Revenge to the Alpha Mate - Chapter 239

Chapter 239: Chapter 239
Jacob’s Perspective

The stench of the sewer—a mix of decay and fresh blood—clung to the back of my throat like a piece of rotting meat. Celena and I moved in a low crouch, feeling our way along the damp, slime-covered walls of the pipe. From deeper within came the sounds of a struggle: impacts, scraping, and a shrill, inhuman shriek that made the hackles on my wolf-spirit rise. The beam from my flashlight cut through the darkness, illuminating streaks of dark, viscous fluid slowly dripping down the curved walls.

“Slow,” I breathed, pulling Celena back, my own throat tight. “Around the bend.”

We pressed ourselves against the cold concrete at the turn, edging just enough to see. The flashlight beam swept across the scene, and my stomach clenched hard.

We’d found it. Or rather, we’d found the aftermath.

It was worse than we’d imagined.

The first thing that hit was the smell—a nauseating cocktail of spent witchcraft, thick with the reek of sulfur and cloying, rotten flowers, overlaid with the sharp iron tang of fresh human blood. And beneath it all, a sickly, sweetish putrescence that didn’t belong to any living thing. In the flashlight’s glare, a woman in a dark green dress lay twisted in a pool of phosphorescent slime, her body bent at an impossible angle. Her eyes were wide and empty, fixed on the pipe ceiling above; a trickle of black blood had dried at the corner of her mouth. In one hand, she still clutched the broken halves of what looked like a bone wand. A witch. And she’d been dead for a while. That unearthly shriek hadn’t been hers.

I could smell more—the scents of others, tangled together. At least two more distinct witch-signatures, sharp with the pain and terror of recent injury, fading rapidly into the distance. Brett’s scent was here too, overpowering, feral, and laced with that same… rotten blood-stench. Was he injured? Did that thing even bleed?

“God…” Celena sucked in a sharp breath beside me, her voice wire-tight. Her fingers were fisted in my jacket, knuckles bone-white.

We skirted the witch’s body, moving deeper. The pipe widened, opening into a larger underground space—an old drainage junction or pump room. It was a charnel house.

The flashlight beam revealed bodies strewn everywhere. Many wore tactical vests we recognized, marked with Hunter sigils—inverted crosses, Lycetine bullet pouches. They’d died in various ways: necks snapped with brute force, gaping holes torn in chests, bodies charred black as if from point-blank explosions or acid. There were more Hunters than we’d expected; the remnants of their forces must have thrown their last elite into the fray last night, hoping to finish old business.

But the Hunter corpses were mostly clustered near the entrance. Further in, near a relatively dry central area, the picture changed.

Two more bodies lay there, dressed in dark gowns similar to the first dead witch. One had her throat torn out by something savage and purely physical, the wound ragged. The other was worse—her entire torso seemed desiccated, shriveled as if the moisture and something more essential had been sucked out. Her skin was stretched tight over bone, the color of grey parchment, her face frozen in a mask of ultimate agony and horror. The signs of magical conflict were more pronounced here: scorched, blackened sigils seared into the concrete floor, fine particles of glowing dust hanging in the stale air.

My heart sank. So last night, a three-way battle had happened here. The Hunters had tracked their prey. The witches had come to contain it. And the thing wearing Brett… had been in the middle. From the scene, it looked like the Hunters and witches had clashed first? Or maybe they’d both attacked *it*, and it had turned their conflict against them, letting them weaken each other.

In the end, Brett—or the monster piloting him—had come out on top. It had wiped out most of the Hunters, killed at least three witches, and though injured, it was still standing.

When my flashlight beam jerked toward the deepest part of the chamber, a semi-enclosed nook formed by collapsed pipes and cement rubble, we saw the final act.

Brett—that familiar, tall frame—stood there. His clothes were in tatters, stained with dark red, black, and that eerie fluorescent fluid. A deep, bone-deep gash tore across his left shoulder, the flesh ragged and oozing a dark, unhealthy brownish blood that carried that persistent stench of rot. But he stood firmly, even… casually.

Before him was the last living witch, backed against a wall, her face paper-white. The rune-stone in her hand flickered weakly; she was spent. Two wounded Hunters cowered behind a broken concrete pillar, holding guns with trembling hands, their muzzles wavering uncertainly between Brett and the witch.

A fragile, paused moment. A three-way standoff. The witch was chanting something, her voice weak but desperate. The Hunters were panting.

Then, Brett… *it*… tilted its head. Not toward the witch or the Hunters. It turned with unnerving precision and “looked” directly into the shadows where we were hiding.

It had sensed us. From this distance, amidst this tension, it had still picked up my near-stilled heartbeat and Celena’s suppressed breath.

The corner of its mouth twitched, the barest suggestion of a smile, or maybe just an unconscious muscle spasm.

It moved in the next heartbeat.

