Chapter 193: The Dark Magic Sacrifice And The Perfect Plan!

"It’s simple. I want to be fed for a whole month," Bella said, her raspy voice flat.

Neve’s eyes widened in genuine shock.

Of all the things he had expected her to demand, food hadn’t even made his top three. He had assumed she would ask for her exile to be lifted, for a clean slate, or for the tribe to accept her back. He expected her to leverage this moment for power or social standing.

To ask merely for meals...

Taking a closer look at her, the harsh reality settled over him. Bella’s cheeks were sunken, her collarbones jutted sharply under her thin, ragged clothes, and her hands were trembling faintly from chronic malnutrition. Pride didn’t fill an empty belly. Survival came first, and Bella was starving.

"Fine," Neve agreed without a moment’s hesitation. "If it’s food you want, food you’ll get. You have my word."

Bella let out a small scoff, a faint smirk touching her dirty lips as she shrugged, pretending she didn’t care either way. "Follow me," she muttered, turning on her heel.

Before stepping after her, Neve turned back to check on Doris’s siblings, his brows furrowing with lingering worry as they lay motionless on the stone floor.

"How are they?" he asked Popi softly.

"They’re just severely dehydrated and famished," Popi reassured him, gently lifting the young girl’s wrist to check her pulse. "Their bodies just gave out from weakness. Don’t worry, Neve, I’ll take care of them. I’ll get some fresh water and warm soup into them. They’ll wake up soon."

"And I’ll stay here to guard them," Varek added smoothly, stepping up beside Popi, his tall frame blocking the cave entrance like an imposing wall.

Neve gave a quick nod. He trusted Varek implicitly to keep Popi and the children safe from any lingering threats.

"See you both later then," Neve said.

"Be careful, Neve," Popi called out, her face tight with anxiety. "You don’t know what kind of trap Soren has waiting for you."

"I will," Neve promised, turning to follow Bella into the frigid air outside, with Cael, Aldric, Maren, and Skarr trailing right behind him.

Bella led them deep into the dense, icy woods stretching out behind the Leopard Tribe’s territory.

The snow crunched heavily under their boots with every step. The towering trees were bare, their frozen branches draped in thick icicles that glinted like knives in the pale light. The wind whistled through the trunk lines, biting sharp and cold against their skin.

"Hold up. Everyone stop," Cael said suddenly, his voice dropping into a tense whisper as he held out an arm to pause the line. "I know these woods. We set up defensive perimeters around here before everything went down."

The group froze in their tracks.

"Traps?" Aldric muttered from the back, shifting uncomfortably. His massive bear frame made him a walking target for tripwires.

"I wasn’t with the hunting parties when they finished this specific sector," Cael admitted, his golden eyes scanning the frozen brush intently. "But I know the layout. This entire path is larded with lethal traps designed to maim anything trying to breach our borders."

"So how do we move forward?" Aldric asked, his ears pinned back.

"If the hunters followed the blueprints I gave them..." Cael muttered, stooping down to scoop up a heavy, fist-sized stone near Neve’s feet. "...then there should be a spring-trigger right over there."

He whipped his arm forward, hurling the stone straight at the base of a frozen oak tree.

SNAP!

A sharpened wooden stake shot out from the snow like a lethal missile, sinking deep into the oak’s trunk with a terrifying CRACK! In the exact same second, a weighted rope net dropped heavy from the high canopy above, slapping violently against the empty ground.

Maren gasped, his dark shark eyes wide with alarm. "What kind of lethal contraption is that?!"

"Uh... it was meant to keep hostile outcasts from sneaking into the camp," Cael explained awkwardly, before suddenly remembering that Maren was technically an outcast chief himself. He cleared his throat. "Well... you know how it is. We had to defend the territory."

Maren shook his head in mild disgust but wisely kept his mouth shut.

Neve wanted to laugh at the terrible timing of Cael’s awkwardness, but the heavy knot of tension in his gut kept his lips pressed thin. They didn’t have time for banter. They needed to find Soren before it was too late.

"Can you navigate us through safely, Cael?" Neve asked, looking up at his mate.

"Trust me," Cael replied firmly, stepping up right beside Bella.

Neither of them exchanged words or eye contact, but Bella clearly understood the unspoken command: let Cael take the lead and stick to his exact footprint.

Navigating the hidden minefield took pure concentration. Cael moved carefully, testing the snow with a long branch, pointing out buried pressure plates, hidden snare wires, and disguised pit traps. He knew the layout like the back of his hand.

