Alpha Leo and the Heart of Fire novel Chapter 112

111. A Forgotten Language

LEO.

“That’s the last one.” Li Sheng says tossing the deactivated device onto the ground. Four had gone off in total before we had managed to find the rest and disarm them. I had felt thirteen tethers snap, meaning we had lost thirteen lives. Eric and Emmet’s selfish plan had cost not only me but instead had cost the lives of many innocent people.

Those who had been trapped, and there had been many, had been accounted for and we had retrieved the bodies of our dead too.

They ranged from the ages of eleven to ninety-seven. 1

“Continue to comb the pack grounds until every area has been covered just in case there’s more detonators.” I say coldly.

I need to fucking go after them. I know there is a team out there, but I still need to do something too.

“Will do Alpha.” He replies, lowering his head before he runs off.

Alejandro and several others were now in one of my meeting rooms, gathered around a map, trying to find out where Azura and Corrado had vanished to, and the possible places they may have gone.

“There’s the forest there…” Elijah says, frowning deeply.

He, Damon, and several others are here too, but time is just moving too fucking slow. With each passing moment, who knows what she’s going through. I’m a fucking mess inside, but I’m fucking trying to keep my shit together. I can’t lose them, I need them.

I walk over to the table, and look down at the 3D hologram map that covers the entire table.

“I don’t know… isn’t that too close to your place? Maybe to the west, Dante’s gone to check that side out…” Alejandro mutters as I stare at the spot that the blimp of the tracker had last been, before it vanished.

“He’s misleading us.” I say quietly, feeling my anger rise. This is a fucking game to him … I want blood… I want to fucking kill.

“Meaning?” Alejandro asks.

“This is where Azura’s tracker went off radar … a place that’s got literally three dense forest areas around it… making it the ideal place for us to fucking search… I’m certain he went in the opposite fucking direction. Trust me, I know how fucking bastards work.” I say menacingly.

“Then where do you think they may be?” Liam asks. His anger is palpable, but I can see the worry for his sister in his eyes. 1

I look down at the map, zooming out and scrolling fifty miles in the opposite direction. “The caverns,” I say, tapping the map.

All eyes turn on me, and Alejandro cocks a brow. “Why do you think that?”

“It’s the last place he’d think we’d look… that place has magic that can cancel out a lot of shit. Azura’s tracker couldn’t have just blipped out unless she’s in a location that blocks the outside off…” I run my fingers through my hair, only for the strands of my hair to fall back in front of my forehead.

“How sure are you?” Damon asks, frowning.

“Pretty sure. Raihana wasn’t able to teleport to Azura either. She had something of hers and Judah doesn’t possess that kind of magic. So why the fuck did the teleportation not work? Unless ofcourse there is a power strong enough to counter it. Raihana is meant to be one of the strongest witches alive, so tell me what can fucking counter her? Trust me, this is the place to search.” I say confidently, turning away.

They seem to take a second to mull over my words before Alejandro slaps his hands together, rubbing them. “Right, let’s listen, he has the fucking brains.”

Yeah, I do.

“Remember, he’s fucking fast; from the footage, we can see that he seems to have a link with the shadows…” Elijah is saying.

I frown. Shadows… I suddenly remember an image from a certain book I had gone over. A book that contained drawings and symbols that no one was able to read because of the language.

I need to go over it again.

“So what’s the plan?” Ace asks and I’m brought out of my trance. My eyes flash as I frown deeply.

Oh, I fucking have a plan…

I turn back to the table, “We prepare to move out. I’ll fill everyone in as we prepare.

Gear up and move out. There’s something I need to check. I will catch up.” I command, turning away once more. I needed to check this…. “Delsanra, can you come with me for a moment?” I ask, turning to the white- haired woman.

She looks up and nods before hurrying over and we head towards my apartment.

That book may be gone in the fire, but I had scanned pretty much most of it onto the computer to look through them with ease. I had also tried to restore some that were pretty damaged.

Not sure why these idiots didn’t have all these books duplicated and saved. Who knows when we might need some information from them.

“You’re onto something.” She states.

I don’t reply. I can’t get overly confident until I am certain…

“What is it, Leo?” Delsanra asks. It’s about half an hour later and we are in my cave. A place that remains untouched. Everyone else has gone ahead, but something told me I needed to know what we are up against to win. He had thwarted us a lot of times and I plan to finish this once and for all.

My mind is spinning, the pressure rising as time slips by. I needed to find them. The longer I’m here, the longer they suffer in Judah’s hold.

I know I’m onto something… but fuck, knowing they are out there is messing with me. Fear of what may happen to her is rising as I keep on making notes, and the papers in front of me are full of my scribbles.

“This is…” She trails off, as she leans down.

I don’t reply, looking back at the page I have up on the screen. So that’s what you are…

She struggles to read my messy scrawl and I sit back.

“These symbols.” I say, pointing to the ones at the top. “Can work to decode the entire page… Shadow.”

She frowns before glancing at me.

“Shadows?” She asks.

“Yeah, by translating that word as Shadow it gave me enough to work with. I was trying to check if it would work if I took it as the key to crack the rest.”

“And has it?” She asks.

“Yeah… it fucking has.” I say, pushing the final sheet, which now contains full sentences that I had been working on, towards her.

She leans down, frowning as she reads the heading.

This was a language long forgotten… and although there are still parts of the passage that are too damaged to read, or simply not fully readable, it makes sense overall.

“Shadow Wraiths…” Her heart thunders as she scans the page. “Shadow wraiths are subspecies of the wraith family… What on earth… they don’t exist.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, sitting back and looking up at her.

She looks back at the page, as I stare at the image depicting a monster-like creature with smoke and shadows surrounding him.

Because the picture was so far from a human, we hadn’t paid it any attention when we had all tried to find out what we were dealing with.

“Shadow Wraiths take a host to survive and to gain a solid physical form… Resulting in them disguising themselves in the identity of their hosts. With incredible speed and strength, Shadow Wraiths are even stronger where there are shadows present. Wraiths cannot be killed unless their true names are found and taken, upon driving a weapon made of pure iron coated with Nightshade,

Ephedra and Harpagophytum into their necks.” She turns to me. “Do you think this is what he is?”

“I think so…” I say, standing up. I have a sword which is fully iron….

“What… how… did you… how did you even figure that out?” She asks.

“A little fucking late, though.” I say quietly, entering my weapon room.

“If the Shadow Wraith’s name is discovered, it can be called on for assistance, but its help is very limited. Wraiths feed on high levels of energies to grow stronger…” Delsanra says realisation dawning on her. “Wraiths sense beings with high levels of energy wanting to either simply linger by these beings or depending on the wraith’s intentions they will devour these beings… This is why he wants Azura…”

“Obviously.” I say coldly. “Can you get those herbs?”

“Yes! Right away, but… how will we find his real name?” She asks.

I frown, I had an idea about that… “Leave that to me… Can you call Janaina.” I say, looking at her sharply.

She nods and I hold out my phone…

It’s an hour later, and I am now near the caverns. I had made one last stop before getting here.