CHAPTER 7

As if in answer to my silent pleas, a flicker of illumination sparked in the pressing gloom. I whipped my head around to find its source - and there he was, a pillar of golden light burning defiance against the shadows.

"You..." I wheezed out his name like a drowning soul gulping for air.

The rogue alpha regarded me with that ever-intense stare, seemingly unperturbed by the eldritch forces closing in around us.

"So it begins," he intoned with grim inevitability. "Just as the ancients foretold."

"What is this place?" I demanded, struggling to keep the fear from fraying my voice any further. "Those voices, that sense of...immensity,...