All Chapters of The Lycan’s Tribute: Claimed By My Foster Brothers: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-OneAurelia's POVThe ruins swallowed us whole.The passage narrowed almost right away, walls coming in close on both sides, the ceiling dropping low enough that Torin had to angle his shoulders to get through. The air was cold and wet and smelled like something old that had been shut away for a long time. Every step we took came back to us doubled, bouncing off stone. My hand stayed on my blade.Kaelen walked beside me, his face pale. He had the torn piece of grey cloth in his hand and kept glancing at it the way someone looked at something they were hoping would change its story. Rylan moved ahead of us without sound, his body low, his attention spread out in every direction. Torin came last, turning to check the passage behind us every few seconds like clockwork.We followed the drag marks.They took us past crumbling archways, past pillars that had stopped holding the ceiling up and were just leaning now, through gaps in fallen walls and over sectio

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-ThreeAurelia's POVKaelen's wound was bound as best we could.Strips of torn cloth wound tight around his ribs, already soaked through dark in the center where the cut sat deepest. He hadn't woken. His face was pale and his breathing came in slow, shallow pulls that I kept watching from across the small room every few seconds just to make sure it kept coming.It kept coming.Torin wiped the blood from his hands on the inside of his cloak and looked at the binding without touching it. "That's the best it's going to be in here," he said, quiet."Will it hold?" I said.He looked at it for another beat. "Long enough," he said. "As long as we don't move him too much.""Then we don't move him," I said, looking at Kaelen's face against the dark stone.Rylan was at the entrance, turned sideways in the gap beside the fallen pillar, eyes on the chamber outside. He hadn't looked back once. "One of you should try to sleep," he said, still watching the dark. "We nee

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Five*Aurelia's POVThe passages seemed to get narrower the deeper we went. Kaelen's body hung between Rylan and me like something that had already left, and Torin moved behind us with his hand on the back wall, keeping us anchored to something solid. The dark was so complete it had almost no texture. I could feel it pressing against my skin.Rylan did not waste energy on words. He moved with the kind of focus that came from knowing exactly what would happen if we slowed down. Every few minutes he glanced back, not at us but past us, the way you look when you are listening for something."How much longer can he bleed like this?" Torin said. His voice came from somewhere in the darkness behind us."As long as he needs to," Rylan said. It was not an answer to the question Torin had actually asked.The ceiling dropped lower. I felt Rylan's shoulder shift as he adjusted to it, and I did the same. Kaelen's head rolled back against my arm. His skin felt like f

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-SevenKade's POVThe council chamber held its cold like a weapon. The morning sun came through the high windows and made the stone look older than it was, every crack visible to the naked eye. I stood at the head of the table. My hands rested on the back of my chair, not gripping it. That would have shown too much. Instead, I held it the way someone held something they owned completely, with casual certainty that didn't seem forced or performative. The elders were arranging themselves around the table. I waited until they had all settled before I began. I kept my voice level, factual, the voice of someone presenting information that had already been decided somewhere else and was simply being confirmed here."A scout reported a sighting yesterday," I said. "A group matching the triplets description was observed near the outer boundaries of Drakos. They were moving toward the ruins, not away from them."Maris an older man with the kind of caution that ca

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-NineAurelia's POVThe dark had a texture to it. That was the only way I could describe it as we moved through the forest without stopping, without letting ourselves think about stopping either. The night was so down to us that forward was the only direction that made sense. Behind us, the settlement had disappeared hours ago. Ahead of us was nothing we could see.Kaelen stumbled. His foot caught on something,a root? a stone?, we couldn't decipher but it was hard and was something the darkness was hiding. Torin's hand was there before his knee could hit the ground, catching him under the elbow and pulling him upright without breaking stride. I could hear Kaelen's breathing, sharp and controlled, the sound of someone managing pain. Rylan moved ahead like he could see through the dark. His hand never left his blade. Every few minutes he would pause and listen, and I would listen too, straining my instincts to hear what he was hearing. Footsteps. Voices. A