The Grymdale Tribe.
The torrential rain was endless. Flash floods surged through the mountains, destroying one cave dwelling after another.
Now, only half of the tribe’s mbers had survived. They were all huddled together, curled up in the depths of Elias Moretti’s cave. The damp air was thick with the sound of stifled gasps.
Outside the cave, thunder bood, and the feeble torchlight flickered.
Cecilia West was hunched over, tightly clutching the cub in her arms.
She slowly turned her head to look at her mate. Her sunken cheeks made her eyes look terrifyingly large, and her voice was as hoarse as if she had swallowed sand. "Is there any food left?"
A scrawny gray wolf cub squird restlessly in her arms, letting out a faint whimper.
She only had one mate left, but he wasn’t a gray wolf. He was a young Snake Beastman.
He shook his head, his forked tongue flicking in and out nervously. He gazed out at the gloomy expanse beyond the cave, the muscles beneath his scales trembling and taut. "There’s no food left in the tribe," he murmured.
At the mouth of the cave, Elias Moretti lay quietly coiled, his crimson body a stark contrast as he stared out at the world obscured by the downpour.
He was waiting. Waiting for this seemingly endless storm to cease, or... for the next flood.
Gable erged from the depths of the cave, supporting a weakened Lana. Hearing their footsteps, Elias Moretti shifted into his human form.
His long hair cascaded over his shoulders like a waterfall. His wickedly handso face could not hide his exhaustion. He looked back at Gable and Lana, his crimson eyes laced with weariness. "Why did you co out?"
Seeing her son’s slightly sunken cheeks, Lana’s throat tightened, and her heart ached.
She said softly, "Go back inside."
Elias Moretti silently lowered his gaze, his fingertips tightening slightly.
Gable gave a bitter laugh. "There’s not a scrap of food left in the tribe. Elias, he..."
For a leader, being unable to feed his own people was a unique form of tornt.
Lana clenched her jaw, a vicious glint suddenly flashing in her eyes. "Then kill those people from the Stannar Tribe!"
Elias Moretti’s head snapped up, his crimson pupils constricting violently. "Do you know what you’re saying? They’re living, breathing..."
"Living, breathing Beastn?" Lana finished for him with a low chuckle.
"Elias, they’re just refugees from a fallen tribe who ca seeking shelter with the Grymdale Tribe. Even Thorne has abandoned them. On the Beastman Continent, survival is all that matters, isn’t it?"
The storm howled, carrying with it a faint scent of blood, as if in agreent with her words.
Elias Moretti fell silent, the light in his crimson eyes flickering uncertainly.
He knew better than anyone that the law of the jungle reigned on the Beastman Continent. There was no rcy for the weak, and the slaughter of other tribes was commonplace. But to hunt other Beastn simply for food...
’Once that line is crossed, there’s no turning back.’
’But the people of my tribe... ’
Just then, a clear, ethereal cry ca from outside the tribe, breaking the trio’s fraught silence.
"Evangeline—"
The voice was like the wind sweeping through the mountains, like the gentle chi of a Bone Bell, carrying an indescribable purity.
Hearing that na, Elias Moretti’s entire body jolted. His crimson eyes narrowed abruptly into thin slits.
Lana and Gable simultaneously looked toward the source of the voice.
Over there, a slender figure was walking slowly through the curtain of rain, his silhouette as tall and solitary as a snow pine.
He held no umbrella, letting the rain soak him completely. The downpour slicked down his prominent brow, catching a cold glint of light on the bridge of his nose. His long, flaxen hair was drenched, yet it still held a faint sheen.
His grey-brown eyes were cool and languid, but his pupils had contracted in the dim light, locking the entire tribe in his field of vision. It was the unique vigilance of a feline Beastman.
Raindrops rolled down his long eyelashes but did nothing to impede his sharp gaze.
Elias Moretti frowned as he looked at Lachlan, who had suddenly appeared in the tribe. "It’s you?"
He rembered him—the Snow Leopard Beastman from the Frost-plain Tribe, the one who had caught the plague.
Lachlan stood in the curtain of rain, his voice soft but every word clear. "I’m looking for Evangeline."
He paused, his Adam’s apple bobbing. "Has she... co back?"
Lachlan stared at Elias Moretti, seemingly calm, but the hand at his side was clenched so tightly his knuckles had turned white. The elegant line of his back was drawn taut, as if he was terrified of hearing an answer he didn’t want.
Elias Moretti watched him coldly. "She already left."
Lachlan’s pupils constricted abruptly. His grey-brown eyes trembled slightly, like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on.
"Left?" His voice suddenly shot up, the end of the word laced with fear. "When?"
As he spoke, he unconsciously took half a step forward, his flaxen hair flinging off a spray of tiny droplets. The cool, languid deanor from monts ago shattered completely.
Elias Moretti didn’t hide anything, stating directly, "Before the flash flood."
A sharp CRACK ca from Lachlan’s knuckles, and his tall, straight figure suddenly hunched over.
He began to cough violently, a mouthful of fresh blood splattering into a muddy puddle and blooming into a startling crimson.
"She didn’t co back..." he murmured, his voice horrifically hoarse. "She really... didn’t co back."
Rainwater mixed with streaks of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Those grey-brown eyes, usually so cool and seemingly imperturbable, were now terrifyingly unfocused.
Elias Moretti’s brow furrowed, and a sudden sense of foreboding washed over him.
Ignoring Gable and Lana’s attempts to stop him, he stepped forward and hauled Lachlan up from the rain.
"What’s going on? Did sothing happen to Evangeline?" Elias Moretti’s voice grew cold, his fingertips trembling uncontrollably.
Before he could finish, Lachlan grabbed his arm, his fingers digging in so hard they nearly pierced Elias Moretti’s flesh.
He lifted his head, his soaked flaxen hair sticking to his pale cheeks. His handso features were now filled with desperate hope, his grey-brown eyes like the fla of an oil lamp as he asked cautiously, "Where is Thorne?"
His voice was hoarse, yet it carried an almost obsessive certainty. "As long as Thorne is all right, she must be all right."
"What in the world happened to Evangeline?!" Elias Moretti demanded, his crimson eyes fraught with tension.
But Lachlan suddenly wrenched his hand free from Elias Moretti’s grasp and staggered as he shouted toward the tribe, "Thorne—"
His flaxen hair flew wildly in the rain. Once an elegant Snow Leopard, he was now like a trapped, dying animal, his voice breaking raggedly. "Thorne—get out here! Get out!"
The tribe was deathly silent. There was no response, and certainly no sign of Thorne.
Lachlan’s cries grew fainter and fainter, eventually dying out.
Suddenly, his body swayed, and he collapsed to his knees in the mud, shifting into his beast form.
The Snow Leopard lay silently in a puddle, its beast ears pressed flat against its head, trembling uncontrollably. Its long tail seed to have lost all strength, drooping limply on the surface of the filthy water.
Elias Moretti’s voice was furious. "What the hell happened to Evangeline? Is she in trouble?"
Lachlan lifted his head, his round Beast Eyes reflecting Elias Moretti’s enraged face as he stubbornly repeated, "Where is Thorne?"
Elias Moretti frowned, his own voice just as hoarse. "They left together."
Seeing the light instantly die in Lachlan’s Beast Eyes, Elias Moretti said in a low voice, "I can find Thorne. But you have to tell what happened to Evangeline."
’Evangeline is the most powerful Witch. How could anything have happened to her?’
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