Let Them Kneel (kaelani and Julian) novel Chapter 150

Jace rose beside him, dusting grass from his palms. He didn’t argue. Didn’t joke.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said simply. “I’m ready.”

Julian turned toward the treeline.

The forest loomed ahead–dark, patient, unchanged. Waiting.

“Well,” he muttered, something sharp settling behind his eyes, “let’s not give our luck any more time to run out.”

They moved quickly after that.

The lake was cold enough to bite, but they welcomed it–scrubbing sweat and sand from skin, shock clearing the last of the fog from their heads. Fresh clothes replaced stiff, salt–stained fabric. Boots were laced tight, pulled snug around aching ankles. Straps adjusted. Packs secured.

Final checks.

Final breaths.

They stood at the edge of the water, facing the trees.

For a moment, neither spoke.

Then Julian glanced sideways at Jace.

Jace met his look and tipped his head.

Together, they stepped forward.

The grass gave way to shadow.

And the forest swallowed them whole the moment they crossed the threshold.

The temperature dropped–not sharply, but unnaturally, like the warmth had been stripped away rather than faded. The air was thick, stale, carrying the scent of damp earth and something older beneath it… decay without rot. Silence pressed in from all sides, heavy and deliberate.

No forest animals.

No insects.

No wind.

Even their footsteps felt unwelcome.

The ground beneath their boots was soft in places, spongy with moss that gave too easily, then suddenly hard with tangled roots that jutted like bones through the soil. Trees rose on either side of them—twisted, gnarled things with bark darkened as if scorched long ago. Their branches clawed overhead, knitting together into a canopy so dense it devoured the light behind them.

Julian’s skin prickled.

Not fear exactly–something worse.

The unmistakable sensation of being noticed.

He had the irrational urge to glance over his shoulder, then resisted it. Whatever watched from the forest didn’t need movement to track them. It already knew they were there

Jace slowed beside him, breath shallow you feel that, right?”

Chapter 150

+25 Bonus

Julian confirmed with a nod, tightening his grip on the straps of his pack as he forced his legs to keep moving.

The moment they crossed beneath the first tangled branches, the forest changed.

The light died quickly. What little sunlight reached the canopy fractured into thin, sickle–shaped slashes, never quite touching the ground. Shadows pooled between the roots–too deep, too still.

Then came the sound.

Not footsteps.

Not quite wind.

A faint rustling, just off to the side. Leaves whispering against one another even though the branches above them didn’t move.

Julian slowed.

Jace felt it too. He didn’t speak, but his shoulders tensed, his hand drifting closer to his weapon.

The rustling shifted.

Behind them now.

Then–closer.

A murmur brushed the edge of Julian’s hearing. Soft. Fragmented. Almost like breath passing over syllables that refused to

settle into words.

It wasn’t a language he recognized.

It wasn’t any language.

The sounds slid wrong–too many consonants, vowels stretching unnaturally, like something trying to remember how speech worked. The whispers crawled along his spine, raising gooseflesh in their wake.

Jace swallowed. “Tell me you hear that.‘

“Yeah,” Julian answered.

Julian’s wolf stirred beneath his skin, hackles lifting, a low, silent snarl vibrating through his chest.

This wasn’t a place meant for the living.

And the forest knew they didn’t belong.

The whispers thickened again.

Not louder.

Closing in.

They slid through the trees in overlapping threads–too many voices, too close together, brushing Julian’s ears, then Jace’s,

then both at once. The sound wasn’t loud, but it pressed inward, like hands on the inside of his skull.

It came again. Branches cracked low to the ground, then higher–like something was climbing. Or stalking

“Do you see anything?” Jace whispered.

Julian scanned the undergrowth. The trunks. The dense web of branches overhead.

“Nothing.” he murmured.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify