The Wolf Beneath

Chapter 4 – The Old Hunter’s Secret

Leah Carter's Point of View

Briggs didn’t move. He stood at the edge of the forest, a silhouette draped in mist, with one gnarled hand resting on his staff and the other hanging at his side like it had no purpose anymore. His eyes, distant but unblinking, stared right at us, as if he’d been waiting. Not searching, not curious. Waiting.

I stepped forward slowly, shielding Caleb behind me. “Go inside,” I whispered to him.

"I'm not leaving you," he rasped, his voice still raw from whatever horrors he'd endured in the woods. Despite his obvious pain, despite the fever that burned through his body like liquid fire, there was steel in his words.

“You can barely stand.”

"I still won't." Even bleeding and half-possessed by whatever had marked him with claws and teeth, he was still my stubborn little brother, still the boy who'd once stood between me and a charging boar with nothing but a broken branch and fierce determination.

Briggs took one deliberate step out of the fog, and the morning light caught the deep lines etched into his weathered face. It was enough to make my decision for me.

“Stay here,” I hissed to Caleb. I crossed the grass barefoot, the morning dew clinging cold to my ankles, but all I felt was heat, anger and fear burning through me.

“What do you want?” I called. “Why are you watching my house?”

His voice cracked like old bark when he finally answered. “Not watching your house. Watching the boy.”

“He’s my brother.”

“He’s not the boy you remember.” Briggs replied.

"You've got no right," I began, but he cut me off with a gesture that was somehow both dismissive and weary.

“I’ve got every right. I was there before your kind started pretending the forest was tamed. Before peace became a bedtime story.”

I studied him. Age had carved lines deep into his face, but there was a fire behind his eyes that hadn’t dulled. “You were exiled for a reason.” I said.

"I was exiled because I told the truth," he replied simply, and the matter-of-fact way he said it made my stomach clench with dread. "Because I warned them what was coming, and they chose to believe in safety instead of preparation.”

I didn’t respond. Because I remembered what he used to say, the stories of what lay beyond the trees, of the beasts that walked like men, of golden eyes that watched from the dark. Stories my father dismissed. Stories I used to believe.

He tilted his head, squinting. “You’ve seen them again, haven’t you?”

I swallowed hard. “Something attacked him. Something not natural.”

Briggs took a step closer. “Then you’d better listen.”

Caleb’s voice called from behind me, hoarse but fierce. “You’re not welcome here!”

Briggs ignored him. “The boy’s been marked. What did you see in his eyes?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “Just fever.”

He chuckled darkly. “Fever don’t make a man’s eyes glow gold.”

I stared at him. “You know what’s happening, don’t you?”

“I know enough. I know the forest stirs when the blood is called. I know the ancient ones wake when their scent is carried by the wind.” says Briggs.

My skin crawled. “You’re talking nonsense.”

“I’m talking survival. And you’re running out of time.”

I heard Caleb behind me, struggling toward the barn door, leaning heavily on the frame. “If you know something, say it!”

Briggs didn’t even glance at him. “It’s not my job to say. It’s my job to watch. To warn. And I’m warning you now, there’s more coming.”

“More?” I said. “More what?”

He looked past me then, into the trees. “Not what. Who.”

The hair on the back of my neck rose instantly. Briggs leaned in slightly, voice low. “You’ve got one night, maybe two, before they come for him.”

“Who?” I demanded. “Who’s coming?”

“The ones who made that mark. The ones who claimed him.”

“Claimed him?” My voice broke.

“They don’t waste blood.”

I shook my head, backing away. “Get off my land.”

Briggs nodded once. “I’ll go. But you know where to find me when your brother stops being your brother.”

With that, he turned and disappeared into the fog, like he’d never been there.

The rest of the day passed like a fever dream. I did what I could for Caleb, but the black veins spread and his fever worsened. Emma sensed something was wrong. She stayed close, quiet, drawing strange symbols I didn’t understand.

That night, I sat awake beside the hearth, blade across my lap, eyes darting to every creak of the wood. But morning came without incident. The only thing waiting outside the window was fog.

My resolve broke just after dawn. I left Emma asleep, wrapped tightly in quilts, and told Caleb I was going to the apothecary. It was a lie. "Mira might have stronger medicines, something that can help with the infection."

He nodded weakly, too exhausted to argue, though I caught a flicker of gold in his eyes that made my stomach clench with dread. My boots crunched through frost as I made my way to the eastern woods.

Briggs lived in a stone shack just past the old mill, half-swallowed by vines, its roof crooked like a bent spine. I found him skinning a hare on the steps, hands steady, face blank.

“You came,” he said without looking up.

“You said you had answers.” I replied.

“I do.” He stood, wiped his hands on his coat, and opened the door.

Inside was a world that time had forgotten, blades hung on the walls, some curved, some jagged, all ancient. Scrolls lay stacked in dusty corners. Relics glinted from shelves, their meanings lost but their presence undeniable. The air smelled of leather, metal, and old secrets.

Briggs gestured to a chair. “Sit.”

I didn’t.

He sighed and pulled a scroll from a leather tube. “Your brother was bitten. You know that much.”

“Yes.” I whispered.

“Then you should know this too, he’s turning.”

I clenched my fists. “Into what?”

“A werewolf. A true one. Not the bedtime stories. Not the whisper-folk your parents warned you about. The real ones. The cursed bloodline.”

I shook my head. “That can’t be. He’s human. We’re human.”

“You were,” Briggs said. “But curses don’t care for bloodlines. They choose who they choose.”

My voice trembled. “There must be a way to stop it.”

“There is. But you’re not going to like it.”

I leaned forward. “Tell me.”

He reached into a chest and pulled out a parchment. It crackled as he unfolded it, edges scorched and brittle. An ancient map.

“There’s only one cure,” he said. “The blood of the Alpha. But the Alpha doesn’t live in these woods. He lives in the Wolf Realm, a world behind this one. A place hidden beyond the Veil.”

My breath caught. “The Wolf Realm? That’s just a myth.”

Briggs turned to me, eyes hard. “So were werewolves. Until your brother started howling in his sleep.”

He laid the map out on the table. Faded ink traced strange paths, twisting deep into the forest. Symbols I didn’t recognize were scrawled along the borders. But what made me stop, what made the hair rise on my arms, was the torn page he placed beside it.

On it, scrawled in dark ink, was a jagged rune I’d seen before. Drawn again and again in Emma’s pictures.

Briggs tapped the symbol with one gnarled finger. "That's the Alpha's mark. His name is Kael, and he rules the Wolf Realm with absolute authority. Every werewolf that walks this earth carries a fragment of his power in their blood, and only he can grant release from the curse."

I stared at the symbol, my mind reeling as connections formed that I didn't want to acknowledge. "And if I want to save my brother..."

"You'll have to find him," Briggs finished, his voice carrying the weight of impossible tasks and prices too terrible to contemplate. "You'll have to enter the Wolf Realm, face the Alpha in his seat of power, and convince him to give you the one thing that can cure your brother's condition."

I looked up at him, seeing my own fear reflected in his ancient eyes. "His blood."

"His blood," Briggs confirmed. "Freely given, willingly shared. And girl..." He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried more menace than any shout. "Alphas don't give anything away for free.”......