BloodMoon: Captivated by the Forbidden Lycan Alpha
Chapter 235: UNDER WATER NEST

Chapter 235: UNDER WATER NEST

{"Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it."}

The current grew strange as I had been swimming hard, breath steady, muscles burning, but this stretch of water suddenly felt thicker, not just from the cold. The pressure changed. The salt carried something sharp, metallic. I slowed my stroke, and the sea darkened around me not from depth but from shadow. Something massive loomed below.

I hovered in the water, claws flexed, heart pounding with the instinctive warning that something was wrong, and then I saw it. A chasm split open beneath the sea floor, a long, jagged wound in the earth that pulsed faintly red. It was not coral, not volcanic, not blood, or something close to it.

Tendrils curled from it, like seaweed, but they twitched when I came near, moved toward me. I jerked back, and one snapped like a whip, barely missing my snout. Its tip was barbed. Alive.

Not seaweed. Not even tentacles. Bugs. Vampire Blood Stone bugs. Hundreds of them nested into the walls of the chasm, clustered like underwater barnacles. Their black carapaces reflected the dim red glow of the pit, and I could see them breathing. A slow, synchronized heaving of slick, armoured bodies.

I froze, and these were not the scattered parasites infecting the surface swarm. This was a source. A nest. And it was alive. My mind reeled. How far had their infection spread? How deep did Marcel’s reach go? One of them uncoiled, sensing my presence fully now. It detached from the wall and slithered through the water like a serpent, its legs retracted, fangs bared.

I did not wait, and I kicked upward, hard, bursting through the water column. I did not roar, but I pulsed my aura out like a flare. A warning. A scream. A call for the mountain to feel my fury, and the nest stirred. Dozens moved as I surged forward, slicing the water in wide strokes, racing for the edge of the current path. My mind calculated quickly to get out of range, cut north, and breach near the drop-point where I could warn the others.

But the bloodstone bugs were following. Swimming now. Fast. Like they had adapted to the ocean just enough to chase anything that bled, and on the other side, the infected vampires also came in numbers. I reached a split in the stone and veered left, claws scraping through the narrow rock channel. One bug slammed into the wall behind me, screeching. Another darted past overhead. I spun mid-swim, grabbed it by the spine, and crushed its head against the rock. It exploded in a pulse of red mist and twitching legs.

I saw light ahead. Dim. Pale blue. An opening. I gave everything I had in that final push, heart slamming against my ribs, beast form burning with every move. I would get out. I had to tell them. Had to warn them. This was not just an infection; it was a hive, and the queen was not far. I shot through the mouth of the reef and up, breaking the surface in a violent splash that sent sea spray flying for yards.

My first breath was agony. My second was a curse.

"Marcel," I growled aloud, "what in the hell have you bred down there?"

My claws sank into the sand as I dragged myself from the sea.

Saltwater poured off my body in sheets, blood mingling with brine where something had torn through my side during the escape. My breath came ragged, steam hissing from my snout in the early dusk. Every part of me ached from muscle, from magic, from the sheer force of what I had seen below.

I shifted halfway back, still beast-blooded, still armoured in black hide and horn, but small enough to move with stealth. The full form would not help me here. I needed to think now, not just tear through the world. My back slammed against a jagged rock outcrop, and I let myself slide down to one knee.

"They’re nesting," I whispered hoarsely. "They’re nesting under the damn ocean."

I looked back at the sea. Still. Quiet. It had not just tried to swallow me whole. Like the hive was not pulsing beneath it like a diseased heart. Damn it, I closed my eyes and pushed my senses out. North and east—the others were moving. I could feel them faintly. Tor, Frery, Sierra. Qadira’s distinct magic is like lightning caught in a bottle. And Flora. Rita. Closer to the base. I could not let the bugs flank us from below. If they reached Blood Stone’s rear entrance, they would tear through our defences like rot through wood.

I pulled myself upright and staggered forward. The trees loomed ahead, familiar, damp from salt spray. The edge of the back route. I limped, but fast. Blood dripped behind me, but I did not stop until I arrived at the Mira house.

I reached the clearing with a stagger in my step and blood on my breath. The Mira house stood like it always did, curved in shadow and light, grown from root and rune rather than stone or steel. It breathed when I stepped close. The old tree doors shimmered, sensing me. And maybe... knowing what I had just escaped.

I placed a clawed hand on the bark. "It’s Rou," I rasped, voice low and frayed. "I need shelter. Just for a moment."

