The Lunar Crest Academy: Marked by The Lycans
Chapter 126: Revelations

Chapter 126: Chapter 126: Revelations

Lorraine’s POV

My knees were still shaking as I stood.

My breath hadn’t returned fully, but there was no time to waste. That vision, it wasn’t just some fever dream or desperate illusion. I could still feel the cold of that place under my skin, still hear the whisper of chains rattling in the dark.

The Ghosthound was real.

And I had seen her prison.

I turned to glance at the photo one last time. The girl with her face covered in long, tangled blonde hair. Was that her? It had to be.

I grabbed the picture and folded it into my pocket, then slipped out of Astrid’s office, making sure to relock the door behind me. The hallway was silent. Too silent. The kind of stillness that wraps around you like warning, an omen that you were doing something you weren’t meant to survive.

But I kept moving. Fast. Determined.

I followed my gut, and more than that, I followed the pull in my chest. A strange, instinctive tug that guided me like an invisible thread leading deeper into the academy’s bones.

It wasn’t a straight path.

The academy had secrets. I’d always known it, but tonight those secrets bled through the walls. I passed darkened halls and empty training courts. I slipped past the library and turned into the maintenance tunnels. From there, I found the hidden stairwell I didn’t know I knew, yet somehow, my feet knew exactly where to go.

Down.

Always down.

The air changed. It grew colder. More ancient. Dust coated the cracked stone steps, thick enough to choke me. The deeper I went, the heavier everything felt. The silence. The shadows. The weight of secrets long buried.

Eventually, I reached a dead end.

Or it looked like one, until I ran my hands along the wall and felt it. That slight shift. A groove. A seam.

A door.

Not just any door.

Thick. Iron-banded. Marked with the same twisted sigils I saw in my vision.

Every part of me screamed not to open it.

Which is exactly how I knew I had to.

I pressed my hand flat against it.

Warm.

Why was it warm?

And then I heard it.

A sound. No... a breath. Shallow. Fragile. But alive.

My heart kicked.

She was behind this door. The Ghosthound.

Not a myth. Not a whisper.

A prisoner. _{f|re(e)web.n\ovel. (c)o.m}

And maybe, just maybe, our only shot at surviving whatever the hell is coming next.

I stepped back and stared at the door, trying to figure out how to open it

There was no lock. No keypad. No visible mechanism.

But something about the sigils on the door, it was like they pulsed under my fingers, thrumming like a heartbeat. I dragged my palm slowly along the metal, pressing into each mark one after the other, instinct guiding my touch. Then, just as I traced the last one...

Click.

A slow, grinding sound echoed from deep within the wall, and the iron-banded door shifted inward, creaking open like the groan of a creature disturbed from slumber.

I held my breath.

The air that spilled out was colder than ice. Sterile. Hollow. Tainted with the faint, bitter tang of disinfectant and something else, something metallic.

I stepped in.

The door slid shut behind me.

Darkness greeted me first. Then, dim light flickering, like a dying fluorescent bulb, lit up a corner of the room.

It wasn’t a dungeon, not exactly.

It was worse.

This place looked like a hospital room, but one no patient was ever meant to walk out of. The walls were lined with medical trays, stained syringes, scattered vials of unknown liquids. A metallic chair with cuffs bolted into the arms sat near the far side, and on a raised bed at the corner of the room...

She sat there.

Hunched. Still.

Her hair, long and dirty blonde, fell over her face like a curtain, hiding her features completely. She wore a faded, oversized hospital gown, her arms folded around her knees like she was trying to disappear inside herself. Her bare feet dangled slightly off the edge of the bed. Chains hung from her ankles, but they weren’t locked.

She wasn’t tied up.

She just.... hadn’t moved.

My throat was dry. My fingers trembled.

"Hey," I whispered, careful not to let my voice carry too hard. "Can you hear me?"

There was no reaction from her

I took a few slow steps forward. Her breathing was shallow, almost unnoticeable. Like she’d forgotten how to live.

"I’m not here to hurt you," I tried again, gentler this time. "I just want to talk."

Still nothing from her. Not a twitch. Not even a flinch.

