The Curse

I stayed silent the entire way back to the inn. I could still hear the screams, the sounds of breaking bones and tearing flesh. I could still smell the coppery odor of blood blended with the muddy ground.

I had heard it all before countless times on the battlefield, but never had I seen the deaths so brutal and pointless. Alpha Kaan had taken no part in the butchery. He had done something even worse… He'd observed and orchestrated the kills.

“The emissaries seemed pleased by what they saw,” Dritan said dryly as we were approaching the inn. “Now they can report that Alpha Kaan is everything Alpha Khaos wanted him to be—a perfectly merciless killer.”

Nausea rose up to my throat. There was something that terrified me more than Kaan's brutality or mercilessness. He seemed to savor every scream and every last breath. He enjoyed it. Out there, on those grounds, he truly was the monster everyone feared.

Dritan grabbed my hand, pulling me to a halt as I was about to open the inn's back door.