Page 39 of Fated Wolf's Redemption

“Too late,” I whisper.

I twist the blade and feel the body go still.

Lucas growls low, the sound vibrating through the corridor. The Crimson Claw wolf falls silent beneath him, a heap of fur and cracked ribs. Lucas’ fight ends in a pile of broken limbs and blood-slick stone. He steps back, chest heaving, one arm bleeding but still holding his blade like he plans to use it again.

“You good?” he asks.

I nod and turn toward Max. He’s slumped against the wall, panting, but he gives me a weak thumbs-up.

Blood pools on the floor. We keep moving.

Lucas grabs the radio from the guard’s belt and smashes it. “That’ll buy us two minutes. Maybe.”

We move again. The tunnels begin to climb; the stone giving way to packed dirt, then metal. I can smell the outside world—pine and damp moss, clean air seeping in through the cracks. We’re close.

Then I hear it—boots.

Lucas hears it too. He motions for me to duck behind a rusted panel. He yanks Max with him, keeping him pressed low while I tuck into the shadowed edge near the base of a half-collapsed stairwell.

Three more guards.

Lucas growls low, more sound than voice. “We don’t fight unless we have to. We draw them in, split them, and you take Max. Get him out.”

“Lucas—”

“I’ll find you. If I don’t?—”

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

He grips the back of my neck, just for a second. Grounding. Then he’s gone, slipping into the darkness like a predator who’s finally remembered what he is.

The first guard goes down with a sound that’s more crack than scream. The second turns—and I’m already moving, Max dragging his legs beside me as we sprint for the door Lucas just cleared. The third chases.

I don’t stop. I shove the next door open—blinding daylight. I blink once, then we’re out.

Max falls to his knees the second we’re clear of the estate, retching into the brush. I drop beside him, blade still in hand, body shaking with adrenaline.

Then Lucas is there, storming out of the trees with blood on his knuckles and fury in his eyes.

He crouches beside me, eyes scanning my face, my body, checking for injuries I don’t have time to process.

“Are you hit?” he asks.

“No.”

“Max?”

“Alive,” Max rasps, coughing up bile. “Barely. Thank you.”

Lucas grabs him under the arms and hauls him to his feet like he weighs nothing. “We move. Now.”

We don’t stop. Not when the howls rise behind us. Not when we hear reinforcements pour into the ruins. We run.

At the edge of the ruined estate, the morning air cuts sharp against my skin, thick with ash, old blood, and the distant howl of something still hunting. We’ve pushed hard to get this far, but we’re not out of the woods. Not yet.

Lucas glances back once to make sure we’re alone, then drops the pack beside a cluster of half-buried stones. “We run from here.”

I nod and start peeling off the borrowed shirt, the fabric sticking to the dried blood on my ribs. Every bruise, everyscrape screams in protest, but I keep moving. Lucas is already unbuckling his belt, movements quick and efficient. No hesitation. No modesty. Just a soldier stripping for war.

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