Chapter 19
1421 Words
Chapter Nineteen – Blood Calls to Blood (Continued)
Carter’s P.O.V.
The tunnels grew older the farther we descended.
The smooth stone gave way to jagged rock carved by hands centuries dead.
Water dripped steadily from the ceiling.
The air became colder.
Heavier.
Charlie slowed.
“We’re close.”
I didn’t ask how she knew.
I could feel it.
That strange pull inside my chest had become impossible to ignore.
Not a scent.
Not a sound.
A feeling.
Like something inside me had recognized something it had been searching for my entire life.
Charlie stopped before a massive iron door.
Unlike every other door beneath the mountain, this one wasn’t covered in runes.
It was covered in scratches.
Thousands of them.
Deep grooves clawed into solid iron.
My stomach twisted.
“What happened?”
Charlie lowered her eyes.
“The first few years…”
Her voice barely carried.
“…she never stopped trying to get out.”
I reached toward the door.
My hand trembled.
Charlie unlocked the first lock.
Then another.
Then another.
Five in total.
Each louder than the last.
By the time she reached the final lock…
Neither of us was breathing.
The hinges screamed as the heavy door slowly opened.
Darkness.
The cell was almost completely black.
Only a thin ribbon of moonlight slipped through a crack high in the stone wall.
At first…
I thought it was empty.
Then something moved.
A woman sat curled against the far wall.
Long silver-blonde hair spilled across the floor around her like a blanket.
Chains wrapped around both wrists.
Silver cuffs circled her ankles.
Her pale skin was marked by countless scars.
Some old.
Some fresh.
Needle marks covered both arms.
She stared at the floor.
Completely still.
Charlie stepped inside first.
“Selene…”
No response.
She knelt beside the woman.
“It’s me.”
Still nothing.
Charlie looked back at me.
“I don’t know who you’ll find today.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some days she remembers where she is.”
A pause.
“Some days she remembers twenty years ago.”
Another.
“And some days…”
Her voice broke.
“…she doesn’t remember anything at all.”
My chest tightened.
I took one cautious step into the room.
The stone creaked beneath my boot.
The woman’s head lifted.
Slowly.
Her crimson eyes found me.
Blank.
Empty.
She frowned.
“Who’s…”
Her voice was little more than a whisper.
“…the boy?”
Charlie smiled gently.
“Someone who’s been looking for you.”
Selene tilted her head.
“I know him.”
She sounded uncertain.
“I…”
She frowned harder.
“I should know him.”
Another step.
I couldn’t stop moving.
Every instinct in my body pulled me closer.
She inhaled.
Just once.
Everything changed.
Her entire body went rigid.
Those empty crimson eyes widened.
She inhaled again.
Longer this time.
As though trying to convince herself.
Her hands began to shake.
“No…”
The word escaped on a breath.
“No…”
Tears welled instantly.
Her eyes searched every inch of my face.
My hair.
My eyes.
The scar across my jaw.
Then…
She smiled.
Not because she was happy.
Because she remembered.
“My little wolf…”
My knees gave out.
I dropped to the stone floor in front of her.
No one…
No one had ever called me that.
My throat closed.
“I…”
I couldn’t speak.
She reached toward me.
Her trembling fingers stopped just short of my cheek.
Almost afraid I wasn’t real.
I gently took her hand.
Pressed it against my face.
Her breath caught.
“You’re warm.”
A tear of blood rolled down her cheek.
“They told me…”
“They told me you died.”
I shook my head.
“I almost did.”
She laughed through broken sobs.
“I prayed every night.”
She cupped my face with both hands.
“My baby…”
“You got so big.”
Twenty years.
Gone.
Stolen.
And the first thing she saw…
Wasn’t a hybrid.
Wasn’t an experiment.
It was her son.
I wrapped my arms around her.
Carefully.
Afraid she’d disappear if I held her too tightly.
She buried her face against my neck.
Rocking gently.
The way mothers soothe frightened children.
Only now…
She was soothing a grown man.
“I’m here.”
My own tears fell freely.
“I’m here, Mom.”
For several long moments…
Neither of us let go.
Charlie quietly wiped tears from her own face.
Then her expression changed.
“Selene.”
My mother looked up.
“We have to leave.”
Confusion clouded her eyes again.
“Leave?”
“Home.”
Charlie smiled.
“We’re taking you home.”
My mother’s gaze drifted around the room.
The clarity she’d found was already slipping.
“I have to stay.”
“No.”
Charlie reached into her satchel.
“You don’t.”
She withdrew a small ceramic vial.
“What is that?”
Charlie looked at me.
“A calming draught.”
“It won’t hurt her.”
“It will quiet the panic long enough for us to move.”
She helped Selene drink the bitter liquid.
Within moments…
The frantic trembling eased.
My mother’s eyelids grew heavy.
She leaned against me.
“I’m tired.”
“I know.”
Charlie unlocked the silver restraints.
One by one they fell away.
The sound echoed through the chamber.
I slid one arm beneath my mother’s knees.
The other around her back.
She weighed almost nothing.
Far lighter than she should have.
Charlie looked at the discarded chains.
“No one should ever wear those again.”
We stepped into the corridor.
Freedom was only a few tunnels away.
Then—
A horn echoed through the mountain.
Charlie froze.
“No…”
Voices.
Running footsteps.
Steel scraping against stone.
“They’ve found us.”
Twenty guards poured into the corridor ahead.
Another dozen appeared behind.
Their captain stepped forward.
“Set the prisoner down.”
I gently lowered my mother behind a stone pillar.
Charlie stepped in front of her.
Her hands ignited with pale blue magic.
The captain drew his gun
“Take them.”
The tunnel exploded into chaos.
The first guard lunged.
I met him head-on.
Months of weakness screamed through my muscles, but instinct carried me forward.
A second came from my left.
A third from behind.
Charlie threw out one hand.
The stone beneath three guards erupted upward, sending them crashing into the wall.
“Keep moving!” she shouted.
“I’ve got—”
A bullet caught her across the shoulder.
She cried out.
Blood darkened her sleeve.
Rage flooded me.
I was done running.
Done surviving.
Done letting other people decide who lived and who died.
I drove forward with everything I had left.
The corridor became a blur of movement.
Steel.
Stone.
Magic.
The mountain itself seemed to shake.
Charlie fought beside me despite the blood soaking through her shirt.
Every spell she cast bought us another few seconds.
Another few feet.
Another chance.
Finally, she grabbed my arm.
“Carter!”
She pointed toward a narrow crack hidden behind a collapsed section of wall.
“The escape tunnel!”
I lifted my mother into my arms again.
Charlie whispered a final spell.
The ceiling behind us groaned.
Stone crashed down.
The passage collapsed, sealing the pursuing guards behind tons of rock.
Silence.
Broken only by our ragged breathing.
Charlie leaned heavily against the tunnel wall, one hand pressed to her wounded shoulder.
“You…”
She managed a weak smile.
“…fight well.”
I looked down at the woman sleeping peacefully in my arms.
Then back at Charlie.
“Can you keep going?”
She nodded.
“I don’t have a choice.”
Hours later, just before dawn, the tunnel opened into a dense forest.
Mist rolled between towering pines.
Hidden among the trees, warm lights flickered from a circle of small stone cottages.
Charlie smiled for the first time since we’d left the laboratory.
“We’re safe.”
I looked toward the village.
“Where are we?”
She took a slow breath.
“My home.”
She smiled.
“My coven has been waiting for us.”
For the first time in decades…
My mother slept without chains.
For the first time in months…
I stood beneath an open sky.
And somewhere far to the south…
Anna had no idea that hope was finally on its way home!
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