After ten nerve-wracking minutes of zig-zagging through the frozen brush, Bella suddenly halted.

They had reached a wide, snowy clearing hidden deep in the woods.

Lying slumped against the snow near the center of the clearing were Kael, Ryker, and Sorin. Their bodies were completely motionless, their skin pale, and no sound came from their lips.

Soren, however, was nowhere to be seen.

"Are they... dead?" Cael asked, his voice tight with rising horror.

"I don’t think so," Neve replied immediately, his eyes fixated on the fallen men.

He reached up, touching the faint, pulsing warmth of the bond mark on his skin where Ryker had claimed him. The light-blue mark was still glowing softly... a quiet, steady indicator that Ryker’s heart was still beating. He was alive.

Since Neve hadn’t bonded with Sorin or Kael yet, he had no indicator for their health, but logic told him Soren wouldn’t kill them out of the blue. The last thing that coward wanted was to ignite a full-scale blood feud with the Tiger, Wolf, and Eagle tribes simultaneously. Soren was probably using them as bait. The real targets were Cael and Neve.

"My part of the deal is finished," Bella announced flatly, turning away from the clearing. "I hate to say it, but try not to die out here. If you get killed, nobody feeds me for a month, and I’m holding you to that promise."

Without waiting for a reply or a thank you, she melted back into the frozen forest.

Neve pressed a hand firmly against his rounded belly, feeling a dull ache from the stress. He took a long, steadying breath, consciously forcing his heart rate to slow down. He couldn’t afford to trigger early labor now. The cubs weren’t due for weeks, and he needed every bit of his strength intact.

"So where the hell is Soren?" Neve muttered under his breath, his eyes darting across the tree line.

A low, raspy laugh echoed from the shadow of the trees directly across from them.

"I thought you’d never ask," a voice sneered.

Soren stepped out into the open snow.

The leopard chief looked as tall and drunk as ever, but his appearance was wild and unhinged. His drunken eyes were wide and bloodshot.

"Hello, Neve," Soren grinned, his lip curling as his gaze shifted to Cael, who instantly stepped in front of Neve in a protective stance.

"Hello, brother," Soren spat at Cael.

"You want me, don’t you?" Cael growled, stepping forward, his claws unsheathing. "Then take me. Let those three go. They have nothing to do with your grudge. They’re innocent."

"You kept them alive as leverage so we’d follow you out here, right?" Neve added, glaring at the wolf chief. "You used them as bait. Let them go and face us directly!"

Soren folded his arms over his chest, tilting his head back as he let out a dark, mocking laugh.

"Want you two? Oh, you’re absolutely right about that, but..." He shook his head slowly, a sinister glint in his eye. "I didn’t keep these three alive just to trade them for you."

Soren took two slow strides toward the unconscious men, bringing his heavy boot down into Ryker’s ribs with a brutal THUD. Ryker’s body shifted limply, unable to even let out a groan.

"I brought them out here so you could watch me convert their life force into my ultimate power," Soren hissed softly.

"Ultimate what?" Neve muttered, his brow furrowing.

"He’s going to use them as a living sacrifice to channel dark magic," Skarr’s low voice cut in from behind them.

Neve’s whole body went rigid. Dark magic. The exact same forbidden energy that had wiped out the Dhole tribe... the corrupting force Skarr wielded.

Neve followed Skarr’s pointing finger down to the snow beneath the three unconscious men.

Drawn into the packed ice was a complex, jagged ritual array formed of overlapping circles and ancient runes. Fresh, dark blood was smeared thickly along the lines, glistening faintly in the cold light.

A dark magic sacrifice sign.

Neve gritted his teeth so hard a sharp pain shot up his jaw, the veins along his neck bulging with suppressed fury. His hands curled into tight fists, his nails cutting deep into his palms.

This absolute bastard. This psychotic monster was planning to drain the life out of Ryker, Kael, and Sorin just to grant himself corrupt power.

"Skarr... you have to help me," Neve said, his voice dropping into an eerie, deadly quiet.

"To kill him?" Skarr replied casually, stepping up beside him. "It would take me less than a second to snap his neck. Besides, this heavy snow will bury his corpse nicely. Nobody would ever find him."

Neve shook his head slowly, a cold, merciless smile creeping onto his face.

"I don’t want him dead yet," Neve whispered, his eyes locking onto Soren’s manic face. "Just half-dead... In fact, I have the absolute perfect plan for him."