CHAPTER 123: DEAD HUSBAND

Rion and I hurried toward the sound of the shout, our footsteps echoing against the narrowing stone walls. The alley grew darker as we pressed on, twilight bleeding away the light. The glow from the stones was faint now, no longer bright enough to chase off the shadows gathering in the corners.

The farther we went, the colder it felt.

When we reached the end of the alley, it widened suddenly, opening into what looked like a small courtyard hemmed in by low walls and a squat brick house. That’s when I saw her.

A woman was kneeling on the ground, her shoulders shaking violently as sobs tore out of her. And sprawled in front of her—my stomach dropped—a man’s body.

Lifeless.

Blood stained his shirt, pooling beneath him, dark against the cobblestones.

My breath caught, my chest tightening until it hurt.

"What happened?" I whispered, though I already knew there was no answer that would make it less cruel.

The woman tried to speak but only managed broken sounds between gasps and sobs. She was pale with shock, clutching at the man’s arm as if her grip could keep him tethered to this world. I didn’t know her, didn’t know him, but the grief rolling off her hit me like a physical force.

My face twisted as I looked at her, because I knew that feeling all too well. The helplessness of watching someone you love stolen right before your eyes. For me, it hadn’t only happened once.

Rion’s shadows stirred then, spilling out across the courtyard like a living tide. They slithered across the walls and ground, probing the dark as if hungry for something to sink their teeth into.

The sight made my skin prickle, my pulse racing faster.

I forced myself to focus, ears straining, searching.

But the faint melody of the harp, the one that had called to me earlier, was gone. Vanished.

"The one who killed my husband ran that way!" the woman cried suddenly, her voice ragged as she pointed with a trembling hand toward a side street.

She lifted her tear-streaked face to Rion, desperation burning in her eyes.

"Please! Kill him, Alpha!"

My fists clenched, my instincts screaming to move.

"Let’s go get him," I said quickly, turning to Rion, ready to bolt after the direction she’d given.

But Rion didn’t move. Not a single step.

I froze, confused, then glanced back at him. His eyes were fixed on the woman, narrowed to dangerous slits, his expression unreadable.

"What is it?" I demanded, frustrated. "Why are you wasting time? We can’t let the culprit get away, not when we need—"

"Your husband?" Rion’s voice cut through mine, low and sharp.

The woman nodded frantically, tears running down her face in unending streams. She looked utterly broken, clutching the dead man’s hand against her chest like she was trying to press his warmth into her skin. Her pain was so raw it twisted her features, made her look as if she were physically tearing apart inside.

"That man with no face killed my husband!" she screamed, her voice cracking into sobs.

"Is this your house?" Rion asked, his gaze flicking toward the small brick house just a few meters away.

"Yes..." the woman stammered, her eyes swollen from crying.

No. My gut twisted immediately. Rion never wasted time with pointless questions. If he was delaying, it was for a reason. He valued the keys of the Undersea Tower above all else. He wouldn’t stop the chase unless something more important was hiding right under our noses.

"Is your husband not living in your house?"

His voice was ice. Low, cutting. It sliced through the courtyard and made my skin prickle.

The last traces of daylight had bled away. The glow of the stones outside was dim now, and in the gathering darkness Rion’s eyes had shifted—no longer ocean-green but crimson, burning like blood.

Shadows curled over him, wrapping around his body. He looked like death incarnate.

"Otherwise," he continued, each word dropping heavy with menace, "why couldn’t I find any trace of his scent inside?"

My lips parted in shock. I stumbled back a step, my eyes darting between the corpse on the ground and the woman still kneeling beside it. Something about her gaze snagged on me, sharp and strange beneath her tears. A flicker that didn’t belong to grief.

Something was wrong. So very wrong.

In an instant, her body jerked upward with a strangled scream. A wisp of shadow had coiled around her throat, yanking her off the ground.

Her feet kicked wildly, her hands clawing at the invisible grip as Rion’s shadows choked the truth out of her.

He didn’t even glance at her struggling form.

Rion strode forward, walking past the man’s body without a flicker of hesitation. His shadows surged ahead, slamming into the front door of the house with the force of a battering ram. The wooden frame groaned, then flew open as if it had been kicked from its hinges.

My heart pounded as I rushed after him. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening.

Inside, the air was stale, didn’t smell like anyone else was present in the house at the moment. The rooms were simple, unremarkable.

Until we reached the back. That’s where we found it.

Another body.

It lay on a narrow bed, arms folded neatly over its chest. At first glance, it looked like a man asleep, as though he might wake if I dared to whisper his name.

But his complexion betrayed him—pale as chalk, lips tinged with blue, skin stretched tight in unnatural stillness.

He wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t alive.

A strange light circled him, glowing faintly in the dim room. It shimmered translucent, glasslike, with the hue of light orange amber. The glow encased the corpse in a perfect barrier, the air inside rippling faintly like heat waves.

"This barrier... it must be the reason why we couldn’t smell him. Why we didn’t sense a corpse at all."