CHAPTER 40: ALPHA OF UNDERCITY

Some of them looked at me as soon as I stepped into the hall.

Their eyes lingered, curious, measuring, but no one came near. Not when Raye’s arm was looped through mine, guiding me along like I belonged.

Whatever she was, whatever her place was here, it kept the others at bay.

Still, every glance I caught sent my stomach twisting.

I already had a bad feeling the moment I stepped foot in the hall.

I couldn’t explain it. It was instinct, the kind of dread that coils in your chest before your mind catches up. Something about this place was ominous, whispering warnings.

I wanted to believe I was wrong.

But then Raye confirmed it.

Welcome to Undercity.

I froze. My lungs stopped working. My body turned stiff, unresponsive, as though disbelief alone could hold me together.

Undercity?

No. She couldn’t mean that Undercity.

But wasn’t there only one Undercity?

I couldn’t even blink. My vision swam, the lamps above stretching into streaks of light. My knees wavered, threatening to buckle. I felt like fainting.

But I didn’t faint.

Instead, I wrenched my arm free from Raye’s grasp.

She gasped, startled, but I didn’t care. My eyes locked on an opening across the hall—a balcony, carved from the stone, its bannister catching the faint glow of the star-lamps.

If there was a balcony, there had to be sky. There had to be.

I had to confirm it myself. So I ran.

My skirts dragged, my hairpins pulled at my scalp, but I didn’t care.

I reached the stone railing and gripped it hard enough that the sharp edges bit into my palms.

And then I looked.

The breath left me in a rush.

I wasn’t looking at a sky at all.

The balcony opened to something far more impossible: a city, sprawling and alive, built not under the heavens but inside the earth itself.

The building I stood in crowned the upper levels of the cavern, high enough that I could see everything. The twisted streets, the clustered houses carved directly from stone, the bridges of iron and wood suspended across yawning gaps.

Torches and lamps glittered everywhere, scattered like fireflies, tracing the veins of the city until it looked as though constellations had been pulled down and scattered across the ground.

Beyond the city rose walls of rock, looming so massive they dwarfed even the tallest towers.

The cavern stretched upward farther than I could comprehend, until it met a ceiling of raw, jagged stone. No stars. No moon. Just rock, miles of it, holding the world above away from this place.

Far above, where there should have been sky, there was only the unyielding underside of the earth.

The Undercity.

I had heard whispers of it, stories meant to scare pups into obedience. A sanctuary for those too dangerous to remain above. A warren where criminals, killers, and wolves too ruthless for civilized packs made their home.

And now I stood in its heart.

My fingers trembled against the bannister. My body turned cold, the blood draining from my face until I swayed on my feet.

I wasn’t sure if it was terror or disbelief, or both tangling in my chest.

I should have died in that river.

I thought survival had been a blessing. Now I wasn’t so sure.

Was this the price? To be dragged from one Alpha’s fire into a den of outlaws?

My stomach churned, bile rising. I gripped the stone harder to steady myself.

"This place..." I whispered in my head. "Leika, are we really here?"

Her answer came quiet, grim. "Yes. It seems so."

I shuddered.

A thousand voices murmured behind me, the crowd in the hall continuing on, unbothered by my horror.

"Enjoying the view?"

I turned sharply, my hands still braced against the cold stone bannister.

And my breath caught.

Eyes, the darkest crimson like burning coals, locked on mine.

They glowed faintly, not just reflecting the light but carrying their own, a strange pulse that made them look alive.

Dark silver hair framed his face, sleek and tamed like strands of metal spun into silk.

The pale color caught the glow from the hanging lamps, shimmering faintly as if the strands themselves bent light.

He was tall, imposing in a way that had nothing to do with height alone.

His presence filled the balcony, pressed against my chest, made the air feel thinner with every breath. Shadows pooled at his feet and shoulders, not still but shifting, curling in constant motion. They stretched and folded over themselves, never straying far, as if bound to him, as if they belonged there—worshipful, protective, alive.

I had seen those shadows before. I had seen them rise against Finn’s flames, swallowing the fire whole.

And yet, in my panic back then, I hadn’t realized who he was.

I should have. I’d been told enough times.

Somewhere in idle chatters I had with people in the past, I’d heard someone mention the Alpha of Undercity. Crimson eyes that weren’t natural, weren’t wolf.

An omen, they’d said, a mark of what he was.

Cursed.

Strange. Dangerous.

But I’d never cared. The Undercity was a place far from mine, buried deep in stories meant to scare children or warn young wolves from straying.

I had thought I would never come close to it, never come near its people.

Now I stood in its heart, and its Alpha stood in front of me.

I inhaled without meaning to, and the air filled with him.

His scent hit me hard just like how it was in my memory. Thick, potent, cutting through every other odor that clung to the crowded hall behind him.

It was intoxicating, dizzying, making my pulse trip over itself. Not sweet. Strong. Dominant. The kind of scent that demanded notice, potent enough to press into my skin.

Intoxicating, but edged with something sharp. Lethal.

Recognition hit next.

The man from my dreams.

I had smelled this before, faint and distant, when he was inside my head, in my dreams. But this time it was a lot stronger.

Morrigan.

Finn had spoken the name at the cliff, his voice raw with fury. I hadn’t thought much of it then, the panic too loud in my chest.

But now the memory slid back, sharp and clear.

Rion Morrigan.

That’s the name.

The Alpha of Undercity.