Vanished Sisters: The Lycan King's Slave Island Chapter 35

Fergus's POV

The smell hit me before we even turned the corner.

Blood. Fresh and metallic, thick enough to taste on the back of my tongue. Mixed with something else—something fouler. Piss. Shit. The stench of terror that humans exude when they know they're about to die.

I raised my hand, signaling the guards behind me to slow down. Six Lycan guards, all armed with silver-tipped spears and crossbows. Behind them, Gregor walked with his usual measured pace, his face carefully neutral.

But I could smell his unease. We all could.

"Stay sharp," I muttered, my voice low. "He could still be near."

"My Lord," one of the younger guards—Marcus, I think his name was—swallowed hard, his spear trembling slightly. "What if we encounter him? What are our orders?"

"Don't engage," I said flatly. "If you see the King, you back away slowly and report his position. No one—and I mean *no one*—is stupid enough to try and fight him alone."

Marcus nodded quickly, relief flooding his scent.

We moved forward, boots echoing on the stone floor. The corridor was one of the older ones, deep in the fortress's bowels where most slaves never ventured. The walls were rough-hewn rock, still bearing the chisel marks from when this place was first carved out five centuries ago. Blue torches burned in iron brackets, their cold flames casting dancing shadows that made everything look like it was moving.

The first body appeared around the next bend.

Or rather, what was left of it.

"*Mother of—*" One of the guards choked, turning away.

I forced myself to look.

The guard—I recognized him, one of the perimeter patrol—had been torn nearly in half. His torso ended just below the ribs, entrails spilling across the floor in glistening coils that steamed faintly in the cold air. His face was frozen in a rictus of terror, eyes wide and glassy, mouth open in a scream that had never finished.

The claw marks on the walls told the story. Deep gouges, four parallel lines carved into the stone itself. He'd tried to run. Tried to get away.

It hadn't mattered.

"Keep moving," I said, my voice harder than I felt.

*How many times have I seen this? How many bodies has Mordred left in his wake over the centuries?*

*Too many. Far too many.*

We passed another corpse. Then another. Some were guards—Lesser Lycans who'd had the misfortune of being in the wrong place when the beast escaped. Others were slaves, their human bodies even more fragile, broken like dolls and tossed aside.

Blood painted the walls in wide arterial sprays. Chunks of flesh clung to the ceiling where bodies had been thrown with impossible force. The floor was slick with it, our boots squelching with every step.

"*Christ,*" Gregor muttered beside me, his usual composure cracking. "How many?"

"At least three guards that I can see," I said, my eyes scanning the carnage. "Maybe more. And—" I counted the smaller bodies. "Four slaves. No, five."

"Sebastian's going to lose his fucking mind," Gregor said quietly.

I didn't respond. He was right, of course. This was exactly the kind of ammunition Sebastian needed to push his agenda. *See? See what happens when we keep the beast alive? More death. More waste. Just kill him and be done with it.*

As if it were that simple.

As if we hadn't *tried*.

Three decades ago. I'd been younger then, more idealistic. Thought maybe we could give him peace, end his suffering.

He'd nearly killed me for it.

Ripped my chest open from collarbone to navel. I'd survived. But the scar remained, a permanent reminder of my failure.

*And my oath.*

I touched my chest briefly, feeling the raised tissue beneath my shirt.

*I swore I'd protect him. I swore I'd never give up on him.*

*Even if he doesn't remember. Even if he never will again.*

"My Lord?" Marcus's voice pulled me from my thoughts. "There's something ahead. I can hear—"

He stopped.

We all heard it then.

*Sobbing.*

Not the quiet, muffled crying of someone trying to stay hidden. This was raw, visceral, *agonized*—the sound of someone whose entire world had just shattered into pieces.

"Move," I ordered, pushing past the guards.

We approached what looked like an old storage room. The door hung off its hinges, splintered wood scattered across the floor. But the real damage was the wall beside it—a massive hole punched straight through the stone, as if something the size of a cart had crashed through it at full speed.

The sobbing grew louder.

I stepped through the opening—

And immediately understood why Marcus had gone pale.

*Fuck.*

The smell was overwhelming. Blood, yes—I'd been expecting that. But also cum. Thick and pungent, the unmistakable scent of a male Lycan's seed. And beneath that, human fear-sweat, piss, other bodily fluids I didn't want to identify.

It coated the inside of my nose, made my eyes water.

The floor was a nightmare. Blood pooled in wide circles, so fresh it hadn't even begun to coagulate. Mixed with it was thick white fluid—cum, unmistakably—forming grotesque patterns across the stone. Torn clothing lay scattered everywhere: a shirt ripped to shreds, trousers with the seams burst open, strips of cloth that looked like they'd been used for binding something.

And in the center of it all—

A body.

Small. Motionless. Dressed in clothes that were far too large, soaked through with blood and worse.

*The fisher boy.*

My thoughts scattered as the sobbing reached a crescendo.

Kneeling beside the body, completely hysterical, was Davelina.

"*No, no, no, no—*" She was hyperventilating, tears streaming down her face. "*Nathan! Nathan, please, wake up, please, you can't—*"

Behind her, another woman knelt in silence. The simple slave girl—Lucy, I remembered. The one who'd been assigned to clean the lower levels.

Her face was white as bone. Her hands shook violently. And her eyes—

Her eyes held a terror I'd rarely seen, even among slaves in this fortress.

"*What in the name of—*" Gregor stopped beside me, his hand flying up to cover his nose and mouth.

"*Christ.*" Gregor's eyes swept over the scene, taking in the blood, the fluids, the torn clothes. "What the *fuck* happened here?"

Behind us, I heard Marcus retch. One of the other guards turned away, his shoulders heaving.

I didn't blame them.

I was three hundred years old. I'd seen wars. Massacres. The systematic slaughter of our people by human hunters. I'd watched friends die. Watched innocents burn.

But this—

This churned my stomach in a way I hadn't felt in centuries.

Because I knew what had happened here.

*Oh, Mordred. What have you done?*