The roots beneath me stirred. The house listened. And then, like a sigh, the wood parted and opened wide, warmth swept over me. I stepped inside. The door sealed behind me with a soft thump, shutting out the sea’s bite, the scent of blood, and the shadow crawling up the coast. The Mira house accepted me like an old friend, even in my half-shifted form, even bloodied. It did not question me. It did not recoil.

I stumbled into the centre chamber and collapsed onto the moss-slicked floor. The walls pulsed faintly. Healing light, not fire, filled the room. The vines coiled near my wound, hesitating like a hand near a bruise.

"Go ahead," I murmured. "Do your thing."

The vines touched my side. I winced. It was not gentle. But it was good. My skin tightened. The bleeding slowed. The Mira house knew this kind of wound corrupted claw. Bug venom. It had seen worse in the centuries it had stood here guarding the threshold to Blood Stone. My head dropped back against the wall. I breathed deeply.

"I’m okay," I whispered, as much to myself as to the house. "Just need a little time. Then I will go back and destroy the nest. The floor shifted under me, like a cradle. Roots curled protectively around my arms and legs.

I do not remember falling asleep, and one moment I was cradled by the house, pain pulling at the edges of my mind like teeth. Next, I was floating weightless, warm, cocooned in earth-magic older than I could comprehend. I woke with the breath of the forest in my lungs, and the Mira House was glowing. Not just the walls, all of it. Roots pulsed with a golden hue, like veins lit from within. The ceiling branches curled tighter around each other, forming an ancient vigil that spun slowly overhead. The vines had loosened from my side. The wound was gone. But something else was in me now, and it was burning. I sat up, heart thudding—not from fear, but from power. My claws sparked with energy. It was not just my aura. It was... Mira’s.

I looked around. "What did you do?"

The house did not speak in words, but I felt it. A presence, vast and feminine. Not a voice, but a knowing, pouring into me like a river.

"You saw the nest. You felt its hunger. The land remembers this kind of plague."

A vision unfurled in my head centuries ago, Mira House standing strong while a tide of darkness once tried to flood the lands. Back then, it gave a champion its root fire living magic that could destroy what fangs and blades could not.

"I’m not one of yours," I whispered. "I am Rogourau. Not Bay shifter. Not Paradise Coven—" The house pulsed.

"You are a protector. You are chosen. The land does not care for bloodlines when the rot runs deep."

My hand trembled, and the root fire flickered beneath my skin. Not flame life. It moved like wildfire, if wildfire were a living, breathing force. It filled my bones. My claws. My teeth. A weapon made of soil, fury, and memory.

I stood, stronger, still Rou, and more, and I knew what I had to do.

"I’ll burn it," I said aloud. "That nest under the sea? I will reduce it to ash. Nothing will crawl from that pit again." The house hummed in agreement.

Hours later, the Mira House opened its door without a sound, and I stepped outside, the ground soft beneath my bare feet still damp from earlier blood, though now it steamed where I walked. The root fire pulsed under my skin, coiled like a second soul. Every breath I took made it flare brighter.

The sun hovered low on the horizon. Dusk again was strange, how time had bent around the healing magic. I barely remembered sleeping. But I remembered everything else. The chasm. The slick walls. The claws of the bugs scraping toward me in the dark. I shifted, not fully. Just enough to take on the war-form. Fangs, claws, scale-thick skin, but not the full beast. That part of me was meant to terrify. This part was meant to kill.

I moved like smoke through the trees. Mira left the forest part for me. The vines pulled back. The roots softened where my steps landed. The trees turned their branches, like silent watchers offering their blessing. When I reached the rocky shore, the wind hit me cold and sharp. It carried the scent of salt and something else beneath it.

Decay, and they were still down there. Still nesting. Waiting for the next command. I stood at the edge of the surf and took a breath, and then I let go, and the root fire surged to life. Golden light poured from my chest, swirling along my arms like living tattoos. My claws shimmered with it. My bones felt light. My rage became focused. Holy. Cleansing.

"This is for your land," I told Mira, even though I knew she could hear my heart. "For your sea. And for every soul they tried to hollow."

And then I dove straight into the waves, no hesitation, no fear. The cold was a bit deep, but it did not matter. The fire inside me lit the ocean green. Fish scattered. The water trembled. I swam fast—faster than I ever had before, like the sea wanted me to reach the pit.

This time, I was the thing in the dark.