Once Betrayed Never Forgotten

Chapter 43: Mysteries of the Tunnels

What in the world? I can’t believe my eyes.

I’m not sure who – or what I was expecting to come out of the shadowy tunnel, but it sure as hell wasn’t this

A small, frail looking boy of about six or seven years of age emerges into the faint golden firelight cast by the ball of flames hovering in the centre of the roughly hewn chamber. He pauses just a few feet away from Mircea and I, his eyes wide with fear. He is unbearably thin, his little arms like sticks, his skin bone white and deathly pale, his knobbly knees shaking with apparent fear. He’s wearing nothing but rags, and he stares at Mircea and I like we’re ghosts

“Are you real?” He asks in a meek voice barely above a whisper.

“Very much so,” Mircea says gently, lowering her weapon and concealing the small silver blade in her robes. Her expression softens as she talks to the boy.

“What is your name?” She asks.

The boy appears to think for a moment, his eyes glazed over. Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“I can’t remember,” he says, his voice shaking as his lip quivers.

“And how did you get down here?” Mircea asks, kneeling down slightly so that she’s on a level with the boy. “It’s very dangerous in the tunnels. You didn’t follow us from the village, did you?”

The boy shakes his head, and begins to sob.

Mircea is quiet, thinking for a moment, then she continues.

“Poor child, you’ve been down here a very long time, haven’t you?” She asks.

The bay nods, sniffling.

“The other boys were always picking on me,” he says, a sudden raw pain flickering through his dark eyes. “I was trying to hide from them… I hid in the brambles under the fountain in the town square, there was a hole, and a loud rumbling sound, and then I was falling…. There was a lake in the dark. And then… and then…. his voice breaks and he seems to struggle, frustrated. “I… I don’t remember.”

Judging by the boy’s deathly pale skin, and his long scraggly unkempt hair well past his shoulders, I’m guessing it’s been months or even years since that happened

“Well, my name is Mircea, and this is my friend, Arianna,” Mircea says gently. “Do you remember the names of your mother and father?”

The boy shakes his head, murmuring “What do you mean? ? They were just Mother and Father.”

“Of course,” Mircea says with a little laugh. She thinks for a moment, then tries another lack.

“It’s odd, I don’t remember ever seeing you, and almost every single child born into our town in the past ten years has been personally delivered by me,” she says with a sigh. “What did your mother and father do for a living?”

“What did they do?” The bay asks, his face creasing with confusion.

“What was their trade?” Mircea explains. “I for example, am a midwife, medicine woman and a healer,” she says, gesturing towards herself. “My friend Arianna is……. hmm…?

She looks questioningly at me, and 1 realise I’m meant to elaborate.

“Um… well, I don’t really have a job yet,” I admit awkwardly. “I just graduated high school, and I’m going to college in the fall. Or at least, that was the plan, if I ever escape this godforsaken nightmare and get back to California. So I guess you could say I’m a… student?

“California…?” Mircea tests out the word, the unspoken question hanging in the air.

“Somewhere very, very far away,” I say. Mircea shrugs as she turns her attention back to the boy.

Chapter 43 Mysteries of the Tunnels

“Well, here’s what we’re going to do,” she says gently, reaching out to place a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Arianna and I are waiting for our friend Luka to come find us. Then we’re going to leave these dark horrible tunnels. When we get above ground again, we’ll be outside the village. There’s another exit coming up soon, near the outskirts of the village just under the butcher’s shop. We can show you the way out when we reach it, and you should go. Sound good?”

The boy just shrugs, and Mircea sighs, sitting down on the floor next to him,

“Which way should we go?” I ask, peering around uncertainty at the darkened entrances to the four tunnels that branch off the semi–circular space we’ve stopped in.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “We’ll have to wait here until Luka catches up with us. With his superior sense of smell, we’ll have no trouble picking the right path.”

Speak of the devil. Just as Mircea utters Luka’s name, that now familiar, divine fragrance tugs at the edge of my senses, a delicious blend of pine sap, wood smoke and moss, leather and winter nostalgia. Growing stronger by the second.

