Chapter 74: Inside the Void

Warning: This chapter contains spoilers for the prequel series “Insatiable Fox”

Nox’Thar moved through the tunnels. He was not an average panther. He was heavier through the chest and arms than Lucian or Malachi, and the weight he carried between his legs shifted with every step in a way that made the difference obvious even under the layered clothes. He had run the Temple Trials multiple times. Each passage had taken what was already in him and stretched it further until the powers lived under his skin like a second pulse. The red and blue tattoos showed clear through the dark fur, curling over muscle and disappearing under the fabric. The clothes matched them exactly, thick and ornate, embroidered from high collar to hem in the same colors, the stitching catching what little light the tunnels offered. He wore the authority the way other males wore fur. On Earth there might not have been anything more dangerous. In the Void he did not know where he stood on the food chain, and the not knowing sat in his shoulders without apology.

Lucian followed a step behind, green panther eyes duller than they had been before the mountain and the FBI and the weeks that came after. His fur still looked thin in places, the patches slow to fill. Malachi the tiger came last, white fur bright even in the low light, ice-blue eyes steady and unblinking. Nox did not touch the heavy gates they passed. He simply looked at them and the locks gave, metal sliding free with a low groan that echoed down the stone. Neither of the others asked how he did it. The sound of their paws on the floor was the only other noise.

The bottom chamber opened wider than the tunnels that led to it. The tear hung in the center, larger than the one that had cut the tree in Roan’s woods. Wider than a truck and longer still, the edges glowing with that same purple-blue light that the void seemed to love. It did not flicker or breathe. It simply held, a clean wound in the air that showed nothing of what waited on the other side until you were close enough to step through.

“This is the biggest one to have been discovered,” Nox said. His voice carried without effort. “And we control it here. Exclusively.”

Malachi studied the opening, ears tipped forward. “This is where you brought the Void Dragons through.”

“Among other things,” Nox said.

Nox had them strip naked, for there was no other way the opening to the void would accept them.

They stepped through. The air changed at once, cooler and thinner, carrying a faint metallic taste that settled on the tongue. The cave beyond was lit from within by blood-red crystals that lined the walls and ceiling in thick clusters. The crystals pulsed when the three of them moved, brightening as they passed and dimming again behind them, the light crawling over their fur and turning the white of Malachi’s coat pink at the edges. The red of the crystals reflected in Lucian’s green eyes.