CHAPTER 203: CHAPTER 203: AN ECHO OF WHAT IT WAS

Kieran’s POV

I dropped Lorraine on the ground and for a moment the world wanted to give up on me.

My knees hit the dirt, but I braced so hard I only took one of them down. The other stayed bent, a single column of strength holding me upright while my lungs ripped for air. Blood hammered in my ears. Sweat slicked my temple. The phantom chorus from the bridge still buzzed at the edges of my mind, though its screams had dimmed to the level of a whispering wind.

You are a weakling yearning to be seen. A failure. Not as strong as you pretend. You cannot survive without your father to shield you from everything like he always does. You are cursed. Anything and anyone close to you dies. Your father is gone. Your mother is gone. You will drag Lorraine to her death too, just like you already did before...

They tried to carve me with words.

I held my head in my hands and forced the mantra, control Kieran, control. You are not them. You are not the voices. They are lies. Illusions. You are Kieran Valerius Hunter.

But when I closed my eyes I could still feel that bridge. I could still feel her, Lorraine, like a second pulse against my own. It wasn’t just the words I could hear from her mind.... it was everything, the metallic ringing drilling into the back of her skull, the thousand pointed needles of burning heat that crawled under her skin, the raw, animal panic she fought to keep silent. For a moment on that bridge, there wasn’t a distance between us. Her pain and my pain braided together and pressed at the same soft spot of my soul.

I opened my eyes and watched her sitting there, wrapped by Felix, Alistair, and Varya like a fragile thing in a too broad world. She sat distant, somewhere inside herself, shaking her head as if trying to shrug the world off. The emptiness in her eyes punched me with a fear I had no name for yet. Was that.... her normal? That overwhelming pain I felt from her, did she always wake like that? Or was it just a temporary effect of the bridge on her?

"Something is wrong with Lorraine," Felix said, panic slicing his voice into ragged strips. "She looks like she’s zoned out and she is not saying anything, what do we do? We should never have come this far. We should have gone back when we had the chance."

His words landed on me like stones. He was right, practical and stupid all at once, but his fear was real and spilling. I could feel the contempt rise in me, at myself, for letting them follow me into a place that should have been mine to secure before I dragged anyone into it.

I forced myself to my feet. My legs trembled but they held. I put my hand on Lorraine’s arm, palm flat and steady. Her body flinched, an exhausted reflex, but her eyes didn’t meet mine. She kept looking by me, through me, onto something only she could see. Her lips moved, no sound came out. She rocked a little, as if trying to shake off the voices.

She must still be hearing the ghost voices from the bridge and it’s probably getting to her.

A new sound cut through my ear, the unmistakable cadence of marching boots, the disciplined thud that meant soldiers, uniformed and organized and not ours, not Lycan soldiers. I pricked up like a hound. It could be a patrol, it could be a hunting party, but whatever they are, it’s definitely not good news.

"Do you hear that?" I asked. My voice was half growl.

Varya’s head snapped up. "Soldiers," she confirmed. She was already up, eyes hard and fast, scanning the tree line.

Alistair’s posture tightened. "They’re marching toward us," he said, flat.

No. We couldn’t be found here. Not with Lorraine like this. No one should know of our arrival here at all.

I looked at Lorraine and her eyes were closing as she was falling to the ground

I quickly scooped her into my arms without thinking. Her body was lighter than I feared, and yet each breath she drew cost her something. Her eyelids fluttered but never opened back. "Hold on to Felix, Varya," I barked. "And follow me."

They all moved like synched instruments, Varya grabbing Felix, Alistair falling into a protective arc as we started. We didn’t just run, we tore through space like it meant survival. I used the smallest increments of superspeed necessary, no screeching flash that would ring through the treetops. We moved silent, fast, concentrated into a place where we could not be seen by whoever marched toward us.

The world blurred and steadied. For a second everything was reduced to heartbeat and breath. Then we were running through streets that smelled of smoke and wet stone and something metallic... like blood. We were in the heart of Lycan territory, and this place seemed to hold a different gravity now.

I stopped and looked at the walls of the street, a message has been plastered and painted on them like warnings. Posters flapped in the wind..

WANTED: KIERAN VALERIUS HUNTER AND LORRAINE ANDERSON. BOUNTY: LARGE. POSTER ISSUED BY THE LEADER OF THE CRIMSON HUNT.

My name, our names, plastered like criminals in my own home, our faces drawn crudely, the edges of the drawings eerily precise.

Issued by the leader of the Crimson Hunt? Is The Leader and Adrian still alive?

My jaw went hard. This was worse than when we’d come before.

I looked around, the streets were mostly empty. There were hardly any residents on the streets, it felt likr my home had been stripped of its warm life. Even the dogs were silent.

Then, a sudden, sharp sound, like a twig snapped taut, made us all spin around.

Out of a narrow alley, a tall woman stepped into the lane, bow in hand, string drawn, arrow glinting like a threat. She was well built, muscles coiled as if sculpted to release death. Her hair was braided away from her face. The arrow pointed straight at us, ready to be released.

"Kneel," she ordered. Her voice was flat as steel. "On your knees. Or I’ll burst at least two of your heads before you blink."

I froze for a heartbeat as my brain tried to parse her, her accent, the scent of the leather of her bracer. Then something familiar forked through me like lightning.

"I know you," I said, slowing my voice deliberately so it came out even and measured.

She laughed, low and mocking. "Of course you do, Kieran Valerius Hunter." She stepped closer, the arrow trembling within her grip as if it wanted to leap on command. "I am the girl you were supposed to be wedded to... till I heard you ran off like a bloody coward."