Then the sound of gentle footfalls echoes through the tunnels, back the way we came, and Luka emerges from the depths of a shadowy tunnel in his majestic wolf form, his massive silver form materialising from the darkness.

My breath catches as I realise for the first time just how massive he is in his wolf form. In the flickering dance of firelight from Mircea floating ball of flame, I feel my heart skip a beat as he steps forth with a majestic grace, his powerful muscles flowing beneath his sleek silver fur like liquid moonlight. His coat glistens in shades of silver and steel, each hair a shimmering strand of molten metal. It ripples as he moves, accentuating the immense strength hidden beneath, and his piercing eyes gleam as he regards me, appearing to quickly scan me from head to toe for injuries.

From the dimness of the tunnel, the flickering flames reveal the streaks of fresh crimson staining his paws and the tips of his muzzle, dripping down his neck. The scent of blood, metallic and primal, wafts through the antechamber. Luka shakes his head and little drops of crimson blood spray in all directions, hitting the walls on either side of the tunnel.

The little boy has been covering the whole time, frozen in place in a state of paralysing fear. Now he lets out a piercing scream, before leaping towards Mircea and clinging to her for dear life.

“DON’T LET IT EAT ME!” He cries, screaming as he shakes uncontrollably clinging to Mircea’s skirts.

“There there, don’t be scared, Luka is our friend,” Mircea says, kneeling down and scooping up the terrified little boy in her arms. “He won’t hurt you.”

“Do you promise?” The boy asks, his tiny voice shaking.

Mircea nods, and the boy shakes his head, his small face wearing a surprisingly serious expression.

“You have to say it,” he says, his voice suddenly heavy and solemn.

“I promise that Luka won’t hurt you,”

says.

The boy’s entire demeanour shifts surprisingly quickly he smiles and releases her skirts, carefully averting his eyes as Luka transforms back into his human form. This time, I’m expecting Luka’s nakedness, and like the perv that I am, instead of looking away and giving him his privacy, I take a quick peek at his naked body before he activates the spell that clothes him

The firelight glistens off the beads of sweat and crimson blood clinging to his sculpted chest, making that intricate black tattoo of a wolf under the full moon come alive like a dark secret waiting to be unravelled.

His tousled silver hair and piercing eyes are complemented with a tall, muscular physique, etched with definition – but my eyes are immediately drawn to his impressive cock. It’s on par with the iconic member of my favourite porn star, a guy famed for his massive ten–inch–plus cock – and he’s not even hard right now. I gasp at the sight of it, trying to imagine what that massive shaft would look erect. Being a virgin, I haven’t had much experience with actual male anatomy, and the closest I’ve gotten was probably the night that Aleksandr pinned me down in my bed at the castle and I could feel his massive cock pressing against my leg.

It’s over all too quickly though – Luka murmurs the same magical words as before, and he’s instantly clothed in a modern ensemble of a black leather jacket, dark jeans, rugged leather boots, and an open–collared deep green shirt.

He smiles casually at me, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Enjoying the view, Arianna?” He speaks the words directly into my mind, bypassing speech. “You and I are mates. You’ll get to enjoy my manhood soon enough.”

Chapter 43. Mysteries of the Tunnels

“We’ll see about that,” I murmur back, thinking about how Aleksandr tricked me back at the castle, the pain and the betrayal. I’m done with this mystical magical supernatural bullshit. I’m going to escape this nightmare, get back to California, go to college and lose my virginity to some frat boy prick like any other normal American girl. I’m done.

“Challenge accepted,” Luka says with a smug grin,

POST

Chapter Comments

EJ

The little boy showing up is weird and what the woman said about kids being born in the last 10 years. So, since those men were killed, and kids can be born, then that means those ppl aren’t any kind of ghost or spirit. Mircea did say there was a hex put on the town. So d…

Ehzabeth Johnson

more updates please