Lyra's POV
"Close your eyes, babe. No peeking!"
Marcus's hand covered my face, warm and familiar, as he guided me down the creaky stairs. I giggled, my heart doing that stupid happy flutter it always did around him. After two years together, he still found ways to surprise me.
"This better not be another one of your weird urban exploration things," I teased, my free hand gripping his arm. "Remember that abandoned hospital? I had nightmares for a week."
"Trust me," Marcus said, and something in his voice made my skin prickle. Too smooth. Too controlled. "This is different. This is special."
I ignored the feeling. That's what I always did with Marcus—ignored the little voice that said something wasn't quite right. Because he loved me. He proposed six months ago with my grandmother's ring. We were planning a spring wedding. People who love you don't hurt you.
Right?
The air changed as we went deeper underground. It smelled like rust and old water, and our footsteps echoed against concrete walls. Marcus had said he found this place while researching for his history blog. An abandoned subway tunnel that the city forgot about decades ago. He'd been so excited when he called me at work, insisting I leave early to see it with him.
"Okay," Marcus said, stopping suddenly. His hand dropped from my eyes. "Look."
I opened them and gasped.
The tunnel stretched ahead of us, dark and endless, but that's not what made me freeze. In the middle of the tunnel, twenty feet away, something glowed. A circle of swirling purple and silver light, tall as a doorway, hovering in mid-air like someone tore a hole in reality.
"What is that?" I breathed, stepping closer without thinking. The light was beautiful. Hypnotic. It hummed with a sound I felt in my chest rather than heard with my ears.
"A portal," Marcus said simply.
I laughed, expecting him to laugh too. He didn't. I turned to look at him, and my laughter died in my throat.
Marcus wasn't smiling. His handsome face was blank, emotionless, like a mask had slipped off. His brown eyes—usually so warm—looked at me the way you'd look at a bug you were about to squash.
"Marcus?" My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "What's going on?"
"Do you know what your mother really was, Lyra?" He took a step toward me. I took a step back. "Not a librarian. Not a normal woman who died of cancer when you were sixteen. She was a Beastcaller. A woman with power in her blood. Power that you inherited."
My back hit the cold tunnel wall. "You're scaring me."
"Your mother ran from the Beastworld pregnant with you. She hid you in this boring human life, hoping no one would find you." Marcus pulled something from his jacket pocket—a knife. Small but sharp, gleaming in the purple light. "But I found you, Lyra. I spent two years getting close to you, earning your trust, searching your apartment for proof. And last week, I finally found your mother's journals hidden in that ugly music box you keep."
Tears burned my eyes. "You... you don't love me?"
"Love you?" Marcus laughed, and it was the cruelest sound I'd ever heard. "I needed you to trust me enough to bring you here alone. Love was just the easiest tool."
Every date. Every kiss. Every whispered "I love you" before bed. All lies. All calculated. All fake.
I'd been so stupid.
"The people I work for will pay me five million dollars for your bloodline," Marcus continued, moving closer. The knife caught the portal's light. "But here's the thing about Beastcallers, babe. Your power only activates if you survive entering the Beastworld. Most humans die within hours. The creatures there are savage. Violent. They'll rip you apart."
"Then why send me through?" I choked out.
"Because if you somehow survive and activate your power, you'll be worth fifty million instead of five." His smile was a predator's grin. "And if you die? Well, I still get paid for trying. Win-win for me."
He lunged.
I dodged left, running toward the portal without thinking. Behind me, Marcus's footsteps pounded against concrete. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. The portal was right there, ten feet, five feet—
Strong hands grabbed my shoulders from behind.
"Wrong choice!" Marcus shouted.
He shoved me hard.
I flew forward, arms flailing, a scream ripping from my throat as I hit the portal's surface. It felt like diving into ice water and fire at the same time. My body stretched, compressed, twisted inside out. The world became color and sound and pain.
Then I was falling.
Really falling.
Through darkness that had teeth and claws and glowing eyes. Through air that smelled like blood and earth and something wild. Through space that screamed at me in languages I didn't understand.
I hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. Dirt and leaves stuck to my face. Everything hurt.
Slowly, gasping, I pushed myself up on shaking arms.
I was in a forest. But not like any forest I'd ever seen. The trees were massive, their bark black as midnight, their branches twisted like broken bones. The sky above was purple and orange, swirling with colors that didn't exist in nature. And the sounds—oh God, the sounds. Growls. Howls. Screams that might have been animals or might have been something worse.
Behind me, the portal flickered and died, leaving me in dim, terrible light.
"No," I whispered, scrambling to my feet, running back to where the portal had been. "No, no, no!" I clawed at empty air, but there was nothing. No glow. No way home. Just forest and darkness and sounds that were getting closer.
Something massive moved in the shadows to my left.
I spun around, heart hammering so hard I thought it would break my ribs. Yellow eyes appeared in the darkness. Then more eyes. Then more.
A low, rumbling growl shook the air.
"Please," I whispered to nothing, to no one. "Somebody help me."
The eyes moved closer.
And that's when I heard it—a sound that turned my blood to ice.
A roar that shook the trees and made the ground tremble beneath my feet. Something was coming. Something huge. Something that made the creatures with yellow eyes scatter and run.
I turned to face the sound.
Through the twisted trees, I saw it.
A bear. But not a normal bear. This thing was the size of a truck, with red eyes that burned like fire and foam dripping from jaws that could swallow me whole.
It saw me.
It charged.
I ran, knowing I wouldn't make it ten steps before those jaws closed around me. Knowing Marcus had sent me here to die. Knowing I'd been stupid enough to trust someone who never loved me.
The bear's roar shook my bones.
This was how I died.
Then something silver and massive slammed into the bear from the side, and everything became teeth and blood and violence.
A wolf. Silver-white and huge as the bear, fighting with savage rage. They rolled past me in a blur of fur and claws.
I pressed myself against a tree, shaking so hard my vision blurred.
The wolf's jaws closed around the bear's throat.
Blood sprayed across the leaves.
The bear stopped moving.
And the wolf—this impossible, terrifying wolf—slowly turned its massive head toward me.
Its eyes glowed ice-blue in the darkness.
Those eyes saw me. Really saw me. Like they could look straight into my soul.
The wolf took one step toward me.
Then another.
Its lips pulled back, showing teeth as long as my fingers.
I couldn't run. Couldn't scream. Couldn't do anything but stare as death walked toward me on four silver paws.
The wolf's growl was a promise: You're next.