Feral Bonds: Claimed By Rogue Alpha Brothers-Chapter 526: Carson’s Discovery

Evaline:

Marcus opened his mouth.

Then closed it again.

He stared at the candle as if it might whisper the right words to him, his fingers twitching faintly against the chains. For someone who had been so eager moments ago, he now looked utterly lost... like a man standing at the edge of a cliff, suddenly unsure whether he wanted to jump.

I watched him for a few seconds.

Then I decided to help.

"Start from the beginning," I said calmly. "The night you sneaked out of the Academy with Carson."

His gaze snapped to mine.

"I need every detail," I added. "Don’t decide what’s important and what’s not. Tell me exactly what happened."

He nodded, swallowing hard.

"After dinner," he began, his voice rough but steadying as he spoke, "Carson and I sneaked out through Academy’s back gate. It was nothing unusual. We had done it several times before."

"For what purpose?" I asked even though I already knew the answer.

"To get booze," he admitted. "From Lakeshire Town. Our group was planning a secret party the next night. Nothing... big. Just stupid student stuff."

I didn’t comment.

"On the way back," he continued, "Carson started acting strange."

My fingers tightened slightly in my lap.

"He said his chest hurt," Marcus said. "At first, it looked like discomfort. He rubbed at it, complained that it felt tight. That’s when I noticed... these weird black lines."

Wait...

"Black lines?" I echoed quietly.

He nodded. "Veins? If that makes sense. Or maybe something that looked like veins. Carson said he noticed those earlier in the morning, faint but visible. He thought it was a bruise or something and didn’t pay it much attention. But it looked nothing like a bruise to me. Those lines... they were really scary... almost like a curse moving right under his skin."

My heart began to beat faster... but my face remained unreadable.

"What happened next?" I asked.

"The pain got worse," Marcus said. "We had just crossed into the forest line around the Academy. That’s when he stopped walking."

He exhaled shakily.

"He started breathing hard. Then the pain turned... violent. He was clutching his chest... right above those black lines... like something was tearing him apart from the inside."

I had seen the victims... including Draven.

Unconscious. Empty. Their wolves gone.

"I tried to get him back," he said quickly. "I swear I did. I thought if I could just get him to the healer-"

"But you couldn’t," I said.

He shook his head.

"He collapsed. Right there. Just... fell. I tried shaking him, calling his name. But nothing worked."

His voice cracked despite himself.

"I panicked. I didn’t know what else to do, so I ran back to the Academy and got the others. We thought if we went back together, we could carry him... but when we arrived there, the night patrol had already found him."

Silence filled the cell.

Every word he had spoken so far aligned perfectly with what River and Oscar had already found out during questioning the rest of the members of the secret student group. The timeline. The forest. The unconscious body.

There was nothing new... except for the black veins.

But it hardly helped with the case.

I leaned back in my chair, and kept my tone even as I spoke, "You have just repeated what we already know."

His head jerked up. "I know... but-"

"There’s nothing new here," I continued calmly. "No additional detail that changes anything. I don’t think I can help you at all."

Marcus clenched his jaw.

"But Carson was up to something," he said suddenly.

The words cut through the air.

I didn’t react, even when my pulse spiked almost instantly at the words.

"Explain," I said calmly.

He hesitated, then spoke carefully. " Carson and I shared a dorm room during the final semester. And one april night, I found Carson sneaking back inside the dorm building right before dusk."

I watched him, waiting to hear what was so different about Carson sneaking in and out of the dorm.

"I got curious immediately because there was no scheduled group meeting that night. Neither any other plan of sneaking out of the Academy."

"Did he say where he was going?"

"No," Marcus replied. "Every time I asked, he would brush me off. Joke about it. Change the subject. At first I thought he probably sneaked out to meet a girl or something. But then he started going out way too often and I got worried that he might get caught and bring trouble to all of us."

I stayed silent.

"So one night," Marcus continued, "I followed him."

The candle flickered. And I waited.

"That night, I learnt that there was actually a secret underground passage built under the Academy. Carson found that passage right before seventh semester ended. I followed him through the passage and realized... he had been going to the abandoned West Tower all this time."

I couldn’t keep a straight face even if I wanted.

West Tower? Why would he be going there?

The questions began to flood my head, anxiety tapped in as well, but I forced myself to stay silent and wait for him to continue on his own.

And he did.

"Carson was kind of a leader of our secret student group, and he had been searching for a new place for our secret meetings. That’s how he first ended up entering the West Tower. But the reason he kept going there... it’s... it’s just..."

"What?" I asked, keeping my tone calm even though I wanted to shake all the information out of him at this point.

Marcus looked at the candle’s flickering flame, his gaze unfocused though as if he was recalling the past.

"I never saw it for myself, but after he found me following him, he told me about this great discovery of his."

His gaze focused and he turned to look at me, and I almost felt like he was staring right into my soul as he spoke the words...

"He said there’s a great power sealed under the Academy and he’s going to release it and become it’s new master. He called it... the Great Evil."