Chapter 409: Something is coming
Far from the council hall, the forest was breathing heavily.
Inez stood outside the RV. As she was wearing slippers, her toes were digging into the damn earth as moonlight spilled through the canopy. Her eyes were closed, and her head was tilted back slightly as though she were listening to a sound that no one else could hear.
The song beneath the world was wrong. The air itself felt as if there was something subtly wrong floating within it.
Inez could feel it faltering between the trees, as well as in the little tremor that slithered through the ground like a warning. But it was spoken so lightly that no one could hear it. With the ocean close to her, her siren senses were stretching outward, slipping past the forest boundaries and past the wards that were lingering around them. Old and broken.
Something was coming.
Not wolves. Not rogues. Not any other shifter.
Something wrong. Something hungrier.
Something cruel and inhuman.
Her hand pressed to her chest as the unease sharpened. It started to coil around her ribs even more tightly. This was why she didn’t want to stop. They could have found a much safer place. She couldn’t help but get angry at Morrineth, Fenric and Ally. They didn’t understand. Their arrogance and defiance—everything paled in the face of what was creeping closer to them with each passing second.
Inez inhaled slowly, letting the faint hum of her broken siren magic rise— not as a song but as a ripple. A warning slowly wove itself in the land. The trees shuddered in response as small beads like water droplets rose in the air and started to entwine. Soon, a shield lifted itself around the RV. Once she was done, Inez slumped back, but before she could fall on the ground, a pair of arms reached out and steadied her.
She turned around and looked at Selene, who was pushing her upright. She looked at the woman in front of her and heard her say, "You shouldn’t have done that."
"I am trying to protect our pack and its members."
"Killian will be furious."
She knew this. "He will understand." He always did.
Inez barely finished speaking when the air shifted once again.
It was not like the dramatic crack of thunder or the sharp snap of a broken tree branch. It was subtle. Softer. It was like an imperceptible wrongness that slid through the clearing like a cold breath whispering against warm skin. The shield that she had raised around the RV trembled. The fine droplets of water started to shiver midair as if they were unsure whether it was worth protecting the pack of a bunch of stupid lycans and a half-blood siren, who didn’t even know that they were in danger and that their lives were at stake.
Honestly, if it were her, Inez herself would have fled. Because even she had to accept that it was just not worth saving the lives of these idiots.
Selene, as if sensing something beside her, also stiffened.
"Inez," she said quietly, her fingers tightened around the armrests of the wheelchair. "I ...I think I felt something just now. It was like a low tremor...like the earth moved on its own."
Inez swallowed, and she swallowed hard. Alright, that confirmed her worst fears. There was no way Selene could have felt the changes in the air like she did. But she did feel something...something a lycan could have never felt unless the thing that was chasing them was very close. Really close.
"We don’t have much time," Inez spoke in a hurry. "We need to leave right now."
Before Selene could agree with her, the sound of leaves crunching echoed behind them, and the two women turned to look at the person behind them.
Fenric emerged through the cluster of leaves and branches first. His broad shoulders were tense, and his expression was already filled with suspicion. Ally was following closely behind him. Her eyes were filled with irritation, with her jaw set as if she was holding back a diatribe that she wanted to hurl at Inez but couldn’t. Morrineth came last, and Greta, who was standing behind Inez and Selene, frowned as if sensing that the woman was walking toward Inez with every intention of confronting her.
"What is this again?" Morrineth demanded, and she looked at Inez with a furrowed look. "Another one of your acts?"
Inez felt something burn inside of her. But this time it was not fear but anger. It was raw and sharp like molten glass.
"This is not an act," she said with determination coating every word. "Something is really coming."
Fenric scoffed. "You keep saying that, but I have yet to see anything."
"But I am telling you the truth; it is all true!"
"Then what the hell is it?" snapped Ally. When Inez didn’t answer her, she rolled her eyes and snorted. "See? You don’t even know what it is. You made us abandon our pack’s land and forced us to run when there was nothing. We are hungry, tired, and our beasts are stuffy and trapped. You are not allowing us to run. You are not letting us do anything, and there is nothing for us to eat. All of it because you feel uneasy?"
The shield rippled again, and this time more violently than before.
Selene’s head snapped up. She noticed that the transparent shield was ripping, and her heart flew to her throat. She believed in Inez in the first place, but now that the fear and suspicions that the woman had shown were coming to base reality, even Selene couldn’t help but feel terrified. "Fenric," She began when she saw that the man was still arguing with Inez. "I just felt the air move. Something is coming... Inez is right...there is something moving."
She was not the only one. Matt, Henley and Levi also felt the shift in the air. Because their visions were not as clouded as the other three, they could see that there was indeed something wrong. But–