Greykin Mountain

| 65 | The Cadejo Pit

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They stood before the entrance to the cave.

          Jackson stared into the darkness, his legs shaking and his heart racing. The stench of rotting flesh flowed out from inside like a room brimmed with dead bodies had just been opened. The smell burned his nostrils, and the snarling, growling sounds echoing from within sent shivers through his entire body.

          He didn't want to go in there. His instincts were telling him that now was the time to turn around and run. But if Damon was going in...then so was he.

          "Fucking stinks, man," Wesley uttered.

          Elias stepped forward and glared at Damon. "Do you honestly plan to take us in there?" he questioned.

          If Jackson didn't know better, he'd say that Elias looked afraid.

          "On the word of some stray!" the black wolf exclaimed quietly as Damon scowled at him. "Are you forgetting that we killed his friends? How can you be so sure that this isn't a trap?"

          Damon growled quietly and edged nearer to him. "If you question me one more time, Elias, you will end up becoming a stray."

          Elias frowned angrily, but he held his tongue, snarled, and walked off to the back of the group.

          Jackson adorned a skeptical stare as he watched Elias go. Before Damon called Aysel out, Elias seemed so tough and scary and dangerous, but lately, it was like he was cowering away. He might be questioning Damon and snarling at him, but he always backed down. Why? If he was aiming to overthrow Damon, why was he acting so cautiously now? Was he afraid that Damon might kill him? If Jackson were in Elias' position—if he got caught sleeping with his best friend's partner—then he'd sure as hell be terrified that the Alpha would kill him at any moment.

          "Let's go," Damon called quietly. He looked at Jackson. "Stay close."

          The Alpha led the way into the cave. Unlike the cavern they'd travelled through last week, this one's walls weren't covered in beautiful paintings or shimmering blue ice crystals. This cave was full of spiderwebs, dead rats, and even the skeleton of a moose. And the deeper they delved, the more rancid the smell of rotting flesh and wet fur became.

          Tainn groaned quietly. "My God," he uttered, shaking his head. "It's like a greenhouse full of dead things down here."

          "I should've brought something to plug my damn nose with," Wesley complained.

          "Shh," Tokala interjected.

          They fell silent.

          Jackson's heart raced faster the closer to the sound and scent of cadejo they got. The desperation to flee grew heavier, and when moonlight became visible up ahead, he felt his heart sink into his stomach. Seeing the cadejo pit from above was horrifying enough...and the mere thought of seeing it much closer mortified him. He didn't want to step out of the cave—he didn't want to walk onto the plateau that he could now see ahead, but he kept walking. He continued following Damon; he knew he'd been safe if he stayed with him.

          He shivered when he stepped out of the cave; he tensed up so stiffly as he approached the plateau's edge that he felt like his body was turning to stone...and when he stopped to peer over the rocks, his stomach churned, and he was sure that he might throw up.

          Seething, snarling corpses prowled in every direction. It was like an ocean of dead, rotting wolves, each of them fighting to come up for a breath of air. Their eyes shimmered like crimson stars in a putrid night sky, and the sound...that sound.