Chapter 22 · No One Stops Me

The stone floor under my boots is slick with something I don't want to name.

I can smell her. Blood and fear and that particular sweetness that's always been Lyra, even when she tries to bury it under soap and dirt and whatever else she thinks will keep her hidden. The scent trail goes down. Of course it goes down. Nothing good ever happens underground.

"Alpha." Silas is at my shoulder, breathing hard. We ran the whole way from the border. Four wolves behind us, another six securing the perimeter above. "This is vampire ground. Old vampire ground."

"I know."

"If we go in there—"

"Then we go in." I don't look at him. The entrance is a crack in the hillside, moss and rotten wood covering what used to be a door. The kind of place you seal up and forget. The kind of place that should stay forgotten. "She's down there."

"She might already be—"

"She's not." I can still feel the bond. It's thin and stretched and wrong, but it's there. She's alive. She's scared. And I'm going to get her out.

Silas doesn't argue again. Smart.

I shift and go in.

The tunnel is narrow.