I inched closer, my boots making the faintest sound against the tile. She didn’t react. Not even when I was close enough to see that her fingernails had nearly been torn off. Her arms were littered with faint scars, the kind that told stories no one ever got to hear.

It felt like approaching a wounded animal.

"Please," I murmured. "I don’t know who you are yet, but I am not here to hurt you, it seems like you’ve been hurt by a lot of people but I promise you, I am not here to hurt you

I reached out slowly. My hand hovered inches from her thin, shaking shoulder.

"You’re not alone anymore."

I touched her.

The moment my fingers grazed her.....

She screamed.

A raw, unnatural scream that split the room like a shockwave.

The air cracked around us.

And then. .

Boom.

I was flung across the room like a rag doll.

My back slammed into the far wall, the impact knocking the air from my lungs. My skull cracked hard against the concrete, and a blinding light exploded behind my eyes. I slid to the floor, dazed and gasping, my limbs limp like they no longer belonged to me.

My ears rang. The scream still echoed inside my head.

She hadn’t moved from the bed.

But that scream, that power, had come from her.

She was the Ghosthound.

And she was more dangerous than I ever imagined.

Kieran’s POV

Elise nodded.

I stared at her like she probably hadn’t heard me right

"Was it Felix?" I asked again, quieter this time.

And she nodded once more.

My fists clenched at my sides, not in anger but in bewilderment.

Felix?

The same boy who sat beside her for hours, hand gripping hers like it was a lifeline? The same one who threw himself in front of blades, claws, and even Lycans for her and Lorraine? The same Felix who would rather tear his own heart out than hurt his friends?

My lips parted, but nothing came out. I was staring at a truth that didn’t make sense.

Unless....

Unless she was mistaken.

Unless whatever was done to her, the silver, the wolfsbane, the agony, broke more than just her body. Maybe it broke something deeper, something we couldn’t fix with syringes or herbs.

Or maybe, just maybe, she was telling the terrifying truth.

I stepped closer. Elise was trembling. Her hands twitched as if remembering the pain still buried in her bones. Her lips moved again, trying to form words that could no longer exist without a tongue.

"Damn it," I whispered and spun toward the cabinet. I yanked open the drawer beside the bed and grabbed a notepad and pen. I ripped out a blank page, uncapped the pen, and placed them gently in her hands.

"Write it," I said, my voice low, almost soft. "Whatever you’re trying to say. Write it for me."

Elise’s fingers shook violently, but she wrote. The ink was jagged, the letters barely legible, but I read them all the same.

Where is Lorraine? I need to see her.

The moment I saw her name written in Elise’s broken handwriting, something shifted inside me.

A growl ripped through my head. My vision flickered like candlelight in a hurricane.

Then I heard it, for the first time since I turned down his offer of merging with me to gain the Total Lycan Ascension on the condition that I abandon Lorraine

My wolf.

Not speaking. Roaring.

Not in anger. In fear.

She’s in danger.

A throb exploded behind my eyes, and I stumbled back.

Maeryn is in danger.

I froze.

Maeryn?

Who the hell is Mae....

Then my heart dropped into my stomach like a stone falling through black water as my eyes lolled backwards

The next thing I saw was

Lorraine.

On the ground.

Unmoving.

Her head bleeding, violently, too much. The blood wasn’t dripping, it was pouring, spilling across the floor like something sacred was being emptied from her.

And standing over her...

The Ghosthound.

She stood like a statue, her blonde hair cascading over her face, her eyes glowing, her expression blank and terrifying in its stillness.

Staring. Watching. Like Death itself had a face.

I gripped the edge of the wall to steady myself. My wolf was snarling inside me, howling, snapping, screaming for me to move, to run, to rip through every wall in the academy until I got to her.

Because if I didn’t....

She would die.

"Elise," I rasped, turning back to her, my mind spinning like I’d been thrown into a cyclone. "I’ll bring Lorraine to you. I swear it. But I have to go now. I have to..."

I didn’t finish the sentence.

I supersped out of the room before Elise could react, before I could even take a breath. The hallway blurred around me. I didn’t care. I needed to move. I needed to find her.

And fast.