It was a blur. It ignored the Hunters’ guns entirely, lunging for the witch. The witch screamed, raising her rune-stone in a final, blinding burst of light. The light hit an invisible, fouler wall and shattered into nothing. Brett’s hand—the fingers seemed longer, the joints more pronounced—closed around her throat. A crisp *snap* echoed with shocking clarity in the cavernous space. The chanting stopped. The light in her eyes died.

The two Hunters broke. They fired wildly, scrambling to run. Bullets thudded into Brett’s body, blossoming into red flowers, but he only shuddered, his momentum unchecked. He dropped the witch’s corpse like a rag and flashed after the slower Hunter. His hand plunged into the man’s back and erupted from his chest, clutching something warm and pulsing. The other Hunter didn’t make it five steps before a jagged piece of rebar shot out like a spear, impaling his calf. His scream was cut short as Brett crushed his throat underfoot.

It took less than ten seconds. Efficient. Brutal. Chilling.

Then, it turned. It “looked” toward our hiding place again. The bullet wounds, the gash on its shoulder… were they *moving*? Not healing, exactly. More like necrotic tissue sloughing off, revealing darker, unhealthier flesh beneath.

It didn’t attack. It didn’t leave. It just stood there amidst the carnage, head cocked, “studying” our patch of darkness with those inhuman eyes.

“Come out, little wolves.” The voice was Brett’s, but the cadence was wrong—smoother, laced with the strange cadence of an ancient language, raspy at the edges. “You’ve trailed me this far, seen the show. You have nerve.”

I pressed a hand against Celena, who tensed to surge forward. I took a deep breath, tightened my grip on my blade, and stepped out of the shadows. Celena stayed at my side, matching me step for step. We stopped about ten meters away. The flashlight beam fell on it, illuminating that faint, ghastly hint of a smile on its face.

The air was thick with the smell of death and the taut silence between the three of us.

“Why not finish it?” I finally asked, my voice rough. “Kill us. Like you killed them.”

It shrugged—a gesture that held a ghost of Brett’s mannerisms but looked utterly alien. “Kill you?” It sounded amused. “Why? You’re not like these insects.” Its gaze swept over the Hunter and witch corpses with naked contempt. “You carry… a familiar scent. Wolf-scent.” Its eyes lingered on Celena’s face.

It was curious. I could feel it. Not a benevolent curiosity, but the clinical interest of a researcher examining a specimen, or a gourmet assessing ingredients. It held no immediate kill-intent. That somehow made my skin crawl worse.

Celena was trembling, whether from fear or fury I couldn’t tell. She stared at that familiar-yet-alien face, and finally, the question that had haunted us for so long was forced through her teeth, her voice ragged and broken:

“Brett… where did he go?”

At the question, a minute ripple disturbed the creature’s eerie calm. It regarded Celena with that strange gaze, something complex flickering in its depths—pity? Mockery? Or some distant, residual echo of the body’s own instincts?

It was silent for a few seconds. Then it spoke, its tone flat, narrating a simple, indisputable fact as if it were someone else’s story.

“Brett? That transient consciousness that inhabited this vessel? He’s dead.”

It paused, as if choosing words, or remembering. It lifted a blood-caked hand, studied its own fingers, then looked back at us. Its expression held a pure, almost天真-like cruelty. “What remains is a shell. Flesh. Bone. A few fragments of instinctual memory… nothing more. I made use of him because…” It shrugged again. “This body was left by one of my distant bloodline. Many generations diluted, but still… more ‘compatible’ than some random flesh-sack. Slightly more… convenient.”

Celena swayed. I caught her arm, holding her up. Her face was as white as the dead witch’s, her eyes wide. The last feeble, self-deceiving spark of hope in them finally guttered out, leaving only dead, grey ash. Her lips parted, but no sound came.

At that moment, the creature frowned. It looked down at its own chest, then tilted its head, listening. From deep within the pipe network behind it came the sound of scuffling footsteps, shouts. More unfamiliar, hostile scents were approaching fast—scavengers drawn by the sounds of battle, or the death-throes of the witch. Or… the next wave of Hunters, witches, or other things, alerted and on their way.

“Tch. Annoying flies,” it muttered, its voice dripping with irritation. It flicked its eyes toward us. “Our little ‘family reunion’ ends here, little wolves. My advice…” It jerked a thumb toward the way we’d come. “Run. Fast. If *they* catch your scent, they won’t be as… courteous as I’ve been.”

Without waiting for a response, its body twisted in a way that defied physics, folding backward into a shadow that melted seamlessly into the deeper, maze-like darkness of the pipes. It vanished. Only the lingering stench of blood, rot, and ancient malice remained, slowly dispersing in the foul air.

The sounds from the distance grew louder, clearer.

“Go!” I snapped back to reality, grabbing Celena’s rigid arm, spinning us around. We ran. We ran back through the pipe, heedless of stealth, our boots slipping in filth and worse. We had to get out. Now.