of a grave.
The hunt wasn't over.
It was just beginning.