Tempted By my Evil Lycan Stepbrother novel Chapter 58

Chapter 58: Death In The Face

Riley’s POV

The fall was chaos.

Loose dirt. Shattered roots. Flying stone. My shoulder slammed into something hard, then I was tumbling, scraping, choking. Someone crashed into me mid-fall. The sound was swallowed by the roar of collapsing earth.

Then I hit the bottom.

Pain exploded through my back and side.

For a second, I could only lie there gasping, with dust filling my mouth and nose.

“Fuck, OK…that wasn’t too bad…” Olivia choked not too far away from me.

Yeah, my back hurt as well. But it was just a fall. We all survived. Better than I thought.

I pushed myself up on shaking arms and looked around.

Above us, the hole we’d fallen through was a jagged circle of moonlight.

A

The cave was vast and deep. There was a disgusting smell in the air-rot, musk, blood, and something sour enough to turn my stomach.

Then, from somewhere deep in the cave, came the sound that made every hair on my body rise-

A slow scrape of claws across stone.

Then something slid out of the dark.

Olivia screamed first. I honestly couldn’t blame her.

The creature was long and thick like a giant snake, but wrong in every possible way. Its body was covered in black, wet-looking scales that reflected the moonlight in oily flashes. Bone-like/spikes jutted out along its back. Its head was too wide, its mouth too huge, row after row of hooked teeth gleaming inside.

A second one slithered out behind it.

Then a third.

My blood turned to ice.

…”Shadowfangs,” I whispered.

Even saying the name felt like a curse.

Nobody hunted Shadowfangs. Period.

Their points were sky-high, sure, but everybody knew why. These things were death wish. Too fast underground. Too vicious in close combat. Too hard to kill unless you were stupidly overpowered or suicidal.

“Oh my God,” Olivia choked, burst into tears already. “No… no, no,

no…”

Odin had already pulled her behind him, his face drained of color.

“Roy!” he roared toward the opening above us. “Get us the fuck out of here!”

Silas grabbed his weapon and looked up too. “Roy! Do something!”

I lifted my head sharply.

In The Foos

Roy was still there at the edge of the sinkhole, a dark shape against the moonlight.

He stared down at us. But did nothing. With that same sick, guilty look on his face.

+15 Bonus

“Roy you back-stabbing, dirty piece of shit!” Olivia screamed. She had gone mad in horror. “We gave you the fucking Moonleaf! We saved your fucking ass! HOW DARE YOU!!”

“L…I’m sorry…”

Roy took a shaky step back, sobbing. “I…I didn’t have a choice…”

“Well, well, well!” a laugh came from the darkness. And then another figure stepped into view beside him. “Will you look at that?”

It’s Kade.

He leaned over the edge, grinning down at us like this was the funniest thing he had ever seen.

“The mutt really fell for it.” He drawled.

Olivia made a strangled sound. Silas hissed between his gritted teeth. “You filthy motherfuck–We’ll make you pay for this!”

Kade only laughed harder.

He snatched the moonleaf bundle right out of Roy’s hand and waved it once in the air.

“Thanks for the delivery,” he called down. “I gotta admit, this was easier than I thought. A few tears, one pathetic little sob story, and Riley came running. Do you know this whole thing is actually Roy’s idea? He said this worked most effectively with you. I was skeptical at first…but turns out it really takes a friend to know a friend right?”

Roy flinched.

I stared up at him unblinkingly. I wanted to see the guilt in his eyes.

He couldn’t even meet my gaze.

Right then, one of the Shadowfangs let out a horrible hiss and lunged.

“DOWN!” I shouted.

The whole cave exploded into chaos.

The first Shadowfang slammed into Odin so hard both of them crashed into the rock. Olivia screamed and stabbed wildly at another one trying to circle behind her. Silas loosed an arrow into a creature’s mouth, but it barely slowed the damned thing before it came twisting toward him anyway.

I threw myself forward and dragged Olivia back just as jaws snapped shut where her leg had been.

“Let your wolves take over!” I screamed “Don’t let them split us up!”

But even in our wolves, these things were too fast for us.

They moved in awful, snapping bursts, half-sliding and half-coiling, their bodies slamming into rock and dirt with enough force to crack stone. Every time one missed, it vanished into shadow and came from a different angle.

And this wasn’t like the Ironback Boars.

Back then, we’d been prepared. We had traps. We had a plan.

But this time, we got nothing.

Just darkness, blood, and monsters.

+15 Bonus

A Shadowfang whipped its tail across Silas’s side and sent him crashing to the ground. He hissed through his teeth, rolled, and drove his blade up under its jaw. Black blood splashed across his arm.

“Odin!” I shouted.

“I’m fucking trying!” he roared back.

He was in his wolf form and had one creature half pinned with his weight. Another one lashed at his shoulder and tore straight through leather and flesh. His wolf howled in pain, but he didn’t let go

I sprinted to him, shoved my hand over the wound, and sent healing energy into it as fast as I could.

…Too deep.

My hands were shaking.

His wound was way too deep!

The torn muscle shuddered under my palm, trying to close, but the damage kept ripping wider every time he moved.

I heard Kade laughing above us.

“Look at them!” he shouted. “The mighty Riley Monroe! The Lycan Prince’s sister! So what your whore mother married the King? You still going to die in my hand! And all of your teammates! They die because of you!”

I wanted to ignore him.

But he was right.

This was my fault.

I was the one who trusted Roy.

I was the one who dragged my team here.

Every scream echoing through this cave was on me.

The smell of blood grew thicker. My teammate’s blood. Those beasts were going to tear us apart.

For the first time since the game started, I really saw it-Death.

I was staring death right in its face.

“Riley!” Silas yelled.

I spuri.

1

Olivia was on her knees, blood running down her forearm, one Shadowfang reared up over her.

Without thinking much, I grabbed a loose rock and hurled it with everything I had.

It cracked against the side of the beast’s head.

It turned toward me.

Shit. I cursed under my breath.

It came so fast I barely got my dagger up in time. Its teeth slammed against the blade with a metallic shriek. The force drove me backward.

But just then when I took out my dagger, my fingers brushed something in my pocket.

Ezra’s flare.

58-Death in The Face

Without much thinking, I yanked it out, slamined the cap, and fired it to the sky.

A streak of red light shot upward through the hole in the ceiling, blazing across the night sky.

“W-What’s she doing?!” Roy cried in panic.

“Who cares? Keep your voice down!” Kade snapped.

+15 Bonus

The Shadowfang went wild at the sudden burst and drove its weight harder into me. My ribs screamed. Dirt filled my mouth as it thrashed, shoving me across the ground.

I couldn’t breathe. Its body was like a wall of scales and muscle crushing the air out of my lungs.

“…Fuck.” I waved my dagger and the blade went straight into its eye.

The creature shrieked so loudly the whole cave seemed to shake. Its black blood burst over my hand.

For one desperate heartbeat, I thought I’d won.

Then the Shadowfang lost its mind.

It whipped me sideways, smashing me into the dirt, into stone, into its own writhing coils. My head cracked against the ground so hard that I thought my skull broke.

Everything blurred.

I heard my teammates shouting my name.

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