Chapter 82: Becoming A Prey

Chapter 82: Becoming A Prey Clare POV: I wasn’t alone in my cage. Not really. There were always the whispers. At first, I thought they were just other prisoners—murmuring prayers, begging gods that had stopped listening centuries ago. But the whispers came even when no one moved. They came from the walls. "Daughter of ash..." "...blood-bound to two flames..." "...the choice will break the earth..." They weren’t words exactly. More like impressions, tattooed into my brain. You don’t belong here, one of them said. I pressed my hands to my ears. "I didn’t ask to be here." "You were always meant to be between them." I curled tighter in the corner, tears slipping down my face. "Stop," I whispered. But the whisper just laughed. Cold. Feminine. "They’ll kill each other for you." Eventually, they came again. But not to feed us. Not to clean. Not to choose. To inspect. The goblin that entered this time was different. He wore bone around his neck and had long white hair, greasy and matted. His eyes were too large for his face, black and swimming like ink. He stopped in front of my cage and crouched. "You’re the one they’re looking for," he hissed. My heart seized. "What?" "Two monsters. One of fang. One of fur. Both think you belong to them." He chuckled, fingers curling around the bars like claws. "Funny, isn’t it? All this blood... over one little girl." I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. His eyes gleamed like wet oil. "We’ll see what you’re really made of." He slammed the bars with the flat of his hand, so hard I screamed. He cackled and walked away. I didn’t stop shaking for a long time. Rumours spread as other buyers came and went of the vampire prince torturing people while looking for a girl. Others said the alpha heir was also looking for a certain human girl and i pieced together with what the goblin told me. They were looking for me and weren’t making it discreet. ******* Whispers spread through the cages after that. Goblins moving faster. Fortifying doors. Sharpening weapons. Some of the other prisoners dared to hope. "Someone’s coming," a man muttered. "They wouldn’t panic if someone wasn’t coming." But others looked worse. "No," said a girl, maybe twenty. Her eyes were sunken, pupils blown wide. "You don’t get it. The things coming for us... they aren’t here to rescue. They’ll kill everything. Everyone. Even us. They always behave like this when the royal warriors are coming" And somehow, I believed her. Because of how the goblins panicked. That night I dreamed of fire. Not warm, comforting fire—but fire that screamed. That tore apart buildings and split trees in half. A figure in the center, cloak billowing, eyes glowing red with madness. Blaze. But he wasn’t Blaze. Not the charming, distant boy from the boarding house. This version of him was raw and ancient. Unhinged. And covered in blood. Then I dreamed of claws. A silver wolf with eyes like storms. Massive. Covered in blood. Reed, maybe—but wrong. His mouth opened in a silent snarl. And behind him, bodies. So many bodies. I woke up gasping, every part of me aching. The whispers laughed in the dark. "You won’t survive both of them." ********* The whispers hadn’t lied. They said monsters would come. That someone worse than the goblins was coming. And now... he was here. I first felt him before I saw him. The temperature dropped. One second, the air in the caves was thick and damp, full of rot and wet stone, and the next, it was frozen. My breath turned white. Even the goblins — those little nightmares that had dragged people from cages by their hair — went still. Some of them dropped to their knees. Others hissed and backed into the shadows. A figure emerged from the tunnel’s arch, flanked by half-shifted wolves. Not like Reed. These wolves didn’t breathe. They stalked. They were unnaturally still, with glowing yellow eyes and jutting bones where human faces should be. Some of them had mouths full of fangs but human hands. Others walked like men but with the heads of beasts. They didn’t need to speak. They were death in fur. And behind them came the man. Not tall. Not bulky. But there was something about him that screamed violence. He wore no armor, only dark leather and long sleeves. His hair was jet black, tied at the nape. But it was his eyes I’ll never forget. Frostbitten silver. Like the light before a storm. He moved like the world belonged to him. The goblins bent low and bowed. Even the Goblin King — the one with black eyes and bones around his neck — offered a strained grin. "Your Grace," he rasped, "we did not expect the royal warriors to arrive so soon." Royal warriors. That’s when I saw the crest on the man’s gloves. A wolf’s head, ringed in thorns. My stomach twisted. Wolves. The royal wolves. Reed’s kind. The kind you didn’t run from — because you wouldn’t get far. The scary one stepped forward and pulled out a long scroll. "I’ll take two hundred," he said coldly. "For the Alpha Hunt." The goblins shuffled, trying not to look too eager. "Yes, yes, of course. Excellent stock this year. Very lively." Two hundred. The number punched the air from my lungs. Other cages started whimpering. Then crying. Some even screamed. The girl in the cage next to mine dropped to her knees and began praying in some language I didn’t understand. My hands clenched around the bars. "What’s the Alpha Hunt?" I asked hoarsely. No one answered at first. Then an older man whispered through the wall. "They... they take humans. Drop them into one of the royal forests. Big, enchanted places. No exits. Just... woods. Then the wolves are released after them. For sport." I shook my head. "No—" "It’s a tradition," another said. "Blood sport. No one survives." Someone sobbed. I couldn’t feel my fingers. The cold, the fear — it was all numbing me. "They call it a hunt," the man continued. "But it’s a culling. They test their young warriors that way. The one who catches the most humans... earns prestige. Rank. Glory." "Sometimes," the girl beside me said in a whisper, "they keep the prettiest ones alive. For... other things." I swallowed bile. "Is this real?" She didn’t answer. I didn’t need her to. The goblin guards began opening cages. Chains rattled. Cries echoed. Hands grabbed, shoved, pulled. And then mine opened. I tried to fight. Tried to kick. But my limbs weren’t strong enough. Not anymore. They dragged me out into the light of their torches. The cold man didn’t look at me. Not really. His eyes passed over my face and then moved on. Like I was nothing. Like I was already dead. But one of the wolves at his side stared too long. A half-shifted male, taller than the rest. His fur was silver-gold, and his eyes narrowed when he caught my scent. He leaned toward the cold man. Whispered something. The cold man glanced at me again. And for a split second — just a flicker — something changed in his expression. Recognition? Curiosity? I didn’t know. But it passed. "Tag her," he said. A goblin rushed forward and slapped a glowing rune tag onto my wrist. It burned. I cried out, trying to jerk away, but it only made them laugh. "You’re number eighty-two," one hissed in my ear. "Try to run fast, pretty girl. The fast ones make it more fun." They loaded us into carts. Cold metal cages on wheels. The forest they spoke of was hours away. Maybe more. All around me, people cried. Prayed. Screamed. But I just... watched. Because something deep inside me had shifted. It wasn’t bravery. It wasn’t courage. It was fury. I didn’t know how — I didn’t know when — but I would survive this. ********* I wondered if my brother died like this. Thrown into a cage. Tagged like livestock. Hauled off to be hunted like sport. Or maybe he ended up in one of those deals... the ones the goblins whisper about when they think we’re too broken to listen. The Hag Stew. The bone-boiling, soul-stripping kind. The kind where people don’t scream anymore because their mouths are already gone. Oh God. What am I even thinking. The cart rattled as it hit another dip in the forest path. I clutched the rusted bars, cold biting into my palms. The metal smelled like piss and blood. There were wolves—actual wolves—padding beside the cart. Some walked upright. Others loped on all fours, their snarls low and constant, as if daring us to try. My escape plan was dead. But my plan? Yeah, it had officially gone to shit. Running? Out of the question. Wolves flanked the carts, walking alongside like bodyguards—but for who? Us? Or the hunt? Probably the latter. Behind us, more wolves. Watching. Smirking. A few even licked their damn teeth like they couldn’t wait. Trying to escape now would just mean they got to start the game early. And I wasn’t about to make myself an appetizer. So I sat still. Too still. My muscles ached from it, but I didn’t care. Every jolt of the cart made my spine snap straighter. Every growl from the escort made my blood run colder. I just had to think . The guy across from me in the cart had pissed himself. No one even looked at him. No one blamed him. Another girl — no older than sixteen — was whispering to a cloth doll she’d smuggled in her shirt. Maybe it was her sister’s. Maybe she was losing it. We all were. I leaned back, letting the bars bite into my spine. Okay. Think. Think. THINK. Running was suicide. Outrunning a werewolf? Impossible. I mean... they’re made for that crap. Speed. Endurance. Super snouts. Running was just giving them something fun to chase. They’d release us into the forest eventually—that was the point, right? The hunt. So maybe—just maybe—if I could find some way to hide, I could— Shit. I forgot about their sense of smell. My stomach dropped. I’d leave a trail no matter what. Even if I rolled in mud or buried myself in leaves, they’d sniff me out like a dog finding meat under a floorboard. Good Lord. I need a miracle. I need something bigger than me. I stared at the nearest one, a tall, slate-gray brute with golden eyes. His nostrils flared. He didn’t look at me, but he knew. He could probably already smell the fear pouring off my skin like cheap perfume. And blood. Still faint, but there. Perfect. Bait. I’m fucking bait. I wanted to laugh. Or scream. Maybe both. What I really needed was a miracle. A real, divine, sky-splitting, oh-look-Clare-you-win-a-second-chance kind of miracle. I pressed my forehead against the bars. Cold. I didn’t want to die like this. I didn’t want to run until I tripped, fall into dirt, and feel jaws rip into my back. I didn’t want my last memory to be claws in my lungs. If someone had asked me a month ago what my biggest fear was, I’d have said "blaze and reed" or maybe "Reed finding out I wasn’t a boy." Now? I’d take Blaze draining me dry over this any damn day. At least vampires do it with some twisted grace. I could stare at his pretty face while he turned me into a husk. Romantic tragedy, right? At least he was hot. At least he wouldn’t chew. God. What the actual hell was my life? I pressed my head back against the wooden bars of the cart and stared up at the sky, the pale wash of early morning light bleeding through a gauze of trees. It should’ve been pretty. Calming. But all I saw were branches that looked like claws. "You just had to leave the apartment," I muttered under my breath. "You just had to storm out. Couldn’t let the murder bros handle their testosterone showdown." I snorted bitterly. Being torn limb from limb by a half-shifted beast with two tongues and yellow foam on its muzzle? That’s just... raw horror. Why the fuck did I leave that apartment? Why did I try to look for peace? God, even the crying ghost girl in the boarding house sounds like a better roommate now. At least she just cried and flickered lights. I could’ve stayed. I could’ve played dead under the bed and waited till Reed and Blaze finished fighting. Heck, I should’ve cheered them on. Maybe thrown them some water bottles. Even handed them towels between rounds. "Nice punch, Reed!" "Great neck grab, Blaze!" Go team monster! Hell, I should’ve grabbed a whistle and played referee. "Ten points to Reed for suplexing the vampire prince!" "Minus ten to Blaze for trying to bite the furniture!" Better to be referee to two monsters I knew than meat in a cage for ones I don’t.