The fall became a dive. The creature's spiral of teeth yawned wider, a pit of ancient hunger that pulled at their very bones.
Kael twisted mid-air, dragging Rhea against him, his claws sparking as they scraped along the jagged stone walls. The tether between them throbbed violently, as if it too feared what waited below.
"Shift!" he barked.
"I can't—!" The word was torn from her by the wind.
The beast lunged upward, its serpentine neck snapping through the air with terrifying speed. Rhea saw its eyes now — pale, sightless, yet fixed on her. The thing wasn't hunting for flesh. It was hunting the bond.
Kael slammed a claw into the rock, slowing them for a heartbeat before the stone gave way. With a roar, he kicked off the wall, sending them spinning out of the creature's direct path.
"Not good enough!" he growled.
The tether blazed red, reacting to the predator's pull. Rhea felt it feeding on their connection, every beat of her heart making the thing stronger.
Below, the spiral of teeth closed — then split in two, revealing a second, inner mouth. From it shot a tendril of scaled muscle, barbed and glistening. It lashed toward them like a harpoon.
Kael shoved her upward, taking the hit himself. The barbs tore into his shoulder, anchoring deep. The creature yanked, dragging them both downward in a whipcrack motion.
Rhea's nails dug into his arm. "Let go!"
"If I do, you'll be next!"
The tether flared again brighter, hotter and for a heartbeat Rhea saw through Kael's eyes. His wolf was awake, furious, and yet… afraid. Not of the monster. Of what saving her might make him become.
Another lash came. This time, Rhea moved first. She seized the tether with both hands and pulled.
A surge of heat exploded outward, striking the creature in the face. Its scream was a sound older than language, shaking the air around them. The tendril recoiled, smoking where her power had touched it.
Kael didn't waste the chance. With a savage leap, he drove both claws deep into the beast's upper jaw, using its own momentum to fling them sideways into a narrow tunnel carved into the cavern wall.
They hit the ground hard, sliding on loose gravel, the tether still burning between them.
Somewhere in the dark, the monster roared again and began forcing its massive head into the tunnel after them.
Kael's chest heaved. "We run. Now."
They ran.
The walls of the cavern pulsed. Not with life ,no, this was something older, something hungrier.
Rhea's breath came in shallow bursts as her bare feet skidded over slick stone, the echo of Kael's footsteps pounding just behind her. Somewhere above, the ceiling trembled, sending tiny cascades of dust into her hair.
The thing was close.
Too close.
Her wolf stirred violently under her skin, its instincts clashing with her human fear. It wanted to fight. She wanted to survive.
The compromise was movement—fast, reckless, desperate.
"Don't look back," Kael growled, his voice almost feral now. "It feeds on your attention."
But she looked. She couldn't help it.
The shadows behind them weren't following,they were stretching, reaching like living tendrils, sliding across the ground toward her ankles. Each movement carried a faint, wet whisper, like lips smacking together in anticipation.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
They burst into a wider chamber, and Kael grabbed her arm so hard she thought his claws might break skin. He slammed her against the wall just as the tendrils lashed out, missing her leg by inches and slamming into the stone with a crack that reverberated through her bones.
"That's not a spirit," she panted.
"No," Kael's eyes glinted in the dim glow of his torch. "It's hunger given form. And it knows you now."
The air was thick,hot, damp, suffocating. Every inhale carried the scent of something rotting, but beneath it was something worse. Something sweet.
It was the scent of want.
Her wolf writhed against her ribs, claws raking her insides. It wanted to chase the hunger instead of flee from it. The realization made her blood run cold.
Kael moved closer, his body shielding hers as the whispers grew louder, slithering through the air like promises she couldn't quite hear. "We go left. Don't stop. Don't listen."
But as they sprinted deeper, the cavern seemed to shift, corridors melting into new paths, the floor dipping into black pools where the whispers grew louder. And in the flickering light, shapes began to emerge,half-formed bodies, mouths open, teeth slice with something dark.
They were the ones who had listened too long.
A low growl built in Kael's chest as one of the things stepped forward, its head twitching unnaturally, its gaze fixed on Rhea like prey.
The hunger wasn't just below—it was everywhere.
And then the floor gave way.
They plunged into darkness, Kael's arm locking around her waist, the rush of air deafening. The last thing she saw before the black swallowed them was a pair of molten, inhuman eyes staring from the abyss…
And smiling.