Alpha Damon (Sienna) novel Chapter 235

“Caleb,” Ethan muttered beside me, his voice thick with dread.

My steps quickened, pulse racing as I burst through the thicket into a small clearing. The sight that greeted me stopped me cold. Everything in me seemed to chill. Everything in me seemed to drop in a way that I did not know how to explain. I just froze completely.

Caleb lay still, eyes wide open, empty and lifeless, staring blankly up at the darkening sky. His body was pale, drained of all color, of all life, but strangely untouched. There was no blood, no sign of physical harm, nothing to explain why he looked so empty, so drained. But I knew that this was not a normal death and his body to be brought here. I knew that it happened somehow, I just did not understand how.

“Caleb!” Carter’s voice cracked with anguish as he moved forward instinctively.

“Wait!” I barked, extending my arm out, stopping him in his tracks. “Neither one of you approach.”

Carter froze, eyes wide as he stared down at the body of our friend. A body that even I wanted to go to, even I wanted to try and wake, snap out of whatever this was. But something was wrong. The air around Caleb shimmered faintly, a dark aura visibly swirling, a warning to all who approached.

Ethan’s voice was barely a whisper. “What…what did this?”

I approached slowly, cautiously kneeling next to Caleb’s motionless form. His skin was ice-cold, unnaturally so. As my fingers hovered just above him, a chill surged through me, colder than ice, darker than midnight. I did not even need to touch him to feel the cold.

My heart pounded furiously when suddenly, something appeared above Caleb’s chest, a faint, shimmering glow forming into words, elegant golden letters curling in the dim light.

It is just the beginning. He is only the first.

-T.

Ethan’s jaw tightened. “We’ll find them. Whoever did this will pay.”

“Yes, they will,” I agreed coldly, looking once more at the ominous message hovering above Caleb’s lifeless form. I did my best to try and shut my humanity off. I was not going to show them any weakness, not right now.

“But first, we need to prepare,” Carter murmured quietly, his voice grave. “Because if Caleb is only the beginning…we need to be ready for whatever comes next. Because whoever this is, I know that if they are siding with Giovanni then this is one hell of a war that we are going to need to be ready for.”

I nodded sharply, rising to my feet. The words burned into my mind, an unspoken threat that hung heavily in the chilled air: It is just the beginning.