Defying the Lycan King (Kira and Derek) novel Chapter 183

Chapter 183: It’s a Trap

A few hours later, the convoy of shadows came to a halt deep in enemy territory.

Derek crouched at the treeline with his men spread out behind him, all of them cloaked in the dark, watching the camp below.

Tents clustered around a dying central fire. A handful of guards loitered near the entrance, slack-shouldered and bored, passing something between them that was probably not water.

Derek’s eyes moved over the whole of it, slowly, marking every tent, every gap, every shadow that could hide a blade.

Listen well, he said into the wide mind-link, his voice cold and clear in every skull. We move in four units. Declan, you take the eastern flank, push them toward the centre. Bruce, your men hold the western treeline; nothing gets out on your side, not a wolf, not a rabbit. Marcus, your unit circles to the rear and cuts off the escape route along the stream. My unit takes the front gate.

No one engages until every unit is in position. You confirm through the link, then you wait for my word. We squeeze them from all sides at once. I want Rolf dead. But his Luna alive. Everyone else who raises a claw is fair game.

He paused, then added, And remember what I told you. The Umbras wear faces, but they don’t wear memories. If you come across someone you know in there, a familiar face, a friendly voice, you test them before you trust them. Ask them something only the real one would know. Hesitation is your answer. Kill anything that hesitates.

A ripple of grim acknowledgement came back down the link.

Positions.

The units melted away into the dark, one after another, until the link lit up with four quiet confirmations. The camp sat below them, surrounded on every side and entirely unaware of it.

Now.

They shifted as one.

Bone cracked, fur surged, and a tide of massive Lycan bodies poured down out of the trees from every direction at once. The loitering guards at the front barely had time to turn before Derek’s unit was on them.

It was over in seconds, quick and brutal, the bored faces never even managing a proper howl of warning. The Lycans swept into the camp.

And that was when the wrongness began.

The first tent Derek tore open was empty. So was the second. The third held nothing but bedrolls and a cold cooking pot. The deeper his men pushed into the camp, the more the same reports came rippling down the link. Empty. Empty. Empty.

Where was the resistance? Where were the trained gammas, the layered defences, the war camp of a man planning to take Dravengard?

Something was fishy. Derek could feel it crawling up the back of his neck.

He left his men to handle the scattered wolves who had finally come stumbling out to fight, and went hunting himself, tearing through tent after tent in search of the only faces that mattered.

But every canvas flap he ripped aside revealed the same thing. Frightened wolves, thin and wide-eyed, who took one look at the enormous black Lycan filling the entrance and fled screaming in the opposite direction. Not Umbras or gammas. Just terrified creatures scattering like spooked birds.

Bruce. Declan. He fired the words down the link as he shouldered out of yet another empty tent. Any sign of Rolf? His Luna? Anyone?

Nothing on my side, Bruce returned.

Nor mine, said Declan.

Bruce. Derek’s mental voice went flat and hard. Are you certain about this location? Absolutely certain?

I’d stake my life on it, Your Grace. Rolf was here. I scouted it myself with my men. He was here.

Well, he isn’t now. Derek swung his great head, scanning the chaos of the camp. It doesn’t seem like anyone of consequence is.

Declan’s voice cut in from his flank, tight with a new urgency. Derek. These men fighting. They’re not Rolf’s gammas. They don’t move like soldiers, they don’t fight like soldiers, half of them can barely shift properly. And there’s not a single Umbra among them.

He paused a bit. I think they’re captives. He left us his prisoners.

Derek slowed.

It tracked. Every wolf he had faced tonight had fought like prey, not predator. Flailing, panicking, running. Rolf’s actual forces were nowhere. The camp was a shell.

Unless, he said slowly, the thought landing cold in his gut, Rolf knew we were coming.

Very likely, Declan replied grimly.

But how? Bruce asked. This information was classified.

IT’S A TRAP! he roared down every channel of the link at once, already hurling himself toward the entrance. RETREAT! ALL UNITS, RETREAT NOW! GET CLEAR OF THE TENTS!

Meet me by the pool in an